Sep 21, 2018 Everyone seems to love Sierra, but if your experience is like dragging your Mac through a swamp then it’s time to do something about it. Let’s fix slow macOS Sierra. In this guide we’re going to highlight the most common problems that cause a slow Sierra and the solutions to help you speed up macOS. Oct 26, 2016 Some of my friends who recently updated their Mac to macOS Sierra have reported that Wi-Fi has become rather slow after the software update. It’s a minor issue which can be easily fixed with a few quick tips. Have you also faced with the slow WiFi issue after the macOS Sierra update? Follow these tips to speed up the ailing Wi-Fi on your Mac. Nov 29, 2017 Mac won’t start after installing macOS 10.13 High Sierra If you've installed macOS High Sierra, but your Mac won't start, then restart your Mac and hold down Command, Option, P and R.
Everyone seems to love Sierra, but if your experience is like dragging your Mac through a swamp then it’s time to do something about it.
In this guide we’re going to highlight the most common problems that cause a slow Sierra and the solutions to help you speed up macOS. These solutions can be performed by anyone, but we’ve ordered them from easiest to hardest.
See how far up the Sierra speed solution ladder you can get.
Here’s how to fix the most common High Sierra issues. High Sierra installer won’t download. If you’re trying to download the macOS High Sierra installer, you’ll need to have signed up to App Store. If you’ve done that, and managed to start the downloading process only for it to fail, force quit the App Store app. It’s hard to stay away from upgrading your Mac computer to the latest version of macOS Sierra. There are so many cool features and a redesigned interface that every Mac users should experience. Just like most people, I decided to give it a try and my Macbook Air upgraded to the new version without any problem. While other blogs have reported a handful of challenges with macOS Sierra, I only.
Oct 07, 2019 Mac mini introduced in mid 2010 or later iMac introduced in late 2009 or later Mac Pro introduced in mid 2010 or later. To find your Mac model, memory, storage space, and macOS version, choose About This Mac from the Apple menu. If your Mac isn't compatible with macOS High Sierra, the installer will let you know.
Difficulty: Easy
Are you someone that puts everything on their desktop? To load all those icons takes up system resources that could be used for better things. Delete what you don’t need and group what you do into folders to improve macOS Sierra performance.
To quickly move files into folders:
That was easy, wasn’t it? Now let’s use one of Sierra’s space saving features.
Difficulty: Easy
Another way to free up space is to use one of Sierra’s features - the ability to automatically remove files that you don’t need. Optimized storage can remove old video files (like that movie you watched months ago) that you can always download from iTunes again. It can also remove old email attachments, which remain stored on the mail server should you need them again.
Clearing out old videos and email attachments can save a lot of space on your Mac and improve overall Sierra performance. Please note that you need to use Apple’s Mail app to make use of the email attachment setting. Also, having watched videos suddenly disappear may not be to everyone’s taste.
However, if you want to turn these settings on, follow these steps:
If you tried these options but prefer the old way you’ll need to navigate to iTunes > Preferences > Advanced to uncheck 'Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.'
If you want Sierra to download all your attachments again go to Mail > Preferences > Accounts > accountName > Account Information. Click on the Download Attachments drop-down menu and select 'All.'
That was a bit more work but still really easy, right? Next up is a way to always speed up a slow Sierra.
Difficulty: Easy
Does your macOS slow down for no obvious reason? It could be that background apps are hogging your Mac’s memory. Most systems have multiple unneeded apps that use system resources. Next time things are slow open Activity Monitor (found in Utilities) and click on the top of the Memory column to order the apps by those that are using the most memory.
If you see an app that is using a good portion of memory (and you’re sure you’re not using it) select it and click the X at the top left to close the app.
Easy, huh?
The next steps are a little bit more challenging but if you want a Sierra that performs well we recommend you keep going!
Difficulty: Moderate
Apple uses some fancy eye candy to make the Sierra UI (User Interface) a real treat for the eyes. But if Sierra is slow, it feels more like a trick than a treat.
To give Sierra a speed boost you can turn off transparency and motion effects. This is particularly effective if macOS 10.12 is running on older hardware.
To turn off effects in Sierra follow these instructions:
You should now experience a snappier Sierra experience.
In our next step we’re going to show you how to take out the trash. Afterall, a clean Sierra is a fast Sierra!
Difficulty: Moderate
Macs use available storage space on hard drives for the smooth running of the OS. When there isn’t much free space and your drive is almost full, Sierra will start running slow.
If you’ve seen the macOS 'Your disk is almost full' notification then you’vedefinitely got a problem that needs fixing. You can click the 'Manage' buttonon the notification, and it will take you to the Optimize Storage features.
A better solution would be to use CleanMyMac X, which has a bunch of tools to clean up your drive. With just a couple clicks you can clear out the junk and free up a ton of storage space for smoother operations.
Here’s how to easily remove hard drive junk:
Can you believe how much free space you have now? Your Mac should be running much better after the first 5 steps but if Sierra is still slow it’s time to get serious.
These next steps are a bit more difficult but you’ve made it this far. Don’t stop now!
Difficulty: Hard
'Reset my what?' SMC stands for System Management Controller, and a reset can solve extreme levels of slowness as well as battery faults and some other hardware faults like problems with your fan.
You should only take this step if everything else has failed to speed up Sierra.
Start by closing all apps (force-quit with Command-Option-Escape if necessary) and shut down your system.
SMC reset instructions for Mac notebook:
SMC reset instructions for Mac desktop:
Be honest, you thought that would be much harder didn’t you? If you reset your SMC you can definitely reset your PRAM/VRAM. That’s the next step!
Difficulty: Hard
NVRAM stands for 'non-volatile random-access memory.' 'P' used to stand for Parameter in older Macs where it is called PRAM. Resetting NVRAM is generally recommended when your Mac is behaving strangely. Things like your Mac starting with the wrong disk, screen resolution issues, or wonky battery charge reporting. If you’re not sure if you need it, there’s no harm in giving it a try just in case.
Follow these instructions to perform a PRAM/NVRAM reset:
You’ve done it again. There are only two more steps left. Don’t stop now!
Difficulty: Hard
If starting up macOS Sierra is taking too long it might be because you have too many startup items. Some apps you’ll want starting with Sierra, but others would be better off waiting till you open them.
You could use Step 3 to keep manually closing down these apps but that sounds like a waste of time to us. To stop macOS Sierra startup apps and items, follow these instructions:
If you want even more control use CleanMyMac to easily deselect startup items or completely remove them from your macOS:
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the top of the ladder. You’ve taken every step to speed up Sierra. If macOS is still slow, it’s probably that your hardware is old. In the final step we’ll show you what you can do about it.
Difficulty: Very Hard
If your Mac doesn’t have a SSD (Solid State Drive) then this single change would give you the greatest Sierra performance boost. SSDs are significantly faster than normal mechanical drives and they’re also less likely to fail.
Things to consider when shopping for a new SSD:
With all the different Mac models out there it would be hard to give you a step-by-step instruction. But if you search for your model + 'how to add SSD' you should find the instructions you need.
Or better yet, get a professional to install it for you.
With the solutions above you should be able to easily transform your macOS Sierra from a slug to a responsive and snappy Mac that is a joy to use.
Just remember that over time, problems that slow down Sierra will build up. Bookmark this page so you can return to these solutions if you have the need.
Alternatively, just regularly run CleanMyMac’s range of optimization and cleaning tools to keep macOS Sierra from getting slow.
Working on a slow Mac is infuriating.
All Macs slow down with age — no matter how much you spend on them or which model you choose, MacBook Pro, Air, iMac — they start to slow down and, often, overheat. A slow Mac can cause anxiety-bringing productivity issues, especially if you’ve got a deadline to meet.
Thankfully, there are a few things you can do. You don't need to rush out and buy a new Mac straight away. Macs slow down for multiple reasons, from heavy startup menus to applications running in the background, to disk drives filled with files, apps, images, and documents you don’t really need anymore. Aging hardware can also slow Macs down.
Desktop can seem like such a convenient place to store files you are working on. Great for things you need to remember and access quickly. With Stickies, Calendar, and numerous other apps in the Dock, it soon becomes a go-to place for everything you need most days.
Unfortunately, when you’ve got too much going on, it can slow your Mac down. Even a few weeks of allowing documents, files, downloads and app shortcuts to pile up can leave anyone wondering where they last saw something they needed. It can seriously get in the way of productivity when you have to search all over your desktop or deeper in your Mac only to find a single file. Even a few weeks of allowing documents, files, downloads and app shortcuts to pile up can leave anyone wondering where they last saw something they needed. It can seriously get in the way of productivity when you have to search all over your desktop or deeper in your Mac only to find a single file. A solution is either sorting through every desktop file and document manually or using Declutter.
Declutter is a smart desktop organizer that your Mac will love. Declutter creates rules and colorful folders that make your desktop tidy and your life easy. You can try Declutter for free along with tons of other useful Mac apps in Setapp.
Some apps take up more processing power than others. We expect more and more from our apps, but when Macs get older they have to work much harder. So you end up with a Mac taking on more tasks with less memory and processing power.
To avoid working on a Mac that feels as though it’s running uphill with a heavy backpack, you need to find and close or remove resource-hungry applications, especially if they’re running in the background and aren't needed. One way to do so is with Activity Monitor, available in Applications.
Look out for CPU usage: pay attention to apps that are using a lot of processing power (normally shown as a percentage), then consider closing or uninstalling the ones you don’t need.
A quicker and better way to solve this problem is with iStat Menus, a handy monitoring app that will quickly identify what is absorbing so much CPU power. Besides regular CPU percentage, iStat Menus will also show you GPU, memory, network data, and disk usage.
Unlike Activity Menu, iStat Menus provides users with even more useful data, and is available through Setapp, along with hundreds of other apps for Mac customers.
When trying to figure out why a Mac is running slow, you need Activity Menu - within settings - or iStat Menus, a handy app that will quickly identify what is absorbing so much CPU processing power and advise those applications are closed.
You can use Terminal app to free up the inactive RAM.
Also you can use a memory script to clear RAM. You don’t have to run it yourself, you can use a memory freeing tool in CleanMyMac X. Perfect RAM cleaning will boost your Mac's performance.
Startup menus can take up more processing power than we imagine, since they stay running in the background, quietly slowing down programs you are actually using.
CleanMyMac X easily identifies and lets you manage all the items that start at login. Try to keep the list to a minimum, removing the ones you don’t need and considering that every app requires additional resources.
Visual effects look pretty, but they won't help you get your work done if your Mac is running slowly. Under Systems Preferences, there is a short list of boxes you can untick: animate opening applications, automatically hide and show the Dock. Also, switch minimize effect from Genie to Scale. It may not make a huge difference, but every speed enhancement helps.
Spotlight is the built-in Mac search feature. It can be handy, especially when looking for documents and files you need right at the moment. However, keeping it from reindexing can slow a Mac down. It takes a while for Spotlight to go through the process, but doing so should speed up your Mac.
Here is how to reindex Spotlight:
Or, use a one-button reindexing solution, already built in within CleanMyMac. It may take a few hours, but once complete the selected drives will be indexed within Spotlight. And your Mac will be flying.
Apple releases a new operating system every year. The most recent release is macOS 10.15 Catalina. Providing you’ve backed up your files and are aware of any immediate issues (some Mac users prefer to wait until updates and patches have been published), it might be time to update.
Select the questions to view the answers. I see the message Scanner Not Ready or Epson Scan will not start in Windows or on my Mac. What should I do? I see the message Printer is Offline when I try to print with a wireless (Wi-Fi) connection on my Mac. What should I do? I see the message Printer is Offline when I try to print with a USB connection in Windows. Epson xp 330 software download.
Before upgrading, check compatibility. Apple says that the newest OS is available for Macs introduced in mid-2012 or later. Note that Apple gave up support for 2010 and 2012 Mac Pro models with recommended Metal-capable graphics cards with Catalina .
Hardware requirements have changed a bit, compared to the older versions:
One of the best ways to speed up a Mac is to uninstall apps you aren't using. But no one wants to go through all the apps manually. Plus, when you delete an app from Applications, its remnants still clog your space all over the system.
A sure way to delete apps completely is using CleanMyMac Uninstaller module, which we think is the easiest, most efficient way to identify apps that cause your Mac to slow down.
CleanMyMac X also allows you to clear cache files quickly and easily. Essentially everything you touch within your computer leaves cache files: system, browsers, apps, user preferences, etc. Over time, the accumulation of those files slows your Mac down. They are very difficult to identify manually and delete, so using CleanMyMac here is by far the easiest choice.
Here're quick tips to free up more disk space. But if you want to get a fast way - try CleanMyMac. It comes highly recommended, as the easiest, most efficient way to identify problems, applications and settings that slow Macs down, then clean them. Around the world, over 3 million people are using CleanMyMac to scan, dig up junk cluttering up Macs, delete unused apps the right way, tidy up email folders and attachments and remove plugins you don't need with one click.
Did you know? A full cleaning done with CleanMyMac reduces Mac boot time by 4.5 times*.
*Testing conducted using MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2016) with 512 GB of storage.
What happens, when you are cleaning your Mac for an update - either OS Mojave or Catalina - and you delete something you later realize you need? Thankfully, an app already exists for that nightmare scenario. Disk Drill is the world’s premier data recovery software for macOS. Powerful enough to retrieve long-lost, mistakenly deleted files from Macs, external hard drives and USB drives and camera cards.
It’s always handy to have Disk Drill ready to retrieve something you may need. Nothing is gone forever, but of course, you don't want old files taking up too much space.
Another way to ensure your Mac operates at peak efficiency using Sierra is by deleting files you don't need and putting as much as you can into iCloud. Optimized storage - clearing out old, unused and idle items - comes part of the package with Sierra, but at the same time, storing files offline on a spare hard drive is equally useful since it avoids automatic syncs with iCloud, thereby potentially slowing your Mac down again. But. you'll see a purgeable storage.
Purgeable storage space contains data that the system hasn't accessed in a long time. If you're running low on disk space, macOS can safely remove them, and then downloaded from iCloud or generated again when data are required again by you or your Mac.
You can’t manually delete the files that are designated purgeable with CleanMyMac app, or macOS removes them as space is needed.
Everyone knows photos take up a lot of storage. When iCloud syncing is automatically setup (by default it is), deleting photos on one device would delete them on another, which can be inconvenient if you only want to remove photos from your Mac. To fix this, switch off iCloud syncing and use a third-party storage, sharing, and syncing apps, such as AnyTrans to keep your devices updated. The app works with all types of content and transfers your data across Android, iOS, and cloud drives.
Two applications to update before or after you’ve downloaded and installed High Sierra is your System Management Controller (SMC) and your Parameter RAM (PRAM) device. Both are small cogs in a larger wheel and can be done by resetting your device for 5 - 10 seconds, but it can make a big difference when it comes to speed.
There are times when a Mac will perform poorly for no apparent reason. Systems crash, a battery doesn't charge or takes longer than normal, Mac goes to sleep or even shuts down unexpectedly. If you’ve tried other fixes and these issues persist, you might need to reset your SMC (system management controller) and PRAM (parameter RAM).
Although most Mac batteries are no longer removable, you need to check first before proceeding down this road.
When a battery is removable, switch the Mac off, remove the battery, press the power button for 5 seconds, then put the battery back in and turn the Mac on.
For newer MacBooks, including Air and Pro, resetting the SMC and PRAM involves shutting the Mac down, then pressing Shift+Control+Option on your keyboard along with the power button for 10 seconds. Then, release all keys and press the power button to switch it on.
Other Macs, particularly the iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro, involve a slightly different process to reset the PRAM. Shut the Mac down, press the power button, then the Command+Option+P+R keys until it restarts, and release the keys. Although all of these processes aren't straightforward, they can work wonders when trying to speed up a slow Mac.
As you can see, there are a lot of things you can do to speeding up your Mac. But what happens when you run out of space? There is only so much that can be done, even when you store files in the cloud and tidy up desktops and disk drives.
Once you’ve cleaned up and deleted everything you don't need, it’s time to take a look at upgrading your standard HDD with an SSD (solid-state drive). We would recommend backing up all your files and consulting a professional before doing this, or having a certified Apple expert do the work to ensure everything transitions smoothly. Besides SSD, increasing the amount of RAM is also an effective way to speed up a slow Mac.
We hardly take care of our Macs — closing them for the night, then opening the next day to push them even further and handle ever-increasing workloads. We forget that computers also need a break. Instead of simply closing and letting them sleep, we should shut down or restart more often, thereby reducing the strain on processors, software, apps, and hard drives.
Following advice above will help you get your slow Mac to speed up again. All the apps mentioned in this article, such as iStat Menus, CleanMyMac, Declutter, Dropshare, and nearly 150 more are available with a single subscription to Setapp. Now you can go on and make your Mac life a bit more easier and a lot more productive.