Slow Mac? How to Fix a Slow, Laggy, or Freezing Mac

Given its premium price, quality has always been assured with a Mac. However, after extended use, it's inevitable that you'll encounter issues like the Mac black screen of death, sluggish performance, overheating, or slow startup, similar to what you'd experience with a Windows PC. Hence, we'll be discussing why your Mac is running slow and how to speed up your Mac and macOS.

Please provide the English content you want to translate, and I'll promptly translate it into Chinese for you.

Reinstalling macOS, restoring your Mac to factory settings, wiping your Mac's hard drive, or replacing an HDD with an SSD are other possible fixes that might help with a slow Mac. However, these can involve data loss. If you end up having to go this route, you can use the free trial of Data Recovery Wizard for Mac to recover data from formatted or inaccessible Mac hard drives.

Before we dive in, did you know the average lifespan of a MacBook? What actually slows it down? And what can you do when it's not performing as well as it used to? Well, let's quickly answer those questions.

Q: How long is the lifespan of a MacBook Pro?

- For example, a MacBook Pro is generally expected to work without major issues for 5 to 6 years. - In terms of Mac battery life, the batteries in most Macs (MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro) are designed to last for up to 1,000 charge cycles. This should be enough to support at least three years of regular use.

So when your Mac has become slow and unresponsive recently, is it because its lifespan is over? If so, the most effective way is to do a clean install of macOS via USB, clean the dust, upgrade the hard drive, or replace the battery.

Q: What's making my Mac slow down?

Aside from your Mac being old and not having a fast processor, here are some common reasons why your Mac might be running slow:

1. Graphics processor handling extra load 2. Safari impacted by network data 3. Insufficient memory 4. Mac running out of storage space 5. Unnecessary programs consuming CPU resources 6. Damaged or outdated macOS system files 7. Hard drive failure 8. Corrupted user profile 9. Overloaded workload on the Mac

Top Free Mac Data Recovery Software Download:

Is it because of slow Internet speeds?

Use https://www.speedtest.net/ to test your internet speed. If your connection is poor, you may get bad or inconsistent results, which can also affect how well your Mac performs when browsing the web or streaming video. Try resetting your router, or contact your internet service provider for assistance.

So now let's talk about the fixes – how to speed up a slow Mac?

In fact, over time, all computers tend to slow down. But if we know how to avoid unnecessary resource consumption, we can prolong their lifespan and keep them performing at peak levels for at least two years. In most cases, hardware degradation makes it difficult for the computer to keep up with the latest systems, while some software issues may also cause your Mac to run slow. Here, we'll look at solutions from both a hardware and software perspective.

How to Speed Up Your Slow Mac - [Software Solutions]

• Kill processes bogging down your Mac in Activity Monitor (1)

If you're a Windows user, you're probably familiar with the Task Manager, which you can use to see what background processes are sucking up your computer's resources when it's frozen or running slow. Macs have a similar tool for identifying misbehaving apps: It's called Activity Monitor.

Open Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor. Here, you'll need to check the CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk, and Network tabs. These five options all track different aspects of your Mac's performance and are closely related to a slow-running Mac. Find one or more apps or background processes that are using up a lot of resources, then quit these processes one by one.

• 2. Reduce startup applications

Like Windows, too many login items can slow down your Mac. You can speed up your startup time by removing them. Go to “System Preferences” then “Users & Groups.” Click on your username, and then uncheck the box next to any applications you don't want to open at startup, and then click “-.”

3. Minimize system visual effects (animations)

While visual effects are an enhancement to the Mac experience, cool-looking effects can also use up precious system resources, causing lag when switching between windows or running programs. In this case, you can speed up your Mac by turning off unnecessary system effects.

To turn them off, open System Preferences > Dock and uncheck these settings:

1. Startup animation 2. Animation for opening an application 3. Auto-hiding and showing the dock bar 4. Switching from Genie effect to Scale effect

Repairing Permissions on a Mac Hard Drive

When you install applications on your Mac, they're authorized to make changes so that ordinary users don't mess with important system files. As you use your computer, these file permissions can change in ways that create potential problems. So, repairing disk permissions is really about fixing those file permissions.

This can cause your Mac to run slowly. How do you fix these issues? By repairing your disk permissions.

Choose Go > Utilities, and then double-click Disk Utility. Select the volume for which you want to repair permissions in the sidebar. Click the First Aid tab. Select the startup disk that's causing your Mac to run slowly, and then click Repair Disk Permissions.

5. Reindex Spotlight

If you have updated your system before, you may notice that your computer runs slower while Spotlight is indexing your files. Usually, it doesn't take very long to re-index a file. However, if the index becomes corrupt, you will need to rebuild the index to speed up your computer. To do this:

1. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Spotlight. 2. Click Privacy. 3. Drag a folder or disk to the list, or use the plus (+) or minus (-) buttons below the list. 4. Close the System Preferences window. Spotlight will reindex the folder or disk.

6. Use Mac Cleaning Software

Have you checked how much free space you have on your Mac? Is it starting to fill up? When your Mac's hard drive is cluttered with documents, downloads, files, and other stored content, it can slow down the start-up time for macOS, how quickly apps open, and even video editing. If you're not ready to replace your hard drive with a bigger one, you can use some Mac cleaning software to clear out caches, browser plugins, temporary files, and even uninstall large apps that you don't use often.

CleanGenius for Mac performs admirably when it comes to Mac cleaning tasks, including freeing up RAM, uninstalling programs, finding and deleting duplicate files, and clearing caches and plugins in Safari, Chrome, or Firefox.

You can first try using the software to uninstall unwanted apps, and then delve deeper into cleaning with other options.

Step 1: Run CleanGenius and click Uninstall from the toolbar;

Step 2: Find and select the app or program you want to uninstall, then click on "Uninstall";
The selected app, software, or program will be uninstalled within seconds.

How to Speed Up Your Slow Mac - [Hardware Issues]

• 7. Upgrade the RAM

A quick intro: RAM (Random Access Memory) is the memory that your computer uses to store tasks and processes that are currently running. Because RAM is faster than other storage on your computer, your Mac keeps some things in RAM to make things more efficient.

The amount of RAM your Mac has affects how well it can run multiple apps at once. If you don't have enough RAM, your Mac can run out of memory and slow down. If you have an older Mac, upgrading the RAM can help speed it up.

Note: Memory is not user-upgradable on any MacBook Air.

8. Fix hard drive damage

If your Mac has suddenly slowed down and is exhibiting symptoms like unresponsive files, apps that unexpectedly quit, or your Mac crashing altogether, you might have a damaged or failing hard drive. You should fix a damaged Mac hard drive as soon as possible. Not only will this resolve the sluggish performance of your computer, but it can also prevent more serious data loss.

1. Open Disk Utility from Finder > Applications > Utilities. 2. Select the damaged disk in the left sidebar, and then click "First Aid." 3. Click "Run" to start repairing the damaged hard drive.

Download free Mac hard drive data recovery software to recover data from corrupted hard drive on Mac.

Step 1: Select the location to scan

Launch the Mac Data Recovery Wizard, select the hard drive, SSD, SD card, USB flash drive, or TF card from which you lost your data, and click Search for Lost Files to start scanning.

Note: Before data recovery, it's better to click “Disk Backup” from the left sidebar and create a backup for your Mac to prevent further data loss. After the backup, the software can recover data from the Mac backup, and your computer can write new data again.

Select the location and click "Find Lost Files"

Step 2: Filter the lost Mac data

The software will automatically scan the lost data on your MacBook or iMac. After the scan, you can filter the required data by clicking the "Type" and "Path" buttons.

Step 3: Recover Lost Data or Files

Double-click the file to preview it, then click “Recover” to restore the lost data to another location.

End of package

Is your Mac still running slow? While the easiest solution to a slow Mac is to get a new one, a decently specced modern MacBook Pro or MacBook Air can easily set you back a thousand dollars or more – a steep budget for most users.

If you're wondering why your Mac is running slow, what's slowing it down, or how to fix a slow Mac, this article is for you. These fixes can buy an extra 1-2 years of life for older and slower Macs. Some of these fixes are easy, and you can also troubleshoot a Mac that's overheating, crashing, freezing apps, or taking too long to start up.

If any of these solutions worked for you, please feel free to give us feedback. When your Mac is running slow or unresponsive, make sure to back up your precious photos, music, videos, and documents. Unfortunately, if your Mac is frozen, you'll need to access and export your data with a data recovery software in Disk Utility.