How To Speed Up Osx

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Categories: Computers | Troubleshooting | Apple | Apple Mac | How Tos

  • Speed Tips

    Note: the directions are based from OSX Leopard 10.5, most things should work with Snow Leopard as well

    Note: the easy tips are at the top and the more complicated and better ones are at the bottom


    If you are ever uncertain about doing anything listed here just skip it and move along

    If you have any to add feel free to use this pages discussion board...

  • Install Updates

    Firmware, driver, and OSX updates will help things the most. Not to mention security updates are great as well for protecting your data and privacy.

    For the best update experience install a few updates at a time, restart the computer, then install some more and repeat. When doing every update simultaneously sometimes things can go wrong.

    System Prefs > Software Update > "check now"

  • Remove Un-Necessary Apps

    This fits with the whole idea that less is more. The less clutter and less stuff running the better.

    If you often install and delete applications consider using AppCleaner. Even when software is removed from the Applications folder all it's associated caches, preferences, support files, and more can still remain. These take up extra disk space and adds clutter. AppCleaner is great for this, as it removes the applications clutter instead of leaving it behind.http://www.freemacsoft.net/AppCleaner/index.php

  • Keep Disk Space Free

    Keep at about 10GB free for smooth running. When OSX needs to use swap space it doesn't like to run out. OSX writes it's swap to a file on the main system disk, so when the main disk is filled swap space becomes limited. Note, if you have more RAM or use FileVault encryption you'll need more free space.

    Disk Inventory X is a good app for finding folders and apps that are space hogs. http://www.derlien.com/

  • Reduce Number of Login Items

    The less stuff running the better. When some applications are installed they also install services that are started through a users login items. Some login items are useful and others are not. Remove the low value ones and it'll help reduce ram consumption. Although, consider leaving iTunesHelper alone as it auto launches iTunes when an iPod is plugged in.

    System Prefs > Accounts > User XYZ > Login Items

  • Remove Un-Used System Preferences

    Custom installed system preferences can be added when an application is installed or added by the user by opening ".prefPane" extensions. Some third party system preferences don't add any overhead while other do add and control extra processes. Simply remove the ones that go unused. The only System Preferences that you can remove are under "Other".


    To remove them either "right click" or hit "control + left click" to get the remove option.

    Or they can also be removed from the folders "/Library/SytemPreferences" and "/Users/user_xyz/Library/SystemPreferences".

  • Turn Off Dock Animations

    Any animations or effects like transparency give the system more work to do. The Dock's effects are some of the easiest to disable. Turn off magnification and use the scale effect and/or uncheck animate opening applications.

    System Preferences > Dock

  • Disable Un-Necessary Services

    Uncheck the ones you don't use. This will also make your computer more secure. Most normal users will need only file sharing and maybe printer sharing.

    System Preferences > Sharing

  • Disable Fast User Switching

    If only have one user on your computer disable it. Fast user switching is made to save an entire users session in memory while someone else is logged into another account. This allows very fast logins between users but uses much more ram.

    System Prefs > Accounts > Login Options

    Uncheck "Enable Fast User Switching"

  • Turn Off Bluetooth

    Bluetooth is a wireless connection used by many computers, mobile devices, input devices, and headsets. If Bluetooth is left unused it is best to disable it to increase battery life on laptops and improve security.


    To disable go to System Preferences > Bluetooth and turn Bluetooth off

  • Limit Spotlights Reach

    Reducing Spotlights reach can reduce the amount of time it's using the system and its attached disks like hard drives, usb sticks, and network drives. Certain folders are used very actively by OSX especially folders like the "Cache" and "Log" folder in "/Users/user_xyz/Library" and "/Library". Also, if large external or networked disks are attached only occasionally Spotlight can spend a lot of time indexing them. When extra disks are connected Spotlight has to track all the changes made to each disk since they're absence. This is usually not a problem if drives are left connected or are not frequently changed.

    An additional bonus of limiting Spotlights reach is it'll make search results more relevant. The results will be cleaner than usual by reducing random results and duplicates like hundreds of "com.apple.*.plist" files. Unless of course you use Spotlight to find obscure things frequently.



    How to add items to Sportlights privacy list...


    System Prefs > Spotlight > Privacy


    Adding the "/Library" and "/Users/XYZ/Library" and "/System" folders to the privacy list will help reduce Spotlight activity and clean up search results.

    Optionally, entire disks can be added to Spotlight as well... If you want to disable Spotlight entirely just add all disks to the privacy list or see the following MacOSXHints.com hint http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071102215912892

  • Disable or Remove Unused Fonts

    OSX will automatically load any newly installed font. It will tend to make startup slower and use more ram.

    Go to /Applications/Font Book

    select the fonts you don't want to use and choose either "Edit > Disable" or "File > Remove"

  • Force Enable Quartz, Disable Beam Sync

    Quartz is a hardware acceleration feature of OSX that can provide significant speedups on macs with a decent graphics card. Quartz is not always on for some reason... Beam Sync is for CRT monitors, if you use LCDs then disable it and get a little boost.

    Download the "Secrets" system pref from:

    http://secrets.blacktree.com/ http://secrets.blacktree.com/

    Disable Sync and Enable Quartz options in the System section. Its got lots of other goodies as well.

  • Run Maintenance Scripts Routinely

    If your computer is off overnight these scripts will not run. So just leave your computer on some nights or open the Terminal and run the "periodic" command occasionally.

    Applications > Terminal

    run "sudo periodic daily weekly monthly"

    Let it run, and don't close Terminal until it's finished. It is normal for it to ask for a password.

  • Use Less Widgets or Disable Dashboard

    Widgets use a lot of ram, I mean a lot! With a slew of them installed an extra 256MB can be allocated just for widgets even though they're supposed to be lightweight. No need to have them running if they're unused. So limit how many are run or disable Dashboard entirely...

    Do the following to disable Dashboard:

    Applications > Utilities > Terminal

    enter "defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES"

    enter "killall Dock"

    To re-enable just repeat the previous steps with "NO" instead

  • Remove Extra Printer Drivers

    Note: This is no longer required on Snow Leopard as printer drivers are now downloaded on demand.

    A OSX default install has a huge amount of printer drivers pre-installed, taking up over 3GB! This is why it's so easy to setup OSX with printers because it must have every driver on earth! If you don't use many printers or don't mind installing a driver from time to time then just remove them. Choose wisely though...

    Simple go to /Library/Printers and just trash the ones you don't want.

  • Remove Unused Languages and Architectures

    OSX and many applications come with many languages that will never be used by most users. Many universal binary apps include copies of themselves for multiple cpu architectures like PowerPC, G5, G4, which doesn't matter anymore when running an Intel system unless you run a lot of older apps. Removing these extra languages and architectures will save lots of disk space, easily over 1gb. Luckily there is a tool that is made just for this called Monolingual.

    Be careful with this one!!! Whatever languages or architectures you delete can't be restored which can render your system and or certain programs unusable if the wrong choices are made!!!

    http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/ http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/

  • Main Culprits to Slowness

    Luckily for OSX users viruses/spyware are not a huge problem unlike Windows, for now... The following tend to be the main cultprits.

    1) Too many running processes

    2) System clutter

    3) Routine maintenance not running

  • Too Many Processes:

    •Programs the user is running

    •Menu bar items: little doohickies near the clock (top right)

    •Widgets = bye bye ram

    •Login items: background user programs = ram/cpu use

    •System services, and daemons: invisible happenings

    With OSX it's not uncommon to see the system running near 100 processes under normal use with a few programs open. Of course this varies widely and ideally it's best to have as few as possible. The good news is that most of these processes are system services and are fairly insignificant in the amount of system resources they use. Luckily, most of the resource hog processes like login items and programs are manageable by users.

  • System Clutter:

    The instantly affecting ones include any fancy graphics, having a lot of fonts or desktop icons, and multiple network connections. The fancy graphics is probably not a surprise. Although, what is surprising is having a lot of fonts actually bogs a system down through its large caches, etc. Also OSX has a history of the beach ball of death when file sharing connections are improperly terminated. For example being connected to remote computer while it's shutdown OSX will continue to try to maintain the connection until it finally gives up (times out). Spotlight can also index and read remote drives which can cause a considerable effect. So, the more the worse...

    •Fancy graphics, animations, fonts

    •Multiple file sharing network connections

    •Lots of fonts

    •System Prefs

    •Desktop Icons

    •Low disk space

    •Logs, caches, databases

    •Broken permissions

  • Routine Maintenance Not Running:

    OSX runs periodic maintenance scripts on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to keep the system running smoothly. The problem is they don't run because they're meant to run in the early morning when most people have their computers off or sleeping. By default the daily and weekly scripts run at 3:15am based on the users clock. The monthly scripts run at 5:30am. The easiest solution is to leave to computer on overnight once in a while or open the Terminal and run the "periodic" command occasionally.


    To run the maintenance scripts manually do the following:


    Open: Applications > Terminal


    Type in the following and press enter: "sudo periodic daily weekly monthly" Let it run, and don't close Terminal until it's finished. It is normal for it to ask for a password.


    If you're wondering what this all does here's your answer. Each script will clean, maintain, and/or update the following.

    • Daily: System messages, logs, scratch files, temporary files (all important)
    • Weekly: Locate database, whatis man page database (not really a big deal for normal users)
    • Monthly: accounting logs (not a big deal)

  • Questions and Answers About How To Speed Up Osx

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