I noticed my iMac is just a tad slower

[Michelle Pena]

I have a Mac desktop running Mojave 10.14.6 and Photoshop 2019. It is under 2 years old, and has 16GB of RAM. Its hard drive has 108.51GB free out of 250.69GB. The last time I shut down was more than 24 hours ago. I have never run a cleanup program.

It could be almost 3 years old.

 

[Brian]

On 12/28/2020 at 8:07 PM, Michelle Pena said:

has 16GB of RAM. Its hard drive has 108.51GB free out of 250.69GB.

Things that kill performance on a Mac:

• Lack of Hard Drive Space. Your main drive is incredibly small by today's standards. I normally recommend a 1TB Drive for a Main Drive
• Lack of RAM. 16GB is the minimum these days, with 32GB preferred. If you have a 27" iMac, you should be able to upgrade it. If you have a 21.5" model or a Macbook, forget it.
• Storing files and folders on the Mac Desktop. The more crap you have on the desktop, the slower the damn thing runs. Please give this article that I wrote a good read: I've been saving on my desktop!
• External Hard Drives are near capacity. Even though your internal HD has about 40% left, if your externals are at 80% full or more and are hooked up to your Mac, that will also kill performance. You never want to go above 75%-80% Full on ANY HD when it comes to a Mac.
• I highly recommend purchasing and running CleanMyMac X from Macpaw.com. You can download the program and have it run a scan to see how it works, but to actually clean up your computer, you need to pony up the $$'s and purchase it. Just buy it. I run CleanMyMac at least Weekly on my system and have since 2009.
• You are running Google Chrome and have a bunch of tabs open. Chrome is a RAM hog and the more tabs you have open at the same time, the more RAM it uses. Safari is also uses A LOT of RAM. Firefox is a little better in this dept, and I recommend that browser over the others.
• Check your downloads folder and clear out unnecessary files. You'd be surprised on just how much crap is in that folder.
• The following items can be run in CleanMyMac X under the Maintenance Section: 
  • Repair Permissions. This doesn't have a dramatic effect, it's just good general housekeeping that should be done monthly.
  • Free Up Purgeable Space. These files are deemed removable by the MacOS. Unfortunately, they sometimes get forgotten about and clog up your HD with them just sitting there. I would run this option at least annually. More if you delete huge amounts of files at once trying to clear up space.
• If you have upgraded your camera recently and it has more MP, then the more horsepower is required from your computer. Even if they are 24-30MP, your Mac will run noticeably slower than files that were 12MP - 16MP.

[Michelle Pena]

Thank you I will be purchasing the Cleanmymac. 

When cleaning out the downloads folder and they are files I still need , should I place them in another folder ? Doesn't make sense to cause it will clutter up that space anyway?

I had one psd folder on my desktop and now I am removing it.

I just purchased a new external hardrive.

My PS and ACR have been running normally. 

[Brian]

8 minutes ago, Michelle Pena said:

should I place them in another folder ?

That's up to you. I just recommend keeping tabs on the Downloads folder, because browsers download stuff all the time to that folder, anything you download ends up in that folder, etc. So if you aren't careful, you will have lots of space being eaten up by files in that folder, that you may or may not need. It doesn't hurt anything by leaving them there, it's just if the Downloads folder gets out of hand do you need to do some housekeeping. Make sense?

[Michelle Pena]

Yes I think so...Can I delete the item from when I downloaded the new app Cleanmymac? I just purchased it and it has a file from it in the downloads folder. I never know what to do with those.

Any suggestions on what to run on the Cleanmymac? I think I did all three and a deep clean as well.

[Brian]

I will often move those dng files into a folder on a EHD along with screenshots of the license numbers that I get in a email. Just in case I need to format and re-install everything. Now, I don’t go crazy with each and every download which is an update, those I have a tendency to delete. I just want to have a backup if needed. 
 

I normally use CMM at the defaults. But occasionally I will run stuff in the maintenance section. I will post screenshots later on what to click on. 
 

in terms of speed, is your Mac any better? What do you mean slow? Which program do you notice this the most? 

[Michelle Pena]

Ahh ok well I already have dng on EHD so then I can remove those.

Yes after clearing out the downloads and the documents folder( this folder was taking up most space) and running CMM it runs a lot smoother even photoshop seems faster although I didn't see much slowness there. Maybe that's in my head ha! 

Thank you in advance for the screen shots of CMM. There is a lot of options to clean ! 

[Brian]

There is one minor thing you can do periodically, I do it monthly and that is to repair Disk Permissions. Fortunately, CleanMyMac makes it really easy to do this. Open CleanMyMac and select "Maintenance" in the left column. Then click the checkbox next to Repair Disk Permissions, then run it. It should take about 5 or seconds to complete.

[Michelle Pena]

Done! It said my iMac should run smoother lol 

Thanks so much !