For the most part, the Mac operating system is pretty maintenance free. This doesn’t mean you can’t do anything to get a little more speed out of your machine. If you follow the five following steps, I have no doubt in my mind that your machine will show a boost in performance.

Step one will mostly affect you computers start up speed; which for me, is most important. What you want to do, is go into System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items. Here you’ll find all of the things your computer automatically opens when you boot your machine. By deleting all of the things you don’t need to start up, your computers boot speed should increase. I personally only have one login item, and have a start up speed of about 35-40 seconds.

Step two involves using your install disc that came with your Mac. Insert your disc into your computer, restart it and as it restarts hold down the “C” key. You’ll then be brought to an install window, however, you don’t want to install; you’re going to want to “Verify and Repair Disk Permissions”. To do this, locate “Disk Utility” under the menu bar. Once you’ve done that, make sure that “First Aid” is selected, and then you can begin to verify and repair the Disk Permissions. By doing this, you’re fixing any little problems on your drive, which may be causing your computer to act up, or slow down.

Step three is a program called OnyX, which you can download for free. OnyX allows you to run multiple cleaning & maintenance operations at once. You can select every option to be cleaned on OnyX, but I suggest you not select the “Clean System Caches” option, as this will slow down your computer. This reason it will slow your computer down, is basically because; by doing this, you’re resetting your system (you don’t lose any files) and so it has to rebuild itself, which means it takes longer to do things, since your computer is trying remember everything you do and run, in it’s caches. Using OnyX is a simple and efficient way to clean your computer.

Step four has a few tips in it. It’s a pretty simple and logical tip. Keep your computer organized. Your computer will run slow if you: have files and folders all over the place, have unnecessary things in your menu bar, have an oversized dock and have a full hard drive. So, to keep your computer running quick and young, organize your files. Not only does it help performance, but it also makes everything look nicer, and in the end, your computer becomes easier and more pleasant to use. The menu bar can become a memory hog, if you have a lot of unnecessary things running in it. Try and keep a maximum of 10 things running at once in your menu bar. The dock has some settings that may slow things down. Three of these settings are “Magnification”, “Genie Effect” and “Animate opening applications”. Turn all three of these off & keep your dock simple; only keep the applications you frequently use in it. Lastly; try and keep 10% of your hard drive space free. So if you have a 40GB hard drive, keep 4GB free. If you have a 160GB hard drive, keep 16GB free.

Step five should be your last resort. If you truly feel you’re not getting the performance you should be getting after doing the four steps above, then you should back up your important files and start fresh. This can sometimes be a pain, but it works. By reinstalling my computer, my start up time went from over 2 minutes to 35-40 seconds. So, your computer might just have a bad file, that’s bringing your whole machine down with it.

I hope these tips helped. There are a lot more small tips that you can do here and there that will help in your computers performance, but these are some of the most effective.

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