Over time your computer will become slow. Installing programs, searching the internet, uninstalling programs, and just using it in general will slow down your computer. Even on a Mac you can experience this. So what can you do that help restore help restore your computers original speed or speed it up even more? There are two solutions you can do on a PC on a Mac. Since we are going to be talking about Mac’s in this post we will focus on them. So for the first solution you can do to speed up your Mac is buy more hardware, more RAM and a solid state drive, or SSD. These will dramatically increase performance and you will see a huge difference in booting speeds and logging into your Mac and doing everyday tasks. The only problem with this solution is the cost. RAM is a lot cheaper than a SSD, but both together will cost you a lot. You can always chose one over the other, and get the other one when you have the funds of course. But if you already have a ton of RAM and a SSD or can’t afford them right now, you can always do the second solution, software performance increase. By software performance increases I mean by deleting unnecessary files, removing viruses or malware, and yes Mac’s do get them too, and to defrag your hard drive from time to time. Another software tweak is to completely uninstall Mac software. Some of the software for Mac do not come with uninstallers. Just deleting the application does not guarantee a complete removal. Another software tweak you can do, that will speed up your Mac is removing log in items. Here is how to speed up Mac OS X Lion by removing login items.
Speed Up Mac by Removing Login Items
To do this software tweak go to the System Preferences under the Apple menu.
In the System Preferences click on Users & Groups.
Under Users & Groups click the button for Login Items. Here you will see all the applications that load when you log into your Mac. The check boxes next to show you which ones are hidden when they start. What that means, even though you cannot see the application loading, it is still loading and taking precious processor time and RAM from other services.
To make changes to the login items you will need to click the lock in the bottom left corner. You will be prompted for your admin credentials.
After entering your admin user name and password select the login items you want to remove and click the minus sign underneath. This will remove them from the list and stop them from loading at login.
You do not need to remove everything unless you want to. For me I don’t like programs running unless I want them to, so I removed them all.
If you accidently removed an application from the list that you do want to load at login, simply press the plus button next to the minus button to add the application back to the list. By moderating the number of applications you have in this list you will increase your login times. Of course the less applications you have the faster the login process will be, per say for the software side.
Do you have any tips and tricks for speeding up your Mac? Share them below in the comments.
