How to make a MacBook run fast again?

[CNX Grinder]

hey all,

Is there a way I could like do a reset of my MacBook so its fast again? It doesn't run as fast as it used to. Its about 3-4 years old. Sometimes when it starts up, it freezes for like 4-5 seconds.

I know its not hardware but most likely tons of apps installed and more apps opening up on startup.

What would be the easiest way for me to get it back to fast performance again?

I have iCloud and a ton of old photos. But I also have a MacBook Pro 15" I use for photo and video editing. So most likely my cloud stuff won't be affected.

Could I wipe my MacBook so it gets back to its former glory and just install stuff that I need?

My daily driver is the MBP 15", where I run my business and do media work.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Well you could of course erase and reinstall which would be be pretty certain to get back to original performance. The popular wisdom is that Windows machines need this occasionally but Macs don’t, and you should be able to recover performance by a careful pruning of start-up apps and background processes, unwanted apps etc

Etrecheck is a great tool for revealing these and a health check of anything else that might be amiss.

Also look in Activity Monitor at CPU and Memory pressure when it feels slow.

https://www.etrecheck.com/

 

[CNX Grinder]

Well you could of course erase and reinstall which would be be pretty certain to get back to original performance. But you could also have a careful pruning of start-up apps and background processes.

Etrecheck is a great tool for revealing these and a health check of anything else that might be amiss.

https://www.etrecheck.com/

And iCloud would just redownload all my photos onto the device after reinstall anyway right?

I don't really use any apps on the MacBook anymore as I do all work on my MBP 15 such as apps like Lightroom and Premiere.

 

[casperes1996]

And iCloud would just redownload all my photos onto the device after reinstall anyway right?

I don't really use any apps on the MacBook anymore as I do all work on my MBP 15 such as apps like Lightroom and Premiere.

If they are on iCloud, yes. Of course anything not on iCloud or backed up is lost, but anything in iCloud will just be there.

To do it, either download the installer for the OS and make a USB installer of it to boot from, or boot into Internet Recovery.
Use Disk Utility to erase the main drive
And use the installer to reinstall macOS

 

[pippox0]

Backup everything,
Wipe harddisk or better substitute with SSD
Reinstall OS
Copy only the needed apps and data.

Voilà your MacBook shines and runs faster

 

[CNX Grinder]

Thanks guys will just reinstall everything.

 

[Plutonius]

hey all,

Is there a way I could like do a reset of my MacBook so its fast again? It doesn't run as fast as it used to. Its about 3-4 years old. Sometimes when it starts up, it freezes for like 4-5 seconds.

I know its not hardware but most likely tons of apps installed and more apps opening up on startup.

What would be the easiest way for me to get it back to fast performance again?

I have iCloud and a ton of old photos. But I also have a MacBook Pro 15" I use for photo and video editing. So most likely my cloud stuff won't be affected.

Could I wipe my MacBook so it gets back to its former glory and just install stuff that I need?

My daily driver is the MBP 15", where I run my business and do media work.

You should specify the year, RAM, drive space, what version of MacOS are you running, etc.

 

[Jack Neill]

Onyx can help sometimes. Also need the specs of the machine.

 

[phpmaven]

Thanks guys will just reinstall everything.

That will likely not make much of a difference. The best thing you can do is put an SSD in there. They’re cheap and that will revolutionize that machine. I’ve done that many times and it never ceases to amaze me how much of an performance improvement it makes.