OS X is a brilliant and fast operating system, but like all computers, Macs can slow down the more you bung them up with data.
Here is 100 tips to help keep your Mac lean and fast.OS X has bundles of hidden features . We would like to show you on how can we utilise it to the best
Optimise your system
1. Boost memory
The simplest way to a faster Mac is by installing extra RAM. Before you buy, check the maximum RAM capacity of your Mac. You can download a free program called MacTracker that will tell you the precise technical specifications of every Mac ever produced.
2. Install RAM in pairs
Many Macs will give you a speed boost if you install matching RAM modules in pairs. G5 and Mac Pro towers actually require the installation of pairs of modules, though most other Macs will allow the use of an odd number, with the proviso that you won’t get the fastest possible performance from them. Crucial’s website will tell you the specifics for your model.
3. Faster drive
Installing a faster hard drive as the boot drive on a tower Mac will yield performance gains, especially if you go up to a 10,000-speed drive. On a laptop, installing a 7,200rpm drive (to replace a 5,400 rpm model) will also make things faster, though older Mac portables don’t have user replaceable hard drives
4. Is faster memory worth it?
When buying RAM you’ll often have the option to buy faster memory, which of course comes at a higher price. Although it may technically be faster on paper, in reality you may not notice a huge speed bump in real world, everyday use. Spending the extra money on faster hard drives would be a better idea for most users.
5. Graphics cards
On towers like G4s and G5s you may see a benefit to installing a faster graphics card, though only really if you use graphics-heavy software like compositing or video, or if you play a lot of games.
6. Firewire not USB
Although theoretically faster, USB 2.0 isn’t favoured as much by professionals as FireWire due to the speed at which it requests data. So although a USB 2.0 drive will be cheaper, a FireWire one offers superior performance.
7. Know your hardware
To understand the areas in which your Mac could be expanded or powered up, you need to know what its current hardware configuration is like. Go to the Apple menu and choose About This Mac, which shows you simple CPU and RAM details. Then click on the More Info button to open System Profiler.
8. Tweak the CPU
Some G4- and G5-based Macs have a feature called “processor bus slewing”, whereby you can manually increase or reduce the power of the CPU. This is found in System Preferences > Energy Saver.
9. Working with media files
If you’re working with iMovie, GarageBand, iDVD, Final Cut, Logic or another program that uses large media files, storing and working with them off another drive will greatly reduce the strain on your boot drive as it tries to run the system and the main application.
10. Get a faster keyboard
Logitech’s Cordless Desktop S 530 Laser for Mac is a wireless keyboard and mouse designed specifically for the Mac. The keyboard has specialised buttons to quickly open iTunes, iPhoto, Safari, Mail and other applications, while the laser mouse has a tilt wheel plus a zoom control, so you can go side to side and zoom in and out of documents.
11. Recycle old Macs
Rather than throwing away an older Mac, use it to take the strain off your main Mac by using it as a server, internet and email machine, or even for hosting wireless, shared iTunes libraries.
12. Make fewer connections
Reducing the number of devices connected to your Mac over USB or FireWire will help it run a little faster. So if you’re not going to print anything, for example, disconnect the printer.
13. Stick with an older OS X?
If your Mac is elderly, it’s worth sticking with an older version of OS X as the upgrade may bring crippling load for the sake of some features you could live without.
14. Trim the fat
Fancy extras like using an animated screensaver as a desktop background are a huge drain, especially on the CPUs of older Macs. Similarly, having extra users logged in the background and even using Dock magnification can slow down struggling older machines. If you forego these luxuries, your old Mac screen may look a little dull but it will perform to its best abilities.
15. Install less
If you’re installing or reinstalling a system from an OS X DVD, choose Custom Install and then deselect the additional printers and languages, and also the X11. and Developer Tools options. If your Mac came preinstalled, have a look in Macintosh HD > Library > Printers and sort the list of folders by size to see if one is huge, filled with PPD files. The idea in including them is that OS X will be able to recognise many printers. In truth, you only need the one driver for the printer you are running. You can delete these and reinstall the driver from manufacturer’s website.
16. Fewer languages
A free program called Monolingual lets you strip out all unwanted languages from your system. It is also able to remove unwanted architectures from your system (although this is a dangerous thing to play around with unless you’re sure what you’re doing).
17. Delete apps
In terms of applications you can safely delete more or less anything, since the apps themselves don’t contribute to the running of the system, with a few minor exceptions like System Preferences. You should leave the Utilities folder alone as well, since it contains assistants and the AirPort Utility to help you.
18. Reduce slowdowns
Set your backup schedule for times you know you’ll be away from your Mac, so it doesn’t slow things down while you’re working.
19. Minimise on music
Deleting duplicate or unwanted tracks from iTunes is also a great space saver, while clearing out obsolete photos from iPhoto will help. The Find function in OS X can be helpful here, as it lets you search using multiple criteria. So, for example, you could search for all items over 50MB in size that were last opened over one year ago, or something similar
20. Save energy
Don’t leave programs open after you’ve finished using them as they will continue to consume system resources.
Shortcuts and timesavers
21. Select multiple files
Select multiple files and folders by holding down the Command or Shift key as you click with the mouse. This also lets you select non-continuous items, so you can skip those that you don’t need. You can then drag them all to another location as one, or duplicate or copy them all in one go.
22. Open multiple files
Open multiple files and folders as one by hitting Command + [O]. Folders will show their contents, and any files selected will open in their respective applications.
23. Transfer multiple files
If you need to email or transfer a group of files, say via iChat or FTP, multiple-select the items or group them into a folder. Then right-click on the folder or items and choose Create Archive or Compress (depending on your version of OS X). Finder will then create a zip file containing all the items. The overall file size will now be smaller, so sending the email will also be quicker.
24. Make apps appear instantly
If you have programs that you always want to run as soon as you log in – say, iChat, Mail or an RSS newsreader – go to System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items and add them to your login items. (Remember, however, that adding lots of login items will make starting up slower.)
25. Automate tasks
OS X has a dedicated application for speeding up repetitive tasks called Automator. It contains all sorts of building blocks for creating automated workflows, called actions, which can be saved as plug-ins or standalone applications. So, for example, you could create an action to import a folder of images into iPhoto and then sort and export them for the web, or copy music from a folder through iTunes to an iPod then eject it. The possibilities are endless and there are many excellent free actions available on the Apple website.
26. Open applications faster
Rather than navigating to the Applications folder, use the Spotlight search bar and type in the first few letters of the program’s name. It will appear almost at once, and you can click on its name to launch it.
27. Quick connection
To connect to a server, simply hit Command + [K] and you can enter the address of any external server. To see local servers in Leopard, look under the Shared tab in the sidebar of any server window.
28. Save time when deleting unwanted applications
Be sure that you delete an application plus all its support files cleanly, efficiently, and as quickly as possible with the very handy AppZapper.
29. Reduce Desktop clutter
We all tend to drop files and folders on the Desktop for convenience and this can quickly become cluttered, slowing down your work flow. If you go to View > Show View Options, you can alter the way Finder displays items. Controls include changing icon sizes, label positions and whether text information is displayed as part of a folder.
30. Shortcut keys
By going to System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard, you can add your own unique key commands to open specific applications by pressing the Modifier Keys… radio button.
31. Send mutiples to Trash quickly
To send multiple items to Trash in one fell swoop, select the items and press Command + delete.
32. Duplicate items
For a quick way to duplicate multiple items, select items then click Option and drag the items.
33. Speedy save
To save your current document, press Command + [S].
34. Quick quit
To quit the current application, press Command + [Q].
35. Minimise your app
To minimise a currently open window to the Dock, press Command + [M].
36. Open Preferences quickly
To open Preferences, press Command + [,].
37. Hide all open apps
To hide all applications at once, press Command + Option and click on the desktop.
38. Switch between apps
To switch between open applications, press Command + [Tab].
39. Find location
To reveal a file’s location, press Command + click on a window’s name in the title bar.
40. Open Spotlight
To invoke the Spotlight search bar, press Crtl + [spacebar].
Find stuff faster
41. Use Spotlight for metadata
Spotlight uses metadata stored by the system to search within files, not just their filenames. So, for example, it can identify text stored on a layer within a Photoshop document. This makes things quicker to find, even if you can’t remember where they’re stored.
42. Trim Spotlight searches
If you have a folder into which you drop lots of temporary items, consider excluding it from Spotlight’s search in System Preferences > Spotlight. Otherwise the system may slow down as OS X tries to index all the contents, only for you to delete the files shortly afterwards.
43. Create aliases
Aliases are as old as the hills in computing terms, but still a great way to link to files and folders. Just select an item, press Command + [L] or right-click and choose Make Alias, then drag the alias wherever you want it to go. Double-clicking on an alias will open the file or folder without you having to navigate to it; this is particularly useful when something is buried deep in a subfolder or on another drive.
44. Right-click items
Many functions to do with items in the Finder can be found by right-clicking, or [Ctrl]-clicking on them to bring up the contextual menu. Common operations like Move To Trash, Duplicate and Compress can be found here for quick access. Some applications also install contextual menu items, most notably antivirus software (for quick scanning) and compression software like StuffIt (for quick archiving).
45. Quick Look
New in OS X 10.5 Leopard, Quick Look is a fantastic timesaver. Simply select any item in the Finder and press the [spacebar]. If it’s a folder, a window appears, giving you info about its properties. If it’s any other kind of document, you get a live preview of its contents without having to open the document or its associated application. So, Quick Look a movie and you’ll get a playing, scrollable preview with sound.
46. Even quicker look
The Quick Look window in OS X 10.5. is contextual, so if you have it open you can use the arrow keys to Quick Look other items without having to close and open it again.
47. Spring-loaded folders
By default, spring-loaded folders are activated in Finder. If you pick up one or more items and drag them onto a folder without releasing the mouse, after a short break that folder will spring open and you can see its contents. Hold onto one of its subfolders and the same happens, until eventually you reach the bottom of the folder structure. You can drop your items into any level as you go, which saves loads of double-clicking.
48. Speedier springs
You can alter the delay before files spring open, or even disable this feature entirely, in Finder’s Preferences > General tab.
49. Spaces
If you’re tired of juggling lots of windows, try Spaces, another of Leopard’s new features. In the System Preferences you can assign as many rows and columns as you want, up to a total of 4×4, and assign applications to spaces. Then, set up your keyboard shortcuts, such as the Command and arrow keys, to move between spaces and you can have a different set of windows in each space.
50. Quick print
If you have a document that you want to print, you don’t always have to open it first. Simply open your printer from System Preferences > Print and Fax, and drag the items into the window to add them to the print queue.
51. Multiple select
If you need to collect several items together for emailing, transfer via iChat or just backup purposes, multiple-select them by dragging around them, or by holding Shift + Command as you click on them, then right-click and choose Create Archive.
52. Icon viewing
To show items in Icons view, press Command + [1].
53. List view
To show items in List view, press Command + [2].
54. Columns view
To show items in Columns view, press Command + [3].
55. Get multiple info
If you press Command + [I] you can bring up the Get Info panel on multiple items, or hold Command + Option + [I] to get a single info window on the collective properties of all the items.
56. File Sharing
Turn on Personal File Sharing for your networked Macs and they will appear in the Shared section of the sidebar in OS X 10.5. from any other Mac.
57. Quick drop
You can drop any item from Finder onto a folder in the Dock and it will be copied to that folder regardless of the folder’s location.
58. Cover Flow
In 10.5 Leopard, if you switch to Cover Flow view in Finder, you can use the arrow keys to move through live previews of documents, and up and down through the folder hierarchy.
59. Colour labels
You can add a coloured label to more than one file or folder at a time by multiple selecting items, right-clicking and assigning your chosen colour.
60. Hide the Finder window toolbar
To hide/show the selected Finder window’s toolbar, press Command + Option + [T].
Go faster online
61. Trust in tabs
In Safari’s Preferences you can turn on tabbed browsing, which is much easier and quicker than juggling multiple open browser windows. Particularly useful is the option to Command-click on a link; it will open in a new tab behind the current one. A practical application for this is to open several links from a page in tabs, but not view the pages until you have finished with the first page. This saves you going back and forth, reloading the first page.
62. Web Clip Widgets
Safari in Leopard features the new Web Clip Widget tool, which appears as a small button by the address bar. If you select it you can draw around an area of a website, any size that you like, and then click Add.
OS X will then create a widget that will appear in Dashboard, and draw a live version of whatever part of the web page you selected. This is very handy for sites that update frequently. For example, you could draw around the headline feed on the BBC News website and have it visible as a widget, even without Safari open. Or, if you wanted to keep track of an eBay auction or a chat on a message board, a widget could display it, updating in real time, without you having to see the whole page.
63. Bookmarks are best
By clicking on the bookmarks icon, you can organise and manage all your bookmarks for speedy access.
It makes sense to create folders to store in the Bookmarks Bar, grouped by type. So, for example, name one Entertainment and store non-work related sites there, another Holiday stuff with all the links to do with a holiday, and so on. Folders appear with an arrow next to them in the Bookmarks Bar.
64. Open multiple pages in Safari
With multiple pages stored in a folder within the Bookmarks Bar, if you hold the Command key and click on the folder’s name, Safari will open all those pages in separate tabs for you.
65. Jump to boxes
When viewing a web page in Safari, pressing the [Tab] key will cycle the cursor quickly between all available fields on the page, so you don’t have to click in them with the mouse. This is activated in the Advanced section of Preferences. You can hold Option + [Tab] to only cycle between text fields and drop-down menus.
66. Navigate drop-downs
If you [Tab] to a drop-down menu, hitting the up and down arrow keys will open it and move between its options. Pressing [Enter] will choose an option. In this way, you can easily select and access menus and fields without having to move a mouse to them and click.
67. Zoom in Safari
If you’re having trouble reading text in Safari, press Command and the plus key to quickly increase the font size. Repeat with the minus key to return it to normal.
68. Refresh the page
For a quick way to refresh a page in Safari, press Command + [R].
69. Block Flash
If you have an old Mac and/or slow connection, it may be worth using a Flash blocker add-on for Safari, or even Firefox or Camino. Flash content in websites tends to reduce ageing Macs to a crawl.
70. Get news fast
Use NetNewsWire to aggregate all your RSS newsfeeds into a single application, saving you from having to visit and load multiple websites.
71. Quickly track all online auctions
Instead of logging in and out of eBay, use a dedicated tracking client such as GarageBuy or GarageSale to manage everything in one window – much faster than trying to juggle multiple heavy web pages.
72. Quick download
In Safari, you can quickly download the target of any link to the Desktop by holding down the O key and clicking on it. This bypasses the dialog asking you to choose a destination, and involves no menus. If you perform this action on a link that leads to a page, the page will be downloaded. If you hold down the Command key while clicking on a link, it will open in a tab behind the current one (but only if this is enabled in Safari’s Preferences).
73. Prevent clutter
In Safari’s Preferences > General tab, you can choose a location to save downloaded files. In Tiger, the default is the Desktop; in Leopard, it’s the Downloads folder. It makes sense to divert downloads to a specific folder, like in Leopard, as it keeps the Desktop free of clutter and you can manage all downloaded items in a single location. Also, if you’re running antivirus software such as the free ClamXav, you can tell it to “watch” the download folder, which means it will automatically scan that specific folder for any nasties you may inadvertently get from malicious websites.
74. Quick Look Mail
In Mail 3.1. in Leopard, if you receive a message with attachments, you have the option to activate Quick Look from within the message. Click on the Quick Look button by the attachments and you can preview them without having to open their associated application. Pictures, movies, sounds, PDFs and text documents can all be previewed from within Mail as easily as from the Finder. The Quick Look window lets you scroll between attachments, view full screen, or view an index sheet of all attachments, then zoom in on any one.
75. Auto-check mail
In Mail’s Preferences > General section, you can set Mail to automatically check for new messages at specific intervals, from every hour down to every minute.
76. Mail this page
In Safari, you can go to the File menu and choose to mail a link to the page. This opens your default email program, inserts the URL of the page, and uses the HTML title of the page as the message subject. All you have to do is enter the recipient name. Another option lets you mail the contents of the page to someone. This is a great feature, as it places a copy of the page, fully working with all links, straight into a new Mail message. Bear in mind that this latter shortcut only works with Mail, and isn’t supported by other email clients.
77. Sending photos
Mail in Leopard supports direct access to your iPhoto and Photo Booth libraries, so it’s quick and easy to drop pictures straight into a message. Once you’re there, some pictures can be very large, so you can right-click on one and choose View As Icon to show it in the body of the message as a small icon, which can be much neater. Alternatively, to view it at full size again, right-click and choose View In Place.
78. Automatic Gmail notifications
Download the Google Notifier software and you will be able to get notifications of new mail and calendar events in your menu bar, leaving no need to open a browser to check for mail.
79. Build websites faster
In iWeb, choose View > Media Browser and you can access all the music, pictures and movies in your iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie libraries. These can be dragged and dropped into projects and iWeb will automatically create the right kinds of plug-ins to enable the content to display.
80. iWeb inspector
To show or hide the Inspector quickly in iWeb, press Option + Command + [I]
Speed up iLife
81. Multiple libraries
Large libraries can mean iTunes and iPhoto are slow to start up, so you can speed up by your workflow by creating several smaller libraries. To create one, hold down the Option key when you start up the app, select Create and choose a location.
82. Multiple edit in iTunes
In iTunes, you can select multiple tracks in a playlist or in the library and press Command + [I] or choose File > Get Info. This opens the Multiple Item Information window, where you can perform batch operations on files. For example, enter text in any of the fields, like Album Title, Comments or Year, and when you hit OK, iTunes will insert information into the tags of all selected files.
83. Batch Change
In iPhoto, if you multiple-select a number of pictures and right-click on them, you can choose Batch Change. This calls up a window where you can set new titles, dates or descriptions for all selected pictures at once. It’s handy for quickly tagging lots of photos with a view to searching or creating a smart album.
84. Multiple send
With multiple pictures selected in iPhoto, choose File > Export and you can quickly send multiple images to a slideshow, web page or folder with format conversion and compression.
85. Quick iTunes import
If you go to iTunes’ Preferences > Advanced > Importing tab, you can set it so that when you insert a CD, iTunes will import its tracks based on the encoder settings and eject the disc when it’s finished.
86. iPhoto events
In iPhoto ’08’s Events view, if you roll the mouse over an event you get a mini slideshow of all the pictures contained in it, helping you to quickly identify whether the image you want is there. If you find it, then right-click and choose Make Key Photo; that image will become the one that displays by default in the Events window.
87. iPhoto full screen
To view in full screen mode in iPhoto, press Command + [R].
88. Create playlists from the library
A quick way to sort an iTunes library into separate playlists is to click the Artist or Album columns to sort the list, grouping tracks according to those criteria. Then, multiple-select all the tracks from an album or by an artist and choose File > New Playlist from Selection, or press Command + Shift + [N]. iTunes will create a playlist from the tracks and name it based on the tags. You can multiple-select different tracks from many artists or albums and do this to create a compilation.
89. iTunes Visualizer
To turn on the iTunes Visualizer, press Command + [T]
90. Share your media
In iMovie, if you choose to share a project to the Media Browser from the Share menu, it’s placed in a central pool of media and will be available to other iLife apps. Choose to share at full quality if you want to burn the movie to DVD.
91. Movie preferences
iMovie renders most of its transitions and titles in real time, but iDVD doesn’t, so you can go into iDVD’s Preferences and activate background rendering, which will save time when it comes to finalising and burning the DVD.
92. iDVD slideshow
To add a slideshow to your project in iDVD, press Command + [L].
93. Quick copy
To duplicate files in iTunes or iPhoto, you can simply drag one or more pictures or music tracks out of the application and on to any hard drive, or the Desktop. In iPhoto, dragging an event out of the program will duplicate all pictures or movies stored within that event.
94. Back up solution
By default, iTunes stores everything in Username > Music > iTunes, and iPhoto in Username > Pictures > iPhoto Library. Dragging these items to an external or secondary hard drive will perform a quick and simple backup of the entire library.
95. Get iTunes artwork
iTunes is able to search the web for any artwork which may be missing from your music tracks if you have an iTunes Store account. It does this by using the artist and album information. In Preferences > General, you can tell iTunes to search and download artwork automatically.
96. Make a quick web page
In iPhoto, if you select one or more images, you can use the iWeb shortcut at the bottom-right of the window to quickly create an HTML page and open iWeb. iPhoto will handle the compression of the images and the formatting, which you can then change if you wish and upload.
97. Make a video message
In all recent versions of iMovie, you can record directly from a built-in iSight if your Mac has one. Just click the camera icon and then choose iSight. When you’re done, you can share the file either to a QuickTime movie or using the Share menu, straight to iWeb or Mail. This is a great way of making a video diary or video blog without a video camera.
98. iMovie toggling
To toggle between clip and timeline view in iMovie HD, press Command + [E].
99. Share music round your home
You can keep all your music on one machine and access it from any Mac. In iTunes’ Preferences, activate Share My Music. On other Macs, activate Look For Shared Music. This works best on a wireless network, and you can password protect the shared library.
100. Back up in iTunes
In iTunes, you can choose to only back up items added or changed since the last backup, which saves you having to remember what you’ve already backed up (File > Back Up To Disc > Back Up iTunes Store Purchases). iTunes also has a special playlist called Purchased to help you find your purchased tracks.
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