Mac Games For Slow Computer

23-05-2021 admin

Mac Games For Slow Computer Games

Final thoughts on how to fix Mac running slow. So we have run over the main methods to speed up a slow Mac. They all boil down to one simple idea: give your Mac some space to breathe. Eventually, any Mac is going to fill up with all kinds of garbage that's consuming resources, memory and disk space.

We've got a few reasons and fixes.

How to speed up a slow Mac

All Macs begin to slow down with age — MacBook Pro, iMac, it doesn’t matter. Performing several heavy tasks at a time, your Mac may get slower, and it’s okay. Although, when you’re facing unresponsive windows and slow load time more often these days, your Mac definitely needs a boost.
We’ve found the best ways on how to make your Mac faster. Some work better than others (depending on your Mac) but we’ll show you all of them and you can decide for yourself how to make your slow Mac faster.

1. Your hard drive is getting full

Nothing slows down a Mac more than having too much on your hard drive. If you can lighten the load on your Mac, you’re sure to see an increase in speed.

How to fix it: Clean up your hard drive

Unfortunately, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. Cleaning up old movie files, organizing your Desktop, and searching your Mac for old files you don’t need is the easy part. However, the hard part is cleaning up your system, and figuring out all the stuff that can be safely removed for more space. The best option is to use a Mac cleanup tool, like CleanMyMac X. It cleans up your entire Mac, the easy stuff and the hard stuff. It knows what to clean and where to clean, and is incredibly safe to use. It removes caches, logs, language packs, and more to help you speed up your Mac — Click here to download it free!

2. Your storage is not optimized

Apple developers have already anticipated the problem with slow running Macs. You can easily find their helpful recommendations on managing and optimizing your Mac’s storage. Here’s how you can reveal some useful advice:

Click the Apple menu and select About This Mac.
Here choose the Storage tab and select Manage.
In the new window that opens, you will see some suggestions for faster performance of your Mac.

How to fix it: Manage your files and data

You can transfer your files and data to iCloud to save up some space on your Mac. Just click Store in iCloud and choose files you want to save to iCloud storage. Another useful tip is to optimize storage on your Mac by removing large files such as Apple TV films and TV shows. To make sure your Bin is not cluttered with old junk, you can set up Empty Bin Automatically. You could also give a swift look at your documents and remove the items that are piling up. You can do this by clicking Reduce Clutter.

3. Outdated macOS

Your Mac’s OS is extremely important to how it performs. An older OS typically runs slower — that’s why Apple releases new macOS every year or so.

How to fix it: Update your macOS

Having the latest version of macOS is good practice (the latest version right now is macOS Catalina 10.15). Don’t think of it as adding more junk to your already slow Mac — think of it as new software that makes your Mac run more smoothly. So, update your macOS and speed up your Mac, go to the Apple menu and click About This Mac. Then click Software Update. If a new version is available, update software and you’re good to go!

If for some reason your Mac is running slow after macOS Catalina update, don’t panic. It could happen that disk permissions are broken. You can repair them with CleanMyMac X. Download the app and go to Maintenance tab, click “Repair Disk Permissions”.

4. Startup is slowing you down

When you start your Mac, a lot of things load up in the background. Not only do they slow down your startup, but they continue to do so the whole time you’re on your Mac.

How to fix it: Manage your startup items

Give your Mac a clean start and make macOS run faster. When you don’t manage your startup Items, it’s like making your Mac run a sprint with a gigantic, book-filled backpack — it’s going to take a bit longer for it to get moving, right? Lighten the load on your Mac.

You can do all routine action we'll discuss below yourself or just download CleanMyMac X and get faster Mac in a couple of minutes.

Get a fast Mac startup by removing unnecessary apps. To turn off Login Items go to your System Preferences > Users & Groups, and then click on your username. Now, click on Login Items, click on the name of an application you don't need to launch during startup, and then click the '-' symbol located below the list to the left; this will remove the application from the list — the fewer applications on the list, the better. This should help out a ton with speeding up your slow Mac.

5. Too much running in the background

When you’ve got too much running in the background, your Mac can’t even handle simple tasks.

How to fix it: End processes with Activity Monitor

Activity Monitor will show you what processes are using up your system resources. Quitting an app that’s taking up a lot of processing power could make a huge difference in speeding up your slow Mac. Open up your Applications folder and then your Utilities folder. Here you’ll find the Activity Monitor, open it. Check out the list of apps and processes that happening on your Mac in real-time. Pretty complex, eh?

From here you can see what’s causing trouble with your Mac. Click on the Memory tab at the top, then the Memory filter at the top of the list; this sorts the programs by the amount of space they’re taking up on your Mac RAM. The higher the number, the more power they need. Stop an app from operating by clicking on the app in the list and then clicking the gray “x” icon located at the top-left corner of the window. Don’t remove anything you don’t know!

6. You’ve got old hardware

Sadly, your Mac may just be too old to fix. When your Mac hardware gets too old, your speed drops drastically and you can do little to fix it without taking some serious measures.

How to fix it: Upgrade your hardware

You’ve done all the stuff above and your Mac is still running slowly. It’s time to look into upgrading your hardware. Unfortunately, this can be a bit pricey and some Macs are beyond help (kidding… some just can’t be upgraded).

The most straightforward way is to replace your current hard drive with an SSD disk. You should shoot for at least 240-256 GB of storage space. You will need to open the bottom case of your MacBook and replace it with the newly-bought SSD drive.

Additionally, look into buying more RAM. Something around 4 GB is no longer enough by 2020 standards. You can buy China-produced 8 GB RAM card for around $30. If your MacBook originally had 4 GB of RAM, this should make it 12 GB in total which is a pretty solid amount nowadays.

7. You have too many unused apps

As your Mac may be behaving slowly due to storage issues, it’s good to check whether you have some free space left. Unused apps are the biggest space-wasters. All of us download applications that seem helpful and exciting at first, but turn to clutter up our disk instead of being used frequently.

How to fix it: Uninstall unused apps

So, it’s time to get rid of those or at least honestly tell yourself which ones you don’t use anymore.

Open Finder and navigate to the Go menu.
From the drop-down list, select Applications.
You will see all applications installed on your Mac. Organize the list by size to reveal the largest apps.
Right-click on the app and select Move to Bin.

Mind the fact that if you delete the apps, the chances are that some leftover files will remain on your Mac. That’s why it’s recommended to clean your machine of such remnants with tools like CleanMyMac X. Its Uninstaller module shows how many apps you have and gathers all leftovers in one tab - so you can quickly delete them.

If you don’t want to delete apps, you can quit them and therefore stop your CPU from wasting the resources on this app.

Open Activity Monitor (Finder > Applications > Utilities).
Click %CPU to sort processes in descending order.
Select the app you don’t use.
To quit the apps or processes, press the “X” sign in the top left corner of the window.
Click Force Quit.

Now, these apps won't be using your Mac's power in the background.

8. Cluttered desktop

If you use your desktop as a file dump, it’s high time for a cleanup. Not many people know this, but every desktop icon is, in fact, a little active window that your macOS has to render and process. If there are myriads of icons, no wonder your Mac is slow.

How to fix it: Plow through your desktop items

To make your Mac run faster, organize files on your desktop into separate folders. Right-click on your desktop and select Use Stacks. Then, you can move them to another location. Never hesitate to send to Trash things you rarely use, like apps you had downloaded months ago. Cleaning the desktop isn’t the funniest job in the world, but it does pay off in terms of adding speed to your Mac.

9. Browser is full of junk

Most of us use our Macs online 90% of the time. In other words, if your browser is slow, your Mac will be slow too. Even the fastest machine can be dragged down by hundreds of opened tabs and extensions.

How to fix it: Remove extensions to make your Mac run faster

Hidden add-ons, plug-ins, and extensions often come disguised as free software. You download something and the next moment see weird search bars, pop-ups, and torrents of advertisements on your screen. Of course, there are perfectly legit extensions that extend what your browser can do, but every extension weighs on your Mac’s speed. And lastly, such tools may stealthily collect your data.

How to remove Chrome extensions manually

Launch Chrome.
Click a three-dot icon in the top-right corner.
Click More tools > Extensions.

Then you’ll have a nice overview of all Chrome add-ons you have installed. You can either disable extensions or delete them completely, which is preferable especially when you don’t recognize what it is.

How to remove Safari extensions manually

Launch Safari.
Click Safari > Preferences in the upper menu.
Choose the Extensions tab.
Remove the extensions you don’t need.

The rule of 9 tabs
To make your Mac run faster while in the browser, minimize the number of opened tabs. Many IT consultants recommend to always have no more than 9 opened tabs at a time. This way you don’t overload the browser and the title for each tab is perfectly visible.

10. Lots of outdated cache files

Cache files come in many flavors: system cache, user cache, app-generated caches and more. User caches (tied to your user account) make up for about 70% of junk on your Mac. The manual deletion method involves a bit of clicking and typing. So here you are.

How to fix it: Trim down caches on your slow Mac

Open Finder and click “Go to Folder” in the Go menu.
Type in ~/Library/Caches and press Enter
Locate a cache folder tree
Go into each folder and delete its contents
Empty the Trash bin

Note: It’s not recommended to remove the folders themselves, but only their insides.

Now it is time to delete System caches. The path is the same but this time you should type in:

/Library/Caches (without a ~ tilde sign)

Once again, the method is the same: you locate the main cache folder and drill down into its sub-folders removing all the content stored there. Before you start, you can preemptively back up the Caches folder as meddling with cache folders can be risky. For a bulletproof solution, you can clean out caches with CleanMyMac X - it was made just for this purpose, though it has lots of other uses. Download CleanMyMac X for free, install it and click Smart Scan. From there, you will be able to delete cache and temporary files.

The lesser-known trick to fix Mac running slow

If you followed the tip from the previous section and downloaded CleanMyMac X, you should be able to perform another trick which proved quite effective on most Macs. From our experience, it does boost up the performance of many applications.

Launch CleanMyMac X.
Click Maintenance tab.
Tick “Run Maintenance Scripts”

Running this command helps to “polish up” the performance of the deep-level system services. What it does is rebuilds system logs and reorganizes select databases on your Mac. Try it and see how your Mac is doing.
In the same app, there are also controls for your “Hung Applications” and “Heavy Memory Consumers” — use them to disable your biggest memory hoggers.

11. Your user profile grew out of proportion

All your user files and applications may over time become a heavy burden for your macOS. This is tied to your user account. It simply contains too many caches, cross-links, user logs — more than your Mac can chew.

How to fix it: Give yourself a “profile refresh”

Though it sounds a bit radical, you can activate a new user profile. It is absolutely safe and is a bit like starting a new life. You will have to copy all the needed app files such as Preferences to the new user. As a result, your Mac may become much snappier.

To create a new user:

Click on the Apple logo
Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups
Click the Unlock icon
Now, click “+” to add another user

To transfer your important files from one account to another, you need to drop them into the Shared folder which is found on your hard drive. To find it, click on a Finder window, then navigate to Go > Computer > Macintosh HD > Users. Voila, you’ve found the Shared folder!

12. Visual overload

Animations and rich graphics are extremely resource-hungry. We are not suggesting you should switch your Mac back to 1984-style simplicity. But in case of a slow Mac, the less is sometimes more.

How to fix it: Cut down on animations

Open System Preferences > Dock

Disable the following items by unticking:

Magnification
Animate opening applications
Automatically hide and show the Dock

Click 'Minimize windows into application icon' and change Genie effect to Scale. The scale is a much simpler zoom and less taxing on memory.

13. SMC-settings are corrupted

SMC stands for System Management Controller and manages a whole range of low-level functions of your Mac: fans, lights, power, system volume, and other parameters. Quite often SMC preferences get broken and your Mac gets slow.

How to fix it: Reset SMC to factory settings

If your Mac’s battery is removable:

Turn off your Mac.
Take out the battery.
Press and hold the Power button for a few seconds.
Reinstall the battery.
Press the Power button and start your Mac in a normal fashion.

For non-removable batteries:

Shut down the Mac.
Press Shift + Control + Option keys and the Power button simultaneously.
Hold down these keys for 10 seconds.
Let go of the keys.
Press the Power button to start your Mac.

How to reset SMC on iMac, Mac Pro and Mac Mini

Shut down your Mac.
Unplug a power cord.
Wait for about 15 seconds.
Plug the power cord back in.
Wait a few seconds and turn on your Mac using the Power button.

14. You are out of free RAM

RAM stands for Random Access Memory. This memory is like a fuel for all your apps. That is the reason you often get “Your system is out application memory” message. One solution is to physically upgrade your RAM — a good idea if you have no more than 4 GB of RAM. But that is a time-consuming operation that will cost you around a hundred bucks. Luckily, there is a shortcut.

How to fix it: Flush your RAM using Terminal

You can perform this operation if your system urgently needs a fresh memory. This is often the case with media converters and video editors that consume all the RAM they can get. A native macOS tool, Terminal has a special command to release your available RAM.

Go to Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
Now copy-paste the following command into the Terminal window: sudo purge
Enter your user password to confirm.
Hopefully, you’ll immediately see the results.

Tip

A safer option is to free up RAM using CleanMyMac X’s Menu App. This service app shows you how heavily is your RAM loaded and helps you free it up with just one button click.

15. Slow keyboard response

An often-reported lag that could seriously alter your productivity. Sometimes, when you type, your keyboard would freeze for a fraction of a second. This lag usually affects the Notes app as well as Chrome. The issue is reportedly caused by outdated system caches that are responsible for keyboard performance.

How to fix it: Start your Mac in the Safe mode

Shut down your computer
Restart your Mac
Hold down the Shift key
Let go of the key when the login window appears
You’re in the Safe mode — take a note of your keyboard’s response
Restart your Mac in a normal way

Entering the Safe mode erases lots of unneeded caches and repairs some software paths inside your macOS. Your Mac should perform better if you’ve followed the steps correctly.

16. Your Mac wakes up slowly

If you don’t use your Mac for a while, it will eventually succumb into a standby mode to save some energy. Just as with humans, some Macs are more difficult to wake up than others — no matter what keys you are pressing your screen is still black.

How to fix it: Try a special Terminal hack

Normally, the standby mode activates after 3 hours of no operation. You can prolong this time by using a command in the Terminal. What it does is change the standby threshold to 24 hours so your Mac takes a quick nap rather falls into a deep sleep.

Open the Terminal application.
Paste in the following command: sudo pmset -a standbydelay 86400
Enter your system password.

In order to reverse it, you will need to change the number in the above command to 10800. Bookmark this article so you don’t forget!

17. Broken or conflicting permissions

Files on your Mac have permissions that determine which applications and services are allowed to access these files. Over time, permission problems occur, causing your macOS to lag, freeze and even crash.

How to fix it: Repair disk permissions

macOS is able to address broken and conflicting permissions via the Disk Utility application (Applications/Utilities). Once in Disk Utility, you need to highlight your startup disk and click on the First Aid tab. Now click on the Run button, then press Continue and your Mac will scour your drive, finding and fixing permissions so that next time an application needs that file, your Mac can find it immediately.

Note: Users with El Capitan OS X will notice that this option is not available anymore. This is because Apple have added SIP (System Integrity Protection), which automatically repairs disk permissions. However, not all apps receive these automatic repairs.

CleanMyMac X is able to repair all disk permissions thanks to its Maintenance Module. With CleanMyMac X you also gain the ability to run other powerful scripts that will optimize your Mac in a number of other areas as well.

To fix broken and conflicting permissions with CleanMyMac X:

Download CleanMyMac X — a link to a free edition of the app
Click Maintenance tab > Choose Repair Disk Permissions

The utility will automatically take care of the rest. Fixing conflicting and broken permissions doesn’t get any easier than with CleanMyMac X.

18. Piles of large and old files

There are two places that usually become “data dumps” on anybody’s Mac. That’s Downloads and Trash folders. As an outcome, your drive space shrinks and performance drops.

How to fix it: Clean up Downloads and Trash folders

Right-click on Trash bin and choose Empty the Trash. Now, go to your Downloads and sort files by size. There you’ll probably encounter things you hardly remember downloading, like old movies or photo albums.

Search for .DMG files in Downloads

Move your media files to iCloud
Transfer data to an external drive
Remove duplicate files and folders

The good solution to remove duplicate content is an app called Gemini 2. It can tell copies from originals and even locate look-alike files (not exactly identical). Give it a spin — the download is free.

19. Too many open windows

If you didn’t know, the Finder is very memory-demanding. Unlike Windows, windows in Finder often overlap and go into the background. This is true for Preview, Mail, and many other apps. So you’re faced with dozens of open windows without even knowing where they are located.

How to fix it: Click “Merge All Windows”

This lesser-known trick has been hiding in plain sight and will soon become your best weapon against windows overload. “Merge All Windows” works for Finder as well as Preview. You can find it inside the Window menu in the upper bar.

Click Finder
Click Window
Click “Merge All Windows”

See what happened? All your scattered windows now joined together in one. From there you can close them one by one thus saving your precious memory resources.

20. Your photo library is too heavy

How many gigabytes of photos are there on your drive? 5 GB, 10 GB, have any idea? That’s exactly the point. We seldom bother to check how many photos we have collected over the years. In any case, there will be more than you expect. This results in a lagging computer because your hard drive space is quickly vanishing.

How to fix it: Move your pics to an external drive

Not only does this get you a few gigabytes of extra space, but it also motivates you to put your photo library in order. Better late than never. You may transfer your photo library to Google Drive or DropBox, or move it to separate storage. How to do it:

Quit Photos
Go the external drive in the Finder to choose a new storage place.
In a new Finder window, locate your current Photos library. It is usually located in Users > [username] > Pictures.
Drag and drop your library to its new destination.

After your library is copied and you’ve checked that it opens from the new destination you may delete your current library to save disk space.

Final thoughts on how to fix Mac running slow

So we have run over the main methods to speed up a slow Mac. They all boil down to one simple idea: give your Mac some space to breathe. Eventually, any Mac is going to fill up with all kinds of garbage that's consuming resources, memory and disk space. You can speed up your Mac either manually or use an app like CleanMyMac X (which does 80% of things we’ve described in this article). More realistically, you will devise your own mix of automatic and manual solutions that will bring your Mac back to speed again.

These might also interest you:

Struggling with a slow computer? Find out why your PC is so slow and discover a few ways to speed it up

A slow computer can make even the simplest of jobs feel like a real hassle. Luckily, there are plenty of things you can do to speed up your PC and improve its performance.

Read on to discover how to fix a slow computer and prevent your machine from slowing down further in the long term.

Why is my computer slow?

Your operating system has to manage the resources of your computer (memory, drive space, processing power) between all the programs that are running on it. There’s a huge number of things that may be reducing your computer’s performance, but they usually boil down to your PC’s resources being used inefficiently.

Here are some of the things that slow down your computer:

Running out of RAM (Random Access Memory)
Running out of disk drive space (HDD or SSD)
Old or fragmented hard drive
Too many background programs
Too many startup programs
Falling behind on Windows or driver updates
Malware or viruses
Special effects and visual features

If your computer is running slow, read on for ways to fix each of these issues.

How to make your computer faster

Restart your computer

If your computer speed is not what it should be, the first thing to try is restarting your computer.

Your operating system allocates space in RAM for programs as they run on your computer. Your RAM will eventually fill up, which will slow down your computer as your operating system starts using the swap file instead.

The swap file is a file on your disk drive that your operating system uses for data that is currently being used by programs, when your RAM, which is normally used for that purpose, runs out of space. Since hard-disk drives (HDDs) and even the much faster solid-state drives (SSDs) are slower than RAM, your computer will slow down significantly when it resorts to using the swap file.

Simply closing programs that are running on your computer helps, but restarting your computer allows it to be refreshed in a number of other ways as well. It ensures programs won’t keep running on the background (scroll down for more about background programs), allows Windows updates to be installed, and can fix a number of bugs that you might be suffering from, such as memory leaks, which cause programs to eat up much more RAM than they should.

If you notice applications starting up automatically after you have restarted your computer, your PC performance might be suffering from startup programs. Scroll down to the startup program section of this guide to learn more about them and how you can stop them from slowing down your computer.

Clean your hard drive

When your hard drive memory is full, it slows down your computer because the operating system doesn’t have enough free space to work adequately. Your Operating System (OS) needs space to use the swap file, prevent fragmentation, and to create temporary files (more on these later).

To make sure that your computer isn’t slow because of a full hard drive, ensure that there is at least 500MB (megabytes) of disk space available. You can check how much free space you have by opening File Explorer and clicking ‘This PC’ on the left navigation bar. Your main drive will normally be called ‘Windows (C:)’, but if you have other drives you can also see how much space they have from this screen.

Even if you have multiple drives it’s best to make sure that each individual drive has a buffer of 500MB to help the operating system manage the files on the drive better.

Here are some tips for doing a disk cleanup and increasing the performance of your PC:

Empty your Recycle Bin: Files build up in the recycle bin when you use your PC, so clearing it occasionally will help you keep up the performance of your computer. Double-click the Recycle Bin icon on your desktop, right-click anywhere and select ‘Empty Recycle Bin’. You can also right-click on the Recycle Bin icon itself.
Remove unwanted programs: Programs that you don’t want or need may be taking up hard drive space and slowing down your PC. To remove them, open Control Panel through the Windows search bar (accessible via the Windows icon in the bottom-left of your screen) and click ‘Uninstall a program’ under the Programs header. Use the window that opens up to uninstall programs that you don’t need.

Any third-party programs like bundled games and camera apps will normally be safe to remove. But if something has Microsoft or ‘driver’ in the name it might be a good idea to Google the program and check what it does before removing it, so you won’t accidentally remove something that your operating system needs to function.

Clean your Downloads folder: Open File Explorer and select Downloads from the Quick Access bar to the left. Move the files that you still need to the appropriate folders, such as Documents, and simply delete the rest. If you don’t regularly clean this folder, the files you download from the internet will accumulate, taking up space on your hard drive and slowing down your PC.
Find and delete temporary files: These are files that programs and your operating system use to store temporary data, such as files that programs download when installing updates. Over time temp files can build up to take a lot of space on your hard drive. Temporary files can be quite tricky to find as they are mostly in hidden folders, and it’s hard to know what is safe to remove. You can access your main temporary file folder by exiting all open programs, pressing the Windows key + R, typing in %TMP% and clicking ‘OK.’ This will bring up a folder that contains most of the temporary files on your computer, however, it may include files that programs are still using and shouldn’t be removed.

To safely remove temporary files that your computer doesn’t need anymore, it’s best to use a program like CCleaner, which can do it for you in one click.

Clear the cache and cookies on your web browser: The cache (web pages your browser saves to improve browsing speed) and cookies (data stored on your computer by websites you visit) build up as you browse the web, and unless you clear them regularly they can take up a large amount of space on your drive. Most browsers have the option to clear these somewhere in their settings menu. For more about cookies and the cache and instructions on how to clear them on each browser, head over to our articles ‘How to clear your browser cookies’ and ‘What is my cache and why does it need clearing.’

If you’re still struggling to make space on your hard drive, consider storing your files and documents in the cloud to free up space on your own drive. Services like Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive all provide a couple of GB (gigabytes) of free storage, with the option to upgrade up to TB (terabytes) of storage for a monthly fee. These services allow you to not only clear your hard drive of data and improve your computer’s performance, but also give you the ability to access your files from any computer or phone with an internet connection.

You can also use CCleaner to clear up your Recycle Bin, Downloads folder, temporary files and your browser cache and cookies in one go, quickly freeing up space on your hard drive and improving the performance of your PC.

Defragment your hard drive

When you free up space on your hard drive, it doesn’t go into a big pot of free space, it remains where the deleted data was filed as a fragment. After a while, your hard drive fills up and starts to use up the little free fragments - creating your document or file from a number of locations on the disc. This takes more time for your computer to do.

Defragmenting – or defragging - your hard drive organizes the disorganized bits of data on your hard drive into easily accessible and ordered blocks. If your PC has slowed down over time, defragmenting can help speed it up. In particular, programs that have large file sizes (video editors, games, etc.) will cause your hard drive to fragment and defragmenting will improve their performance. To read more about the benefits of defragging and how you can do it on your PC, head over to our article ‘How to defrag your computer’. You can also use software such as CCleaner’s Defraggler to easily defragment your computer.

Disable background programs

A slow computer is often caused by too many programs running simultaneously, taking up processing power and reducing the PC’s performance. Some programs will continue running in the background even after you have closed them or will start automatically when you boot up your computer.

To see what background programs are running on your PC and how much of your memory and processing power they are taking, open Task Manager, which you can access by pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE.

On Windows, 10 Task manager may open in a simplified view, in which case you’ll need to click ‘More details’ at the bottom first.

Click the CPU, Memory, and Disk headers to sort the programs that are running on your computer by how much of your computer’s resources they are taking. For example, if your memory bar is close to or at 100%, you should sort programs by their memory use and close the ones that you don’t need.

It’s possible to close programs directly from the Task Manager by selecting them and clicking ‘End task’ at the bottom right. However, if you don’t know what a program does, you should Google it first to check so you don’t accidentally close something that your operating system needs.

Disable startup programs

If your computer has slowed down and the time it takes to boot has gone up, it is likely because there are too many programs running on startup. Lots of programs come with an option to run automatically at boot. This is useful if you’re going to use the program whenever you’re on your computer, but if there are too many programs that run on startup it can seriously slow down your boot time as well as reduce your performance when they run in the background.

On Windows 8 and Windows 10, you no longer need to use the System Configuration tool to manage startup programs as you did in Windows 7. Instead, you can do it right from the Task Manager, which you can open by pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE and clicking ‘Task Manager’. Click on the ‘Start-up’ tab at the top to see what startup programs are enabled and their impact on your computer’s boot time and performance.

To disable a program from starting up automatically, select it and click ‘Disable’ in the bottom-right corner. Make sure to not disable programs you actually need, like your antivirus or driver programs.

You can also easily and safely manage startup programs on any computer with CCleaner. The options to manage startup programs in CCleaner can be found in 'Tools' > 'Startup', where you can simply click Disable on the programs you don’t need starting up with your PC.

Scan for malware and viruses

Malware and viruses will slow down your computer if it has been infected. Make sure that you are using an up-to-date antivirus program, and run any scans to find viruses that may be eating up your computer’s performance.

Upgrade your memory

Random Access Memory is what your computer uses to store information that the operating system and programs running on it are currently using - unlike your disk drives (HDD or SSD) which are where programs and files are otherwise stored. A memory upgrade is one of the best ways to increase computer speed and performance.

If your computer has less than 4GB of RAM it will likely be slowed down when programs have to compete for their share of memory. When RAM runs out, your computer starts using a file on the hard drive called the swap file instead – and as hard drives are much slower than RAM, you’ll notice a significant difference in performance.

If you use programs that need to store a large amount of information in memory for quick access, such as games and video-editing programs, you should have at least 6GB of RAM so your computer won’t have to resort to using the swap file too often.

If you have a desktop computer upgrading your RAM should be relatively easy, you will just need to purchase your new RAM and stick it into the slots that will be pointed out to you in your motherboard’s manual. On laptops, upgrading your RAM may or may not be possible without purchasing an entirely new computer. You will have to refer to your laptop’s manual to see if upgrading your RAM is possible on your own device.

Upgrade your hard drive

If your computer is slow when booting up, opening files or loading games, you will see a great increase in performance by switching from a hard drive to a solid-state drive. Unlike hard drives where the drive spins around to allow data to be read from it, SSDs do not have any moving parts, instead of storing data on interconnected transistors that work at lightning speed. When hard drives start up it takes time for the drive to spin to full speed, whereas SSDs work instantly, allowing data to be read much faster and speeding up your PC.

If you have a desktop PC, buying and installing an SSD should be easy, and you can find plenty of guides on finding and installing the right SSD online. If you have a laptop, however, changing your disk drive will likely prove hard or impossible. Lots of new laptops do have SSDs so it’s something you can keep in mind for when you decide it’s time to upgrade your laptop.

Install system updates

Making sure that your computer has the latest Windows updates, as well as having up-to-date drivers, is important for the best PC performance. New Windows and driver updates provide performance improvements, and falling behind on them may cause your PC to slow down. You can manage your computer’s updates from the Settings menu.

Open the Windows start menu, and click the Settings icon on the left
Click 'Update & Security'
This page will tell you if you’re behind on Windows updates, and what steps you need to take if you are

Reinstall Windows

If all else fails, reinstalling Windows is the best option to try before resorting to new hardware. If you have used your computer for a while chances are that you’ve built up programs and files that you don’t use anymore. And while cleaning them out one by one helps, only by uninstalling then reinstalling Windows can you be sure that you’ve gotten rid of everything. All your settings and drivers will be reset to default.

Remember to backup all your important files before reinstalling Windows, as this process will clear all data from your hard drive. You can use Windows’ own backup tool which you can find by searching ‘backup’ in the start menu, or you can save your files on the cloud services discussed earlier.

Additional speed issues with Windows 10

Windows 10 added some special effects and visual features like animations and shadows which take up processing power. Disabling them may improve your Windows 10 performance.

Type in ‘Performance’ in the Windows search bar and select ‘Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows.’
On the Visual Effects tab, click ‘Adjust for best performance’ and then ‘Apply.’ This will disable all unnecessary visual features and stop them from slowing down your Windows 10 PC.

Windows 10 installations will often come with default apps, which can be uninstalled to free up disk space and improve performance if you don’t use or need them. Some of these you can uninstall like any other program (see above), but others annoyingly won’t give you the option to be uninstalled directly.

We recommend CCleaner to keep your computer safe and improve performance. CCleaner helps you browse more safely by erasing your search history and online trackers, can delete junk files that are using valuable space, update software, and help you to manage your PC so it can perform at its best. You can download CCleaner here.

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