2013 MacBook Air is extremely slow with loading things up and sometimes it won’t load anything at all. The system is taking most of the storage also maybe that is the problem but I don’t know how to clear it
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Earlier Mac models
Speed is more likely to be affected by your memory or CPU usage than disk storage but we can take a look at that too.
First, open the Activity Monitor (it’s in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder) and click on the Memory tab along the top. Then look at the bottom left for Memory Pressure which gives a graphical depiction of memory usage. If it isn’t green it’s an indication that you have too many apps running or too many tabs open in your browser. Close apps/tabs until memory pressure is reduced.
Second, click on the CPU tab of the Activity Monitor and again look at the bottom lefthand table. Here you’ll see the % of CPU usage of the system, the applications you are running, and how much is left unused. As an example, with 5 applications running and 10 tabs open in Safari, I have 80% idle. If your idle number is better than 50% your problem isn’t the CPU. However if you have a very high usage of either System or User, click on the %CPU tab so that the carat is pointing down. This will list the processes from highest use to lowest. This way you can see what apps/processes are high use. It can give you a hint about what app you might want to run by itself or about a runaway process.
Third, let’s look at your disk usage. Open System Preferences (Settings) and click on the General tab, then look for Storage in the list. You should see a bar along the top, with text above it saying something like 154GB of 244GB used. Most experienced users like to keep 10-15% unused for the OS and applications to use for temporary files. If you need to free up space, check out this Apple support document: Free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support
Speed is more likely to be affected by your memory or CPU usage than disk storage but we can take a look at that too.
First, open the Activity Monitor (it’s in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder) and click on the Memory tab along the top. Then look at the bottom left for Memory Pressure which gives a graphical depiction of memory usage. If it isn’t green it’s an indication that you have too many apps running or too many tabs open in your browser. Close apps/tabs until memory pressure is reduced.
Second, click on the CPU tab of the Activity Monitor and again look at the bottom lefthand table. Here you’ll see the % of CPU usage of the system, the applications you are running, and how much is left unused. As an example, with 5 applications running and 10 tabs open in Safari, I have 80% idle. If your idle number is better than 50% your problem isn’t the CPU. However if you have a very high usage of either System or User, click on the %CPU tab so that the carat is pointing down. This will list the processes from highest use to lowest. This way you can see what apps/processes are high use. It can give you a hint about what app you might want to run by itself or about a runaway process.
Third, let’s look at your disk usage. Open System Preferences (Settings) and click on the General tab, then look for Storage in the list. You should see a bar along the top, with text above it saying something like 154GB of 244GB used. Most experienced users like to keep 10-15% unused for the OS and applications to use for temporary files. If you need to free up space, check out this Apple support document: Free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support
My MacBook Air is extremely slow with loading things up
