Housekeeping- my computer is slowing down lately, want to keep clean

djpelagic wrote:
Hey all,
I'm not much of a computer whiz, but I noticed that lately my system is taking unreasonably long to complete tasks. ie opening a word document, opening the internet homepage, etc. The little colored circle spins around for a really long time after I select a program or a command, and I thought maybe I should do some more system maintenance and/or housekeeping. Does anybody know of a good, easy to use program that I can use to keep my disk "cleaner?" Thanks so much.
Brad

Welcome to Apple Discussions:
The first thing to do is run the Activity Monitor to see what is causing the problem. It's not always lack of maintenance, but other things. Sometimes a bad 3rd party app.

I do not recommend any A/V software for a Mac, but others may. Background programs such as these can slow down a computer. Norton/Symantec is noted for this.

As a rule, it's good to run the disk utility and repair HD and permissions before and after each major update.

Many use Onyx from here
http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/download.html
and find it useful.

Message was edited by: nerowolfe

See these for starters:

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
Mac OS X speed FAQ
Maintaining OS X