How many times have you downloaded an app or browser plugin, but only used it for once and later you totally forgot its existence? Since we launched in 2006, our articles have been read more than 1 billion times. You can further reduce animations under System Preferences > Accessibility by enabling “Reduce Motion” under the Display tab. Different blocks of color indicate different file types, such as movies, photos, or apps. To move more space on your iMac hard drive, your first step is to get an overview of the storage. Think of it as breathing room for your operating system. You’ll get longer battery life on a MacBook and snappier performance on most machines compared to Chrome or Firefox, both of which are notorious memory hogs. The System Management Controller or SMC for short controls low-level functions on your Mac, light LEDs, power buttons, and fans. Head to System Preferences > Dock and disable “Animate opening applications” and “Automatically hide and show the dock.” You can also change “Genie effect” to “Scale effect” under the “Minimize windows using” setting. When an iMac slows down, our work productivity tends to decrease because of the emotional consequences. Similar to adding more RAM, be sure to check which SSDs are compatible with your iMac model. Whether your Mac is running slow or you just want to squeeze some extra performance from your system, we have some quick solutions. Join 350,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, comics, trivia, reviews, and more. Get into the habit of closing thirsty apps like Photoshop or Excel when you aren’t using them. How you update an app depends on the app and how you installed it. Close them until you need them. ), use the Activity Monitor app (or iStat Menus) to find them out. Clicking the red “X” in the corner of a window won’t always close a Mac app. Whether you use Safari, Chrome, Firefox, or something else, consider removing any non-essential browser extensions to speed things up. To Clean up browser plugins/extensions, open the settings of your browser and you should be able to find the right place to manage those extensions. Be aware that many of the items in this list are system processes you won’t want to quit. From time to time, you may want to reset your SMC if you notice issues with your keyboard backlighting, strange fan behavior, or limited performance even under low load. You’re often better off waiting until a time when you need these applications to start them manually instead. You may have only closed the window, and the app is still open as signified by its presence in your dock. Read on for lots of tips on how to speed up your Mac. Cluttered hard drive, loaded login items and launch agents, too many applications running the background, even macOS itself (e.g. These simple steps provided below won't take much time, but will greatly help to improve your Mac's performance. Also, lack of free space is often a cause of more frequent hangs, freezes, and app crashes. By submitting your email, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. If you are a designer or developer who uses an old iMac for video or photo editing projects, chances are RAM may be the bottleneck. For example, macOS Catalina drops support for 32-bit apps. Organize the “Memory” column by descending order to find out where all of your available physical memory has gone. Andreas is a freelance tech writer based in California. You can right-click, Command-click, or two-finger tap an app icon in the dock and click Quit to end the process. RAM (random access memory) plays an important role in processing app requests. First, make sure your internet connection is stable. RELATED: Mac Users Should Ditch Google Chrome for Safari. For RAM upgrade options, consider Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) and OWC 32GB for 2017 iMac 27-inch with Retina 5K display. Clean up your desktop and delete any files you don’t need. To really improve performance, consider reinstalling macOS for a squeaky clean Mac. Safari is one of the best choices for Mac users since it is highly optimized for Apple hardware. Select an app and click on the “X” in the top-left corner to quit the process. In other words, there might be too many third-party apps or services opening up once you press the start button on the back of your iMac. For example, apps you install from the Mac App Store will be updated by the App Store. Join 350,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles. Before you go ahead and spend money, however, it's worth trying to figure out how much of a … Matt Elliott. When you sign into, many other applications start at the same time. 1. Under “Extensions”, find the “Launch Agents” feature and here you’re able to disable or enable any helper applications or services.