Is there a Mac Cleaner to make it go faster?

Hi Ekajjake,

How to fix a split Fusion Drive - Apple Support

May also help if you find it is split.

Or bringing your Mac to an authorized service provider who can exchange your fusion drive for a completely solid state drive. Fusion drives are only solid state on their first 128 GB.

Remove the Google Chrome Helper App. It is creating excess traffic on your notifications. You may find this in the Extensions of your Google Chrome browser.

The only reason to run a VPN is if your company or school uses it. Network traffic is limited on VPNs because of their shared environment. If you are using a VPN to evade copyright infringement detection, we can't discuss that at all on this forum since we can only discuss legal activities. Both Proton and Tunnelbear are likely competing for network bandwidth with each other.

You have two Canon drivers installed. If you only have one Canon printer remove print queues for the other printers.

This is where it would be helpful for you to start a new topic thread. We'd have to ask you about Solstice, and Soundtree and other apps, and their necessity. Any Launchatloginhelper is not essential and should be removed.

System Preferences is the utility under the Apple menu to access System Settings on Mac OS Monterey (12.x.x) and earlier. System Settings replaces preferences on Ventura (13.x.x) and later. We are now at Sonoma (14.x.x). This is where it is essential that you start your own topic thread (clck on Ask the Community above) so you can get focused solutions that are relevant for your configuration.

"Can you help? My Mac is restarting quite often and I am getting the busy ball ALOT!"

Please start a new topic thread regarding this issue. You may need to run Apple hardware diagnostic if possible.

If not, bring it to an authorized service provider if you have a chance to backup your data after holding the shift key on startup to run in safe mode. If you still restart automatically a lot, there is likely a hardware issue with the computer that can only be solved by an authorized service provider on http://www.apple.com/buy

If you have System Preferences, then you are not running macOS Sonoma.

Login Items are in Users & Groups

CLASSIC dont buy those buy these lol

Strange comment, considering no one is advocating buying anything.

Snake Oil !

A little Onyx once in awhile won't hurt...

https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html

I also use...

https://www.northernsoftworks.com/cachecleanerfeatures.html

ChromeChaser wrote:

This sounds silly but my mac has System Preferences and no Login Items under General. How do I get to System Settings?

Apple renamed "System Preferences" to "System Settings" as of Ventura – and moved around many settings at the same time.

https://www.macworld.com/article/803390/macos-ventura-system-preferences-settings.html

If you see instructions to modify something in "System Settings", just translate that to "System Preferences" and keep in mind that the particular setting might not be in the same, exact place.

I have to agree with "a brody" on this. With that said, you can check the Application Support folder for leftover files from apps that you no longer use. Of course a backup is always recommended when deleting files from the System folder. I would only recommend deleting the files/folder that are clearly identified by any previous unused app. Some apps may store a large amount of data there and may not get uninstalled when deleting the app or using the uninstaller. Paste this location (including the tilde) at Finder > Go > Go to Folder:

~/Library/Application Support

VPNs are good to a point.

Their upside, you get access to international sites that otherwise may not let you have access.

You do have to still be careful of copyright rules in your own country.

You also have to keep in mind when a VPN is active your WiFi networkable printers may no longer work over WiFi, or any WiFi sharing within your place because those depend on the IP your Mac is transmitting, which differs when it is on VPN. Printers are easily enough to resolve because you can print to PDF and print the PDF later when off VPN.

Many offices and schools limit your access to their network by giving you a VPN to connect to. Keep in mind while you are on their network, they may want you to install keyloggers so they can monitor your work with them.

The downside of VPNs, is they open you to a gateway where the VPN owner can treat your machine as a file share and inject in your machine malicious files unless you setup your sharing preferences right, and their access to the internet may be slowed by the VPN host.

We can carry on the discussion on VPNs on a separate thread since that's really a different topic.

Besides MrHoffmans great advice...

Delete this file & restart...

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.canva.availablility-check-agent.plist

~ tilde indicates your home folder

Apple hid the Users' Library folders...

Method 1:

1 From the Finder, select the Go menu at top of the screen, and choose Go to Folder.

2 In the window that opens, enter ~/Library, and click Go.

mama2six wrote:

Thank you so much, I will do that. :)

I have started using my Mac more and more, I would like to upgrade what do you prefer would be good for HEAVY apps?

Your existing Mac is an i3 with 8 GB, which is going to be slow.

Your existing Mac falls short of the minimum requirements for Adobe Photoshop, particularly that i3:

… https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/system-requirements.html

That’s for Photoshop only too, and you’re running a whole lot more here.

Check the specs for the other (heavier) apps you’re using.

I’d look at an M1 or M2 with 16 GB of memory minimally and preferably 32 GB, given all of what you’re running, particularly if you’re switching between all that. Going from i3 to low-to-mid M1 or M2 is goi g to be a big boost. You don’t need M3.

Though there are other differences around cores and performance and such, probably the biggest difference among M1, and M1 Pro, and M1 Max, etc., is support for two, or for more than two displays. The base M1 and base M2 support two displays, one of which is always the internal display when the Mac is so configured.

Configure more storage than you think you need over the life of the Mac too, remembering that you can’t add internal storage, and that apps and macOS are likely only going to get bigger, and that running with insufficient storage means you get to expend the time and effort and thought to manage that insufficient storage.

"What's wrong with subscribing to a (reputable) VPN for security when

using public Wi-Fi on a laptop when not at home, and to change your

apparent location for streaming services?"

If you are on a public WiFi, you need to learn to share the bandwidth with anyone else on the public wifi.

If you are going to hog the traffic with an ultraslow VPN, you are going to hog their bandwidth.

You know, I go on a public WiFi on a bus every morning to work. That's my only change to play Simcity, and it barely is able to manage the traffic of that. Probably because someone else is trying to VPN stuff over it at the time. Be mindful that others need the bandwidth just as much as you.

VPNs are shared resources anyway, and take a lot of traffic on any resource.

Totally, there are a bunch of tools out there designed to clean up your Mac and give it a little speed boost. But honestly, I've found that you don't always need to go straight for those third-party cleaners to see a difference. Sometimes, just doing a bit of digital housekeeping yourself can work wonders.

[Edited by Moderator]