Technology

How to Speed Up Performance of Your Old MacBook Pro? – Step by Step

If your MacBook can no longer cope with its duties, it starts to work slowly and you want to buy a new one, this article can breathe new life into your old poppy and save you money.

Mac laptops usually provide an acceptable level of performance. However, there are exceptions to every rule. If your Mac is old and full of junk, there are consequences. If you feel that your Mac is slowing down, follow these instructions and then perhaps your resentment will come to an end.

1. Clean MacBook

Dust gets into the MacBook, dries up and requires replacement of thermal paste, coolers may not work correctly or even fail. All this affects the temperature regime of the system, and, accordingly, its performance and speed. Routine cleaning is recommended to be done every six months.

Apart from cleaning the dust, it is also recommended to use Mac disk cleanup apps to remove cache, junk files, etc.

2. Install SSD in MacBook

If you install an SSD as a system drive, your MacBook will start performing tasks 2-3 times, and some 10 times faster. Incredible? But it’s a fact.

You can simply replace the HDD and install a large SDD. Or you can save money by contacting UiPservice. The essence of the savings lies in the fact that we install an SSD with a small amount of memory (64 – 120GB), which will act as a system disk. We will install a native HDD instead of a CD drive using a special OptiBay device.

3. Pay Attention to Your Dock

Each of the applications you see a black dot under the icon works and makes and makes your Mac work. The more there are, the more difficult it is for the computer to cope with them. If you have a dual-core processor and not too impressive amount of RAM, try to find something unnecessary in the Dock and close it.

Mac OS X often likes to leave applications running in the Dock. Even if you click on the cherished red cross, this does not guarantee that the application will be closed – it will remain working. It would seem that what, in fact, is the problem, since the operation of the application in the background is a conceived function. This is true, but sometimes the Mac can still start to slow down due to these programs. Take a closer look at the apps in the Dock. Right-click on the desired application and select Close.

4. Reducing Transparency and Animations

Transparency and animations can sometimes be really heavy on the graphics hardware on MacBooks, especially older models. Reducing this effect and turning off animations can help in a situation with a lagging Mac, and effectively. For it open the System Preferences window. Go to the Universal Access icon. Then you will see the window with the option Reduce transparency where you need to put a check next to it to reduce the transparency.

5. Facilitate browser

It is possible that your browser is at the root of the problem in the form of slow computer performance. This is especially true for the version of Google Chrome for Mac OS. Try to reduce the number of apps and open tabs and reduce the load on the processor. Google Chrome on Mac OS is not very powerful when compared to the same version for Windows. This is especially true for such an aspect as battery use – Google Chrome on Mac is merciless in this case. Therefore, we recommend that you try using your native browser, Safari.

If you’re using Chrome as your default browser, you should consider switching to Safari. Safari is a great modern browser. But more importantly, it’s far fewer resources compared to Chrome. Chrome is ruining your Mac’s memory usage and battery life. Make Safari your default browser, but leave Chrome on when you need to visit sites that either don’t work in Safari or don’t work as well (this doesn’t happen very often).

6. Reinstalling MacOS X

If none of the above helped you speed up your operating system, you can simply reinstall it. This advice is already pretty commonplace, but nonetheless incredibly effective, so much so that it can be applied to iPhone and iPad. Assuming you have backups of the content you need, you can reinstall Mac OS on your MacBook.

In fact, it’s much easier than with Microsoft’s operating system, i.e. you don’t need to download any installation discs. You can simply boot into a special recovery mode, start the installation and your MacBook will automatically download everything you need from Apple servers. If your Mac has a hard drive, you can try replacing it with an SSD. By making such a replacement, you will definitely see a huge performance gain.

7. Startup

Next, the most obvious thing is to remove programs that are launched at system startup from startup. Apple has a fee for most tweaking and cleaning programs, so let’s use the internal tool. Again go to System Preferences > Users and Groups > Download Details. In the table for your user, disable all running programs. You can also use the CCleaner utility, which works equally well on Windows and macOS.

8. Disable FileVault Disk Encryption

FileVault Disk Encryption is enabled by default. It’s a great feature that encrypts your entire drive, so even if your Mac is stolen, your data won’t fall into the wrong hands. No one can change your Mac password or access your files. But the encryption process also requires significant resources. The Mac boot or login process may be slower if this feature is enabled. If you encounter this issue, open System Preferences, go to Security & Privacy and click Disable FireVault.

9. Spend Up the Upgrade: SSD + RAM

If you have a MacBook Pro, and even with a small amount of RAM and a hard drive inside, then you should definitely think about replacing the hardware. After all, it is the modern high-speed memory that will make your laptop work 2-3 times faster.

Until 2012, Apple produced some of the most flexible laptops in terms of upgrade – you can easily increase the amount of RAM to 16 GB and install a new fast SSD drive that will make the MacBook work without brakes for another two or three years so sure. You will feel the difference right away: applications will launch much faster, the interface will fly at all, and keeping dozens of programs open will immediately become commonplace.

But keep in mind that you need to find out about options for increasing memory in advance – very old models may not support a large amount of RAM or work poorly with certain drive models.

10. Reset, Reinstall

One of the last ways is to format the entire hard drive and reinstall macOS on it, brand new. It’s a pretty easy thing to do. MacOS Recovery does everything for you – wipe yourself out, reinstall the OS, update to the latest version available, all of that.

Boot your Mac while holding down the Command + R keys. From here, choose Reinstall OS X. Follow the instructions in the wizard and select the current section as the target. The process then guides you to erase the disk and reinstall the OS.

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