Q: My MacBook Pro is getting very slow... what should I do?

There are no maintenance steps as such and you are the service person.  Often the prime suspect is the HDD which should be investigated.  It may be failing or over crowded with data.

If you have any 'cleaning', performance or anti-virus applications, they are all unnecessary and should be deleted.  Often they are culprits for slowing down a MBP.

Here are two lengthy user tips that you should investigate that may very well assist you in solving your issues.  If you need clarification or further assistance, feel free to ask.

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3521

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3353

Ciao.

You can also clean up the "free space" on your mac. It has helped me in the past! It does take a while, so I recommend doing this when you don't plan to be using your laptop since running another program can slow this process down. This also makes it so you CANNOT recover these files if you haven't already backed them up somewhere else.
http://www.bellapop.com/how-to-clean-up-files-for-a-faster-mac/

bridge1490, greetings:  Regarding the link you posted, there are times when one falls into the trap that if it is on the Internet, it must be true.  The directions for erasing free space are correct, the allegation that by doing so will have a positive impact on performance increase is NOT correct.

Note that there is absolutely no mention of any degree of performance increase that one might expect from erasing free space.  The only way to determine the veracity of such an allegation is to test in a controlled environment with two identical MBPs  with identical data and then perform accurate measurements.   Unless one has such a point of reference, any perceived performance increases are illusory.

My comment is simply to make the relevant facts to be correctly understood by others who may read this discussion.

Ciao.

I can attest to the performance being improved by erasing free space. I am not included in the group of people that believe if t is on the internet, it must be true. Thanks.

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