Mac Performance
Why Is My MacBook Running Slowly?
A step-by-step way to find out why your MacBook feels slow, from Activity Monitor and storage to login items, browsers, and heat, before you spend a cent.
7 min read Updated
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Mac Performance Guides
A slow Mac is a symptom with many causes: a runaway process, a nearly full disk, a login item you forgot, a thermal limit, or simply a workload the machine is no longer suited to. Guessing wastes hours.
The performance guides here lean on the monitoring tools already built into macOS. You will learn to read Activity Monitor, spot memory pressure, and tell a software problem from a hardware ceiling before you spend any money.
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Mac Performance4 items
Guide
How to Fix High CPU Usage on Mac
How to identify which process is using too much CPU on a Mac, decide whether it is safe to stop, and fix the usual causes.
3 min
Guide
How to Fix MacBook Overheating
Why a MacBook gets hot, how to tell normal warmth from a problem, and the fixes that actually reduce heat.
3 min
Guide
Why Is WindowServer Using So Much CPU?
What the WindowServer process does, why it can use a lot of CPU, and how displays, windows, and transparency settings affect it.
2 min
Guide
Why Is My MacBook Running Slowly?
A step-by-step way to find out why your MacBook feels slow, from Activity Monitor and storage to login items, browsers, and heat, before you spend a cent.
7 min
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Best Mac Optimization Software
A sceptical look at Mac optimization tools: what they can genuinely improve, what is marketing, and how we will evaluate them.
2 min read