Q: I love my Mac, but sometimes I notice it’s a bit slow, how can I improve my OSX performance? Is it as simple as clearing the cache?
A: There are a few different things you can do and yes, a clear cache is one of them. Here are our 3 top tips to improve the performance of your OSX.
Always Make Sure Your OSX Is Up To Date
Always!!! This ensures that our machine performs at its best. Keeping your operating systems and applications updated reduces the chances of malicious files attacking your system and preventing it from performing at its best.
Trash Unwanted Files
Get in the habit of trashing your unwanted files, folders and unrequired applications to free your hard drive. The more capacity you consume on your local drive the slower the machine performs. Following the golden rule of deleting unnecessary documents and applications that have been sitting on your hard drive will definitely give the OSX performance a push.
Purge / Clear Cache
The old ‘turn it off and on again’ trick has a basis in fact. When you’re running programs on your computer, it loads content onto the RAM and disk cache so you can use it, and when you quit the program, your computer should purge that content from memory, however, sometimes the OSX doesn’t manage the memory properly.
The old ‘turn it off and on again’ routine can help in that situation as it usually forces your computer to clear the contents of the RAM & disk cache, giving you boost in performance. The good news is, there’s a way to get the same effect without having to actually reboot your computer.
Here’s how: open the terminal on your Mac and type “sudo purge” (without the quotation marks). You will get a warning message and be prompted to enter your password and for security reasons, you won’t be able to see your password as you type it. Once you enter the password, you’ll begin the process of clearing your RAM & disk cache.
Once it’s complete, you should find that your OSX is running more quickly, however be aware that a clear cache is no substitute for more RAM. For example, if you watch or edit videos with only 4 GB of RAM, having a clear cache isn’t going to help a great deal, you’d be better off to upgrade your RAM; you’d certainly experience less frustration.
If you need help improving your OSX performance or upgrading your RAM, feel free to contact IT Wifi for IT Support Melbourne-wide.
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