How to speed up a slow Mac: 10 fixes that work

First, find out what is slowing it down

Open Activity Monitor from Applications › Utilities, or with Spotlight (⌘ Space). Three tabs tell you most of what you need:

• CPU: sort by % CPU. An app that stays near the top at 80 to 100 percent or more while you aren't using it is the usual cause of a slow, hot Mac with loud fans.
• Memory: look at the Memory Pressure graph at the bottom, not at how much memory is used. Green is fine. Yellow or red means macOS is moving memory to disk, which slows everything down.
• Energy: on a laptop, apps with a high Energy Impact drain the battery and heat the Mac up.

If nothing stands out and the Mac is still slow, check the disk: a nearly full startup disk slows everything down, and so does a hard disk in an older Mac.

1. Restart

A restart ends apps and helpers that have been running for weeks, empties memory and the swap files on disk, and finishes installing updates. If you only ever close the lid, restart once a week. It's the quickest fix there is.

2. Quit the app that is using the processor

In Activity Monitor's CPU tab, select the app that stays at the top and click the Stop button (✕) in the toolbar, then Quit. Use Force Quit only if it doesn't respond. If the same app does it again, update it, or check its settings for a sync or indexing job that never finishes.

3. Close browser tabs and remove extensions

A browser with dozens of open tabs can use more memory than all your other apps together, and every extension runs on every page. Close the tabs you don't need, and remove extensions you don't use. In Chrome, the browser's own Task Manager shows which tab or extension is using the most.

4. Turn off login items

Open System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions. Under Open at Login, remove apps you don't need the moment you log in, with the − button. Under Allow in the Background, turn off helpers of apps you no longer use. Your Mac starts faster, and has more memory free for the apps you do use.

5. Free up disk space

macOS needs free space for virtual memory, caches and updates. With less than about 10 percent of the disk free, apps slow down and updates can fail. Open System Settings › General › Storage to see what's using it, then follow how to free up disk space on a Mac.

6. Update macOS and your apps

Updates fix bugs that make apps hang or use too much power. Install macOS updates from System Settings › General › Software Update, and app updates from the App Store or the app's own menu. Apps built only for Intel Macs run through Rosetta on Apple silicon and are slower; check for a newer version that runs natively.

7. Give it a day after a big update

After a major macOS update, or when you set up a new Mac, Spotlight re-indexes your disk and Photos analyses your library. Both use the processor for hours, sometimes a day or two. Leave the Mac on and plugged in, and it settles down by itself.

8. Check heat and Low Power Mode

A Mac that runs hot slows its processor down to cool off. Keep the vents clear, don't work with a laptop on a bed or cushion, and quit apps that keep the processor busy. Also check System Settings › Battery: Low Power Mode makes a Mac slower on purpose to save energy.

9. Reduce motion and transparency on older Macs

On an older Mac, animations and see-through windows take work from the graphics chip. In System Settings › Accessibility › Display, turn on Reduce motion and Reduce transparency. Removing widgets from the desktop helps a little too.

10. Start in safe mode to find the cause

Safe mode starts your Mac without login items and third-party extensions. If your Mac is fast in safe mode, something that starts with it is the cause; turn your login items back on one at a time to find it.

• Apple silicon: shut down, then press and hold the power button until you see Loading startup options. Select your startup disk, then hold Shift and click Continue in Safe Mode.
• Intel: restart and hold Shift until you see the login window.

Restart normally to leave safe mode.

When it's the hardware

If memory pressure stays yellow or red with only the apps you always use, your Mac doesn't have enough memory for your work, and no setting will change that. Quit what you don't need, or plan for a Mac with more memory. An older Intel Mac with a spinning hard disk becomes much faster with an SSD, where it can be fitted.

What doesn't help

• Memory cleaners that free up RAM. macOS fills free memory with cached files on purpose and frees it the moment an app needs it; forcing it empty makes apps reload what they had.
• Clearing every cache. Apps are slower afterwards, while they rebuild them.
• Repairing disk permissions or running maintenance scripts. Current macOS no longer has either.
• Resetting NVRAM or the SMC on Apple silicon. They don't exist there as separate steps; a restart does the same job.

Speed up your Mac with Tidy My Mac

Tidy My Mac shows what Activity Monitor and System Settings show, in one place and in plain words:

• Performance shows live CPU and memory with each app's helpers counted in, memory pressure, heat and battery wear, and offers to quit the app that is slowing things down.
• Startup Items and Background Services list everything that starts with your Mac, with the app it belongs to, so you can turn off what you don't need.
• Ask answers "why is my Mac slow?" from what the app measured on your Mac.
• Smart Scan finds the junk, large files and duplicates that fill your disk.