10 features that slow down your Mac

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The computer may slow down due to Spotlight, detection of faces in photos, and even due to automatic wallpaper changes.

1. Indexing Spotlight Search

Spotlight is a search engine built into macOS. It helps you find files, folders, applications, calendar events, mail and messages.

Spotlight shows you the information you need almost instantly. To do this, he constantly indexes the data and loads the computer. This is especially noticeable when you connect an external hard drive with a large number of files to your Mac.

To verify that Spotlight is loading your computer, open System Monitor. Find the _spotlight mdworker process in the User column.

Pay attention to the column "% CPU": it indicates how much this system feature is loading the processor right now.

You can turn off Spotlight completely using Terminal. To do this, copy the following command into it and press Enter.

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

To restore Spotlight, copy the overriding command to Terminal and press Enter.

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

2. Automatic launch of applications

Third party app developers want you to use their creations as often as possible. So they try to make their programs start automatically after a system reboot and wait for instructions in the Mac menu bar.

The more background processes there are, the higher the load on the processor and the slower it copes with active tasks.

To reduce the load, remove applications from automatic downloads. To do this, open "System Preferences", go to the "Users and Groups" menu and select the "Login Items" section.

Here select the application and click on the button with the minus sign.

3. Data protection on disk FileVault

FileVault - macOS encryption. It is needed to prevent unwanted access to data on the Mac startup disk.

When you turn on FileVault, the system creates a disk image, encrypts the data, and transfers it to it. Activation of the function takes from a few minutes to several hours, depending on the performance of the Mac and the amount of data on the disk.

With FileVault enabled, all new data is encrypted in the background. The feature improves the safety of using the system, but it puts a strain on the processor and slows down the Mac.

If you are confident that your computer will not fall into the wrong hands, FileVault can be turned off. To do this, open System Preferences, go to the Security & Privacy menu and select the FileVault section.

Here, click on the lock-shaped icon in the lower-left corner of the window to allow settings to be changed. After that, select "Turn off FileVault" and wait until the data is decrypted.

4. Creating Time Machine backups

Time Machine is a macOS backup system. With it, you can restore individual files or the entire operating system as a whole.

Time Machine uses an external hard drive. When you connect it, the system immediately starts creating a backup. This is how it boots up the Mac at the wrong time.

To turn off automatic backups, open System Preferences, go to the Time Machine menu, and uncheck the "Create backups automatically" checkbox.

You can now manually create backups when not using your Mac. To do this, click on the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and select Back Up Now.

5. File sharing

If multiple users on your local network start sharing data on your Mac, its performance may suffer.

To avoid unexpectedly starting your computer at the wrong time, it's best to turn off file sharing.

To do this, open "System Preferences", go to the "Sharing" menu and uncheck the box next to "File Sharing".

6. Recognition and grouping of faces in "Photo"

In macOS Sierra, the Photos app now has the ability to automatically detect faces and group photos by them.

If you use iCloud Photos, you may experience an unexpected decrease in computer performance.

ICloud Photos syncs pictures between iPhone, Mac, and other Apple devices. When a large number of new photos arrive on your Mac, the Photos app turns on automatic indexing to find faces. Indexing works in the background even when the Photos application is closed. You can turn it off only through System Monitor.

To make sure that the computer is downloading the Photo indexing, open the System Monitor application and find the Photos Agent process.

If the problem is in it, select the process and click on the button to end it in the upper left corner of the application window.

7. Change the desktop picture by time

The computer can also be loaded by the automatic change of pictures, which are used as wallpaper for the desktop, every few seconds or minutes.

It is better to turn off this feature and leave one image.

To do this, open "System Preferences", go to the "Desktop and Screensaver" menu, select the "Desktop" section and uncheck the box next to the "Change Image" item.

8. Visual effects of the system

If you are using an old Mac that lacks performance for smooth system operation, disable its visual effects: animations and transparency.

To do this, open "System Preferences", go to the "Accessibility" menu and select the "Monitor" section.

Here check the boxes next to "Reduce Motion" and "Reduce Transparency".

9. Animated Dock Effects

To speed up the system on an older Mac, you can also turn off Dock effects.

To do this, open System Preferences and go to the Dock menu.

Here, uncheck the box next to the items "Zoom" and "Animate opening programs", select "Simple decrease" in the item "Remove to Dock with effect".

10. Anti-aliasing of fonts

The last thing you can disable to speed up the system on an old Mac is font smoothing.

To do this, open "System Preferences" and go to the "General" menu.

Here, uncheck the box next to "Font smoothing (if possible)".

After that, on screens with a small resolution, letters may look angular, but the computer will start to work faster.