speed up my mac

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How do I reduce the spinning ball time? I usually have about five tabs open at any given time.:(
 

pigoo3

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Many things can be tried/done. Of course without more info about your setup...hard to say what will help the most. One place to start is reboot the computer more often.

- Nick
 
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That is probably sound advise to start with. I do go long periods of time without rebooting.
 
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That is probably sound advise to start with. I do go long periods of time without rebooting.

Hello - I was going to welcome you to the forum seeing just 3 posts (2 in this thread) but you joined 8 years ago! ;)

I believe what Nick was asking concerned the details on your computer; for starters: 1) What Mac do your own (model & year); 2) How much RAM; 3) Size & type of your drive (also how much storage is free); 4) What macOS is installed; and 5) What apps seem to be the most troublesome? Answers to these questions will greatly help provide specific advise - also check the links in Nick's signature which addresses several of these issues. Good luck - Dave :)
 

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That is probably sound advise to start with. I do go long periods of time without rebooting.

Yes...that's a good one. If going long periods without rebooting...especially if there's not a lot of installed RAM...rebooting more often can help.

As RadDave expertly mentioned. Knowing your full computer situation would help (exact computer spec's, amount of storage free space, OS version installed, etc.).

- Nick
 
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Yes I was a little surprised to see I had signed up so long ago, but thanks for the welcome anyway. I have not had much trouble on what I do on my mac and when I do I usually just google for and answer. Going through my file I discovered I was already a member. I am working on a couple things from Nick to see if it is any better. If not I will enter all my mac info and we can go from there. Thanks for the reply - James
 
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It is kinda scary see all that "google chrome helper" memory being googled up, should I be worried?
 
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That is probably sound advise to start with. I do go long periods of time without rebooting.


Also doing a cold boot and using Safe Boot Mode and then run any Disk Utility repairs/first aid, and then just reboot normally, can often purge a lot of surplus junk and help speed things up.





- Patrick
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Yes I was a little surprised to see I had signed up so long ago, but thanks for the welcome anyway. I have not had much trouble on what I do on my mac and when I do I usually just google for and answer. Going through my file I discovered I was already a member. I am working on a couple things from Nick to see if it is any better. If not I will enter all my mac info and we can go from there. Thanks for the reply - James

Please return to my post and give us the answers to the questions asked - this will be of great help to all trying to solve your issues - Dave :)
 
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I just can't fathom folk who need help it appears but will NOT supply Mac and operating system details.

Self defeating isn't it?
 

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Yep, I agree, a screen shot of "About this Mac" would do it. With the serial number annotated out of course, maybe that's a problem for some.


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Hello - I was going to welcome you to the forum seeing just 3 posts (2 in this thread) but you joined 8 years ago! ;)

I believe what Nick was asking concerned the details on your computer; for starters: 1) What Mac do your own (model & year); 2) How much RAM; 3) Size & type of your drive (also how much storage is free); 4) What macOS is installed; and 5) What apps seem to be the most troublesome? Answers to these questions will greatly help provide specific advise - also check the links in Nick's signature which addresses several of these issues. Good luck - Dave :)

Okay here is the following:

imac (20 inch early 2009)
OS X El Capitan
ver 10.11.6
Memory 2GB 1067 MHZ DDR3
Processor 2.66 GHZ intel core 3 Duo
Graphics NIVIDA Geforce 9400 256 MB
Running the Active monitor after restart last night the memory used is 173 GB
cached files 279.2 MB
Swap used 168.5 (up from 0) with reboot last night.
 
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Okay here is the following:

imac (20 inch early 2009)
OS X El Capitan
ver 10.11.6
Memory 2GB 1067 MHZ DDR3
Processor 2.66 GHZ intel core 3 Duo
Graphics NIVIDA Geforce 9400 256 MB
Running the Active monitor after restart last night the memory used is 173 GB
cached files 279.2 MB
Swap used 168.5 (up from 0) with reboot last night.

Thanks for giving your specs - you still need to provide your drive capacity and how much storage is free (check using 'About This Mac' -> 'Storage').

One likely issue is in bold above, i.e. only 2 GB RAM which is just not going to handle the more modern macOS versions, such as El Capitan or Sierra - your computer seems to be the one below (although the CPU is stated to be Duo Core) - the source is the EveryMac Website - check the link for all of your specs - RAM can be increased to 8 GB, which likely will be recommended, although your computer is 8 years old and the drive has not yet been addressed. Dave :)
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Screen Shot 2017-02-13 at 12.48.56 PM.png
 
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Okay here is the following:
… … …
Memory 2GB 1067 MHZ DDR3
That's equivalent to using a Briggs & Stratton type engine in your car!!!

Running the Active monitor after restart last night the memory used is 173 GB
Something drastically wrong if that is the the actual figure.

What happens when cold booting and using Safe Boot Mode???






- Patrick
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Well much is explained. The iMac is getting on and the CPUs and gfx will have troubles with modern web sites etc. The 'net has improved dramatically over the past eight years and what was a 'state of the art' computer then will have trouble cutting it. Best improvements to your Mac would be an SSD and increasing memory up to 8GB.. For both, Crucial and OWC recommended here.
 
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Macintosh HD: 205.43 GB free of 319.21GB

Can I take a screen shot and add it to this post?
 
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You are right, maybe I need to start thinking about the unthinkable and upgrading my machine! I will limp a long a little longer with this one.
 
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Macintosh HD: 205.43 GB free of 319.21GB

Can I take a screen shot and add it to this post?

Sure - you can 'edit' the post and make changes - below are 2 screen captures (I like to use CMD-SHIFT-4 to select the area of interest) from my MBAir of areas of interest for obtaining info about your computer. There are two options for adding images (whether screen captures or other pics on your computer): 1) Use the 'Image' icon (see 3rd pic below); or 2) Use 'Manage Attachments' (last 2 pics) - easily learned. To manipulate your pics, Preview works well for cropping, resizing, annotating, and adding text, as I did below. Hope this helps - Dave :)
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Pic2.png
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Pic3.png
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Pic4.png
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Pic5.png
 
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Thanks Dave, and the rest of you who gave constructive comments. It amazes me the wealth of knowledge of people and their willingness to share with others. :)

The top one was from yesterday. The second one I deleted my music from itunes and iphotos

Screen Shot 2017-02-13 at 2.34.12 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-02-14 at 10.26.54 PM.png
 
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The top one was from yesterday. The second one I deleted my music from iTunes and iphotos



Hmmm… I'd be very surprised if an overall reduction of 0.55GB of drive space will make much difference but post back with your results.






- Patrick
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