For most users, the default macOS settings are just fine. But over time, you might find that your Mac starts to feel slow and show its age. While much of this comes down to the natural aging process of any piece of tech, it doesn’t hurt to give yourself the best chances.
So here are a few settings that you might want to investigate if you’re looking to improve performance.
8
Clean Up Login Items
Over time, the number of apps that start up alongside macOS will grow. This can be handy, like when using window managers like Rectangle to better arrange your desktop. But much of the time, these apps are surplus to requirement and only serve to slow things down.
These apps can take up precious RAM or perform taxing processes immediately after running, occupying valuable processing power. This happens at a time when macOS is waking up, increasing the time you have to wait before you can properly use your Mac.
Head to System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions and take a look at the “Open at Login” section. Here you’ll find a list of items that start up when your Mac does. Click on one then use the “-“ minus button to remove it from the list.
Want to add something? Click on the “Plus” icon, locate it, and then click “Open.”
7
Disable Background Processes
Also part of the System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions menu is the “Allow in the Background” section, which appears just below “Open at Login.” This is a list of launch agents that are running in the background when your Mac starts, usually to make opening full versions of apps a faster or smoother process.
For example, the Google Updater agent will attempt to update the Chrome browser and the Adobe Creative Cloud agent will do the same for apps like Photoshop. Some of these items are just regular apps, like Magnet and ExpressVPN. Others are leftovers from apps that haven’t been uninstalled properly.
Use the buttons to disable any launch agents you want to prevent running. If you don’t know what they do, consider disabling them until you decide that you genuinely do need them. If you really don’t use the app at all, consider deleting it altogether.
6
Choose to Shut Down or Restart Cleanly
When you shut down or restart your Mac by picking one of these options under the Apple menu at the top of the screen, you’ll see a confirmation box appear. At the bottom of the warning is a checkbox that, by default, will “Reopen windows when logging back in.”
With this enabled, everything you have open on restart will also start up when your Mac starts up again. This has a similar effect to leaving login items and launch agents enabled. It’s going to delay how quickly you can start using your Mac when you start it back up.
When you disable this item, it will remain disabled until you enable it again. If you’re especially good at keeping a lid on your apps, you might want to leave it on. Sick of three browsers, a video editor, and Steam opening up every time you start your Mac? You know what to do.
5
Disable Low Power Mode
Low Power Mode should only engage when your MacBook is on battery power, and by default, your Mac will handle this setting for you. While it’s a good idea to leave the setting at its default value if you’re concerned about maximizing battery life, if you want all of the power regardless of whether your Mac is plugged in or not, you can disable it instead.
Head to System Settings > Battery and then under “Energy Mode” select “High Power” for both battery and plugged-in modes.
4
Enable Automatic Updates
Keeping things up to date is important for security, but outdated software might also be leaving performance on the table. Enabling automatic updates across your Mac can ensure that you’re using the most up-to-date software with all of the latest optimizations.
You can enable this for your operating system under System Settings > General > Software Update. Click the “i” information button next to “Automatic Updates” and enable the checkboxes. At the very least, telling macOS to download the latest updates will ensure they’re ready to go when you’re ready to install them.
As long as you have a regular Time Machine routine, there isn’t much risk of data loss occurring from a botched update. You can also enable automatic updates for Mac App Store apps from the same menu. You should do the same for individual apps where appropriate, or turn to running an app like Latest which checks your apps for outstanding updates.
Conversely, you might want to avoid installing brand new major macOS upgrades immediately. These are much larger updates that include far more changes like new major versions of core apps like Safari and Notes. They make changes to the operating system that might break apps that you rely on, so only upgrade to a major macOS version (e.g. macOS 15 to macOS 16) when you’re happy any software you rely on has been updated (and even then, prepare for some instability).
The good news here is that macOS won’t install these updates automatically, ever. You’ll need to opt in and manually initialize the update.
3
Optimize Mac Storage With iCloud
macOS depends on a small buffer of free space for operations like swapping data in and out of RAM, downloading essential updates, and temporary file storage. A lack of free space won’t impact your Mac’s performance until it’s too late but, eventually, it can cause everything to grind to a halt.
Fortunately, you can avoid getting to that stage by managing your Mac’s free space accordingly. In addition to some quick fixes like nuking the Downloads folder, you can choose to sacrifice some iCloud space. This works by offloading files (that you rarely access) to the cloud.
These files will appear on your Mac as if they’re still there, but they’ll have a small cloud icon next to them. When you try to access them, your Mac will fetch them from iCloud and they’ll be downloaded. The larger the file, the bigger the gains, but the longer the download.
You can enable this setting under System Settings > Your Name > iCloud > Drive. Turn on “Optimize Mac Storage” and let your Mac take care of everything for you. Just remember that you might need to invest in more storage for this to work.
Want to keep a file permanently on your Mac, regardless of how often you access it? Find the file and right-click (Control+click) it then use the “Keep Downloaded” option to avoid the file being offloaded to iCloud.
2
Kill Your Browser Extensions
Browser extensions can seriously slow down website performance. If you find your browser to be sluggish, disabling and uninstalling extensions is probably the best thing you can do (after troubleshooting a slow internet connection, of course).
This will only affect web browsing performance, but for many Mac users that’s 90% of the time spent on a computer. If you use web apps for managing projects, taking notes, or even completing office work like word processing then this can have a massive impact on your Mac usage.
How you go about this depends largely on which browser you’re using. On Safari, it’s a case of clicking Safari > Settings at the top of the screen and then navigating to the “Extensions” tab. Uncheck an extension to turn it off, or select it and then use the “Uninstall” button to remove it entirely.
In Chrome, this can be found under Chrome > Settings > Extensions. In Firefox you’ll want to access Firefox > Preferences > Extensions & Themes.
1
Turn Off Animations
To be perfectly transparent: turning off animations won’t technically make your Mac faster. What it can do, however, is make your make feel faster—and isn’t that the whole point?
You can turn off the swiping animations when moving between desktop spaces, as well as the animations associated with Mission Control, App Exposé, reveal Desktop, and Launchpad under System Settings > Accessibility > Display by using the “Reduce Motion” toggle.
Alternatively, you can get access to many more animation toggles by downloading the free TinkerTool tweaker app.
Looking for more fixes to common Mac problems? Learn how to eject stubborn external drives, discover some apps to help you focus, and learn how to best organize your Mac’s files.
