alex hall

Q: Slow Mac, should I reinstall El Capitan?

Hi, I am conscious that my MacBook Pro (2012) is slower than it was, and conventional wisdom used to be that after running Disk Utility to check on any nasties plus checking obvious things like  and headroom to simply (ha!) 're-install your OS'. But that was a few years back, and I am conscious that recent mac OS's have made significant changes.

 

I really don't really want to go through the faff of reinstalling all my music applications if I don't have to, and I am not even sure how to install Logic Pro from scratch in these disk-less days.

 

So ... what is the current conventional wisdom regarding strong-cleaning one's Mac? 

Posted on May 8, 2016 1:21 AM

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Q: Slow Mac, should I reinstall El Capitan?

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  • by Lexiepex,

    Lexiepex Lexiepex May 8, 2016 1:44 AM in response to alex hall
    Level 6 (10,477 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 8, 2016 1:44 AM in response to alex hall

    There can be so many reasons....

    Read this article, then come back if it is still slow:

    How to eliminate slow Mac problems

  • by alex hall,

    alex hall alex hall May 8, 2016 4:05 AM in response to Lexiepex
    Level 1 (108 points)
    Audio
    May 8, 2016 4:05 AM in response to Lexiepex

    ok thanks that may be helpful, my real question concerns the wisdom of re-installing OS and attendant apps rather 'why is my mac slow'? Logic users used to recommended a regular spring-clean (spell checker changed it to strong-clean) ... is that what Logic users still recommend? Or not?

     

    thanks

  • by Lexiepex,

    Lexiepex Lexiepex May 8, 2016 5:08 AM in response to alex hall
    Level 6 (10,477 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 8, 2016 5:08 AM in response to alex hall

    Do not use "cleaners" "boosters" "antivirus" and that sort of tools, because they are conflicting with OSX, OSX has security and cleaning already built-in: it is very different from Windows.

    These tools/apps may even cripple your mac completely.

    For example: system caches are there to buffer operations, and these caches are cleaned daily, weekly, and monthly automatically by the system: if you do it with a oem tool, it just slows down the mac.

    Another example: if you install an antivirus app, that runs always "to protect" every access to a file the AV will check for a virus in that file, this cripples the OS, often to even crash. The OS works differently.

    When your mac is slow there may be hardware causes: a disk that is almost full, or too less Ram for a "heavy" app, so that the CPU must buffer on the disk ("swaps out") which is even worse when the free space on the disk is too low.

    There may be software issues: have too many apps running at the same time, sometimes the Spotlight index is corrupted and Spotlight must re-index, or a not fully compatible app slows down the system.......

    So for us to give you an advice, you must give us more information about your system:

    one easy and safe method is to post an etrecheck list: on etrecheck.com  you can read about etrecheck.app and what it does, then download it and run it and post the list. This is developed by a very respected member to help the trouble shooters here. (You can even check the safety by downloading the opensource and check it yourself).

    Lex