nicolech82

Q: my macbook air is running slow. What can i do?

My Macbook air is a couple years old and I find it is running really slow. Is there anything I can do to clean it or programs to purchase that will do this for me?

MacBook Air

Posted on Jun 10, 2014 4:58 PM

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Q: my macbook air is running slow. What can i do?

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  • by Carolyn Samit,

    Carolyn Samit Carolyn Samit Jun 10, 2014 5:14 PM in response to nicolech82
    Level 10 (122,412 points)
    Apple Music
    Jun 10, 2014 5:14 PM in response to nicolech82

    Do not install any third party Mac cleaning utilities. They can do far more harm than good. As far as maintenance goes, your Mac runs maintenance in the background for you >  Mac OS X: About background maintenance tasks

     

    Avoid MacKeeper and CleanMyMac.    

     

     

    Tips for when your Mac slows down ..

     

     

    Make sure there's enough free storage space.

     

    Click your Apple menu  top left in your screen. From the drop down menu click About This Mac > More Info > Storage  Make sure there's at least 15% free disk space. Less can slow your Mac down.

     

     

    Make sure your Mac's software is up to date. Click Software Update from your Apple  drop down menu.

     

     

    Repair permissions.

     

    Launch Disk Utility located in your Applications > Utilities folder.

     

    Select the startup disk on the left then select the First Aid tab.

     

    Click:   Repair Disk Permissions

     

    This can take awhile so don't be alarmed.

     

    Restart your Mac after Disk Utility is finished

     

     

    Reindex Spotlight: Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes

     

     

    Check to see if the startup disk needs repairing.

     

    Launch Disk Utility located in HD > Applications > Utillities

     

    Select the startup disk on the left then select the First Aid tab.

     

    Click:  Verify Disk  (not Verify Disk Permissions)

     

    If DU reports errors, restart your Mac while holding down the Command + R keys. From there you should be able to access the built in utilities in OS X Recovery to repair the startup disk.

     

    Make sure to back up all important data first before using OS X Recovery.

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Jun 10, 2014 8:55 PM in response to nicolech82
    Level 10 (207,995 points)
    Applications
    Jun 10, 2014 8:55 PM in response to nicolech82

    When you have the problem, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.   

    These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

    Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:

    ☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

    ☞ In the Finder, select Go Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

    ☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.

    The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select

    SYSTEM LOG QUERIES All Messages

    from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select

    View Show Log List

    from the menu bar at the top of the screen.

    Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above. Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first. Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.

    ☞ The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.

    Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

    Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.

    ☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.