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Any good programs/apps to speed my mac up?

Ive had my macbook pro for 4 years now and its always ran great. Recently its been running terrible, constantly loading and pausing and loading. This happens on the internet and even with my iTunes. Its now come to the point where i can't even use my mac without getting extremely frustrated. Something that usually takes 20 seconds, now takes 15 minutes. My Os x is up to date and my hard drive is fairly clean. Is there anything i can do to speed up/fix my mac?

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012), iOS 9.3.1

Posted on Mar 31, 2016 3:43 PM

Reply
9 replies

Apr 1, 2016 6:03 AM in response to D2KDuFFy

The startup drive is failing, or there is some other internal hardware fault.

Back up all data on the drive immediately if you don't already have a current backup. There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional—ask if you need guidance.

Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store, or go to another authorized service provider.

If privacy is a concern, erase the data partition(s) with the option to write zeros* (do this only if you have at least two complete, independent backups, and you know how to restore to an empty drive from any of them.) Don’t erase the recovery partition, if present.

Keeping your confidential data secure during hardware repair

Apple also recommends that you deauthorize a device in the iTunes Store before having it serviced.

*An SSD doesn't need to be zeroed.

Mar 31, 2016 5:10 PM in response to D2KDuFFy

In general, no, there are no programs that will do anything other than slow down, bog down your Mac. The "Clean my Mac", "Speed up my Mac" and anti virus programs do nothing but slow your Mac. You will need to reduce / remove software conflicts to resolve these issues. An Etrecheck report will give us some insight in how to help.

Mar 31, 2016 4:40 PM in response to D2KDuFFy

'Performance enhancement' applications frequently cause more harm than good. Unless you have a particular problem or performance bottleneck to target I'd stay away.


I'd suggest running a diagnostic utility such as EtreCheck to start with. Even if that doesn't identify the cause it would eliminate the usual suspects.


Edit: The 'usual suspects' in my book.


1) Insufficient RAM. Best solved by adding more RAM if possible, occasionally fixed by a RAM management utility under older OSs.

2) Incorrect RAM. Best solved by reinstalling original.

3) Unwanted background process such as Mac keeper. Best solved by uninstalling 'performance enhancement' applications.

4) User cache/file corruption. Usually an application specific slowdown. Fixed by clearing cache manually or by trusted utility.

5) System file corruption. Fixed by clean OS reinstall. Backup first.

6) Hard Drive failure. Fixed by reformatting or replacing hard drive. Backup first.

Mar 31, 2016 5:51 PM in response to D2KDuFFy

Please launch the Console application in any one 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 and start typing the name.

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.

Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then take an action that isn't working the way you expect. Select any lines that appear in the Console window. Copy them 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 which is irrelevant to 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 or email address, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

When you post the log extract, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "The message contains invalid characters." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the text on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

If you have an account on Pastebin, please don't select Private from the Paste Exposure menu on the page, because then no one but you will be able to see it.

Apr 1, 2016 1:15 AM in response to D2KDuFFy

What Mac do you have?
To find out info about your system,
Click on the Apple symbol in the upper left of the OS X main menu bar. A drop down menu appears.
Click About this Mac. A smaller popup window appears. This gives you basic info like what version of OS X your iMac is running, the speed of your iMac's CPU and how much RAM is installed.
Click on the button that says More Info.
A larger window appears giving you a complete overview of your iMac's hardware specs.
Highlight all of this info and copy/paste all of this into another reply to this post, editing out your iMac's serial number before actually posting the reply.
This will tell us everything about your iMac so we may begin to help with your iMac issues.


Also, run the Etrecheck report and follow its instructions to copy and paste its data into a reply post here.

We cannot help you without more relevant information about your Mac.


Thank You.

Any good programs/apps to speed my mac up?

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