{"id":38348,"date":"2016-10-25T10:11:07","date_gmt":"2016-10-25T15:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=38348"},"modified":"2019-10-18T11:10:09","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T16:10:09","slug":"how-to-fix-scary-issues-that-can-possess-a-mac-affect-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/38348-how-to-fix-scary-issues-that-can-possess-a-mac-affect-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Fix Scary Issues That Can ‘Possess’ a Mac, Affect Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Does your Mac seem possessed at times? When it’s running an app, does it seem less like a fleet-footed bunny and more like a stumbling zombie?<\/p>\n

If you think you just heard your Mac mutter “brains!” and you haven’t installed any Halloween-based themes, it’s time to get your hands dirty and clean out your Mac to speed up its performance. (Related:<\/strong> What Sierra Broke, How to Fix It & Where to File Bug Reports<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Why Is My Mac Slowing Down?<\/strong>
\nSetting aside Halloween ghosts as possible culprits, there can be quite a few reasons why your Mac is acting like a zombie.<\/p>\n

\"Halloween
(The desktop should be the only scary part of your Mac: Desktop wallpaper courtesy of vladstudio.)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Happily, most of the causes for a drop in Mac performance can be easily fixed, sometimes with just a change or two in how a few apps or utilities are used, perhaps by performing a bit of housekeeping and cleaning up your Mac’s storage, or by giving your Mac’s OS a hand, and clearing out some of the accumulated grunge that has collected over time to free up drive space.<\/p>\n

Memory<\/strong>
\nThere are a few key bottlenecks that can throttle a Mac’s performance; one of these is RAM. Your Mac is equipped with a specific amount of RAM. While on most Mac models you can increase the amount of RAM<\/a>, on many others, the amount of RAM is fixed. As the RAM is put to use by the OS and apps, less and less RAM is available for the tasks being performed.<\/p>\n

Related article: <\/strong>

Disk Utility to repair file permissions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you’re using OS X El Capitan or later, repairing file permissions occurs automatically at each operating system update; you don’t need to manually repair permissions.<\/p>\n

Beach Ball When Launching an App<\/strong>
\nThe Mac OS uses shared libraries, common routines that an app’s developer can make use of when creating apps. When an app is launched, the OS links the app to any shared libraries it needs to access.<\/p>\n

\"Use
(Use Terminal to replace a corrupt dynamic link cache.)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The library linking information is stored in a cached file for quick access on subsequent launches of the app. That cached data can become corrupt over time, which results in the spinning beach ball whenever you launch the app.<\/p>\n

You can force the cached file to be recreated with the following Terminal command:<\/p>\n

Launch Terminal, located at Applications\/Utilities.<\/p>\n

Enter the following at the Terminal prompt:<\/p>\n

sudo update_dyld_shared_cache -force<\/p>\n

Press enter or return.<\/p>\n

Provide your administrator password.<\/p>\n

Press enter or return.<\/p>\n

The process can take a minute or two.<\/p>\n

Free Drive Space<\/strong>
\nAlong with the lack of available free memory (RAM) being a source of performance woes, the amount of free drive space also plays an important role in keeping your Mac zooming along.<\/p>\n

\"screenchot
(Keep as much free space as you can on your startup drive.)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Mac needs a certain amount of disk space to use for routine operations, such as reserving memory swap space, free space for the Mac’s built-in defragmentation service<\/a>, and temporary files the OS and apps create. Space is also needed for sleep modes, such as hibernation, which writes the RAM’s data to the startup drive before putting your Mac to sleep.<\/p>\n

As you can see, you need a lot of free space on the startup drive. We like to keep at least 15 percent of the startup drive free for the Mac to make use of. That should allow you to use your Mac without worrying about overt degraded performance for general use. But remember, more is better, especially when using your Mac for specific tasks, such as video, audio, or image editing.<\/p>\n

If you need help paring down the data on your Mac, take a look at National Clean Up Your Computer Day: Digital Cleaning<\/a> for a great guide to general Mac cleanup.<\/p>\n

For more macOS Sierra<\/a> tricks and guides, check out the Rocket Yard Tech Tips<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does your Mac seem possessed at times? When it’s running an app, does it seem less like a fleet-footed bunny and more like a stumbling zombie? If you think you just heard your Mac mutter “brains!” and you haven’t installed any Halloween-based themes, it’s time to get your hands dirty and clean out your Mac […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":38357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"class_list":["post-38348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-tips"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Fix Issues That Can Possess a Mac, Affect Performance<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Does your Mac seem possessed at times? 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