You probably noticed that after you upgraded to OS X El Capitan, slow Mac started to become a trouble. Why does this happen? Well, we found out that El Capitan needs a lot more disk space and RAM to run quickly. The good news is, it's not just possible to speed up El Capitan — it's pretty simple.
How to Clear Safari Cache Mac OS X El Capitan - Clean Safari cache. OnyX is a multifunction utility that you can use to verify the structure of the system files, to run miscellaneous maintenance and cleaning tasks, to configure parameters in the Finder, Dock, Safari, and some Apple applications, to delete caches, to remove certain problematic folders and files, to rebuild various databases and indexes, and more.
The easiest way to get a faster Mac with El Capitan is to get a Mac cleaner. You can download CleanMyMac X for free and simply let the app do everything for you. Speeding up El Capitan with it will only take a few minutes. But if you want to do it manually, read on.
Go over each step to speed up El Capitan system.
1.Speed up your Mac's startup
It starts at the very beginning. When you turn your Mac on, it typically launches a dozen apps at once. And you probably don't need most of them at that moment. This could be one of the reasons El Capitan running slow. To stop them from launching on startup, go to System Preferences, choose Users & Groups and then click your username. Check the unnecessary apps and click.
Don't worry, if you accidentally remove something useful, just add it back by clicking and choosing it from the Applications folder.
2.Major hard drive cleaning
One of the reasons a Mac gets slow is a full hard drive. To find out how cluttered yours is, click on the main Apple menu in the top left corner and choose About This Mac > Storage. If you see the top bar getting full, like in the screenshot below, it's time to clean up some space.
It might take a while, so here's a piece of advice on how to approach it.
- Arrange your files and folders by size to find the biggest.
To do it: open Finder, click on All My Files in the left menu bar (if you don't see it there, press Command+Shift+F (?+?+F), and then click View in the top menu bar and select Show View Options. Now choose Sort by Size and Arrange by Size. Now all your files are arranged from the biggest to the smallest. - Arrange your files and folders by date.
If you'd like to arrange them by date to find files you haven't opened in a while (maybe you forgot they were even there!), you can do this by following the steps above, and then changing arrange by Size, to arrange by Date Last Opened. Now click on Date Last Opened in the name of the column and you get a list starting with the oldest files you have.
Don't forget to look at the file type distribution in the Storage tab. It might give you a hint on the folders that occupy the most space and need cleaning.
This process takes a while because your Mac can't arrange files by both size and date at once. However, there are apps that can, such as CleanMyMac X. It has a special module that looks exactly for large and old files and sorts them for you. You can delete the files you don't need directly from the app in just a few clicks.
3. Trim down your system
Trimming down your system includes cleaning cache and temporary files, and flushing DNS.
Cleaning cache files on El Capitan
- Open a Finder window and select “Go to Folder” in the Go menu, at the top of the screen.
- Type in ~/Library/Caches and hit “enter” to proceed to this folder. Important: remove the insides of these folders, but not the folders themselves.
- Repeat 1 and 2, but replace ~/Library/Caches with /Library/Caches (simply lose the ~ symbol).
- Restart your Mac. Yes, it's kind of a pain.
It's also much easier (and faster) with an app, you can take a look at how to clean caches on Mac OS X.
Flush DNS cache on OS X 10.11
When you flush the DNS cache, what you're doing is removing old cache entries that translate internet domain names (example.com) into IP addresses. You're going to need the Terminal for this. To open Terminal, open Spotlight and type in Terminal, or find it by clicking on the Applications folder and then clicking on Utilities.
Once launched, type in:
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder;say cache flushed
You'll need to enter the admin password to execute the command.
4. Free up memory
Usually Macs are pretty handy with memory management, but sometimes you just have to give them a direction. Check out your memory usage in the Activity Monitor (find it with Spotlight) by clicking on the Memory tab.
If Physical Memory and Memory Used have nearly equal values, it means your Mac will start using Virtual Memory soon. Virtual Memory relies on your Mac's hard drive and is so slow that you don't want to get it involved. When you start running out of memory, just clean it manually with Terminal.
Open it as explained in the Step 3. Then, once opened, type in:
sudo purge
Give your system a moment to process the command.
If you don't want to use the Activity Monitor or Terminal commands each time you need to free up some RAM, you can download CleanMyMac X and do it with just one click instead. After downloading CleanMyMac X, freeing up memory is… Well, free.
5. Use CleanMyMac X
You can go over each step to speed up El Capitan, or you can keep it fast with CleanMyMac X.
It will save you hours wasted on painfully boring tasks of searching and deleting useless files. With CleanMyMac X, you can clean your hard drive and system, run maintenance scripts, clear caches and histories, uninstall apps, and remove unused extensions — all from one place.
Summary: Still worry about your insufficient Mac storage? Want to speed up Mac but don't know how? Get the 6 free Mac cleaners to clear disk space, clean junk or duplicate files to free up your Mac.
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Many of us know exactly how to clean Windows computer or Android phone, but when it comes to cleaning Mac, few people know about it. Many Apple users think that, there is no need to clean Mac.
However, with more and more junk files occupying your Mac storage, your Mac will slow down and offer a bad performance. You have to rely on some Mac cleaner software to remove all useless data.
Best Free Mac Cleaners
With so many Mac cleaner tools offered on the market, which one you should use? Do you know how to choose a great Mac cleaner? We have tested more than 20 Mac cleaners and select the 6 best ones for you to choose from. You can pick your preferred Free Mac cleaner to speed up your Mac easily and quickly.
No.1 Free Mac cleaner: CCleaner - Free junk file cleaner
CCleaner is one free and top Mac cleaner to delete cookies, search history, temporary files and junk files from Mac. The specific functions are below:
1. Find and remove useless/junk files with the click of a button so your Mac can run faster. Speed up boot times with easy management of Startup items.
2. Clear up your recycle bin, temporary files and folders, broken permissions and others. If you want to remove installed programs, just click one button.
3. Erase your browser search history and cookies so you can browse any Internet confidentially and your identity remains anonymous.
No.2 Free Mac cleaner: Disk Inventory X – Free disk cleaner for Mac
Disk Inventory X is one disk cleaning software and disk usage utility for Mac. With this free Mac cleaner, you can know where your disk space has gone and clean it safely. Just see more about Disk Inventory X.
1. Disk Inventory X shows the sizes of files and folders in a special graphical way.
2. With this Mac cleaner, you can see different files marked with different colors, to help you easily find what you want to delete.
No.3 Free Mac cleaner: AVG Cleaner – Free hidden clutter cleaner
AVG Cleaner is one free Mac cleaner to clean hidden clutter and forgotten duplicates. You can see the detailed information below:
1. Clear more hidden garbage, log, download history and trash bin for freeing up more space on your Mac.
2. Search more duplicate files, including images, music, videos and folders.
3. Created for Mac and easy to use.
4. There is an anti-virus software called AVG AntiVirus for Mac, you can use it to protect Macs on your and your families.
No.4 Free Mac cleaner: OmniDiskSweeper - Free hard drive cleaner
OmniDiskSweeper is one free Mac cleaner to find and delete big files that taking up hard drive space and also it can help you recover lost disk space.
1. OmniDiskSweeper helps you sort every file on your Mac by size and you can identify the biggest file to delete it.
2. After deleting, remaining space and folders are recalculated.
No.5 Free Mac cleaner: Dr. Cleaner – Free memory, disk, system cleaner
Dr. Cleaner is one free Mac cleaning app to offer Memory Optimization, Disk Cleaning and System Monitoring to keep your Mac optimized for the best performance.
1. Smart and accurate selection for duplicates scan and remove on Mac with OS X 10.6.6 or later.
2. Scanned big files and junk files will be deleted easily from your Mac.
3. You can easily view real-time network usage and CPU usage in the Menu bar.
No.6 Free Mac cleaner: Disk Drill
Disk Drill is one very popular free Mac cleaner app. Actually, it is a professional data recovery tool for Mac, which carries some disk cleaning functions. It has the capability to analyze Mac storage space, locate unused, large, and duplicate files and so on. In this way, it enables you to free up your Mac storage effortlessly.
1. Monitor the health of your Mac storage and offer timely alerts.
2. Find and remove duplicate files in multiple locations on Mac.
3. Analyze disk space, locate unused files and space hogs, free up storage.
Professional Mac cleaner recommendation:
With the best 6 Mac cleaner apps above, you can handily remove some junk files and optimize your Mac performance. But some of them only offer trial features. Here you are recommended to directly choose the professional Mac cleaner below:
Mac Cleaner- Scan and delete junk files including cache data and logs, email attachments, unwanted iTunes backup and app localization.
- Delete large and old documents and selectively remove worthless files.
- Clean duplicated files or folders on Mac.
- Uninstall apps and clean associated files safely.
- Monitor Mac system in disk utilization, battery status, memory performance and CPU usage.
- Compatible with iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook (Air/Pro) in the latest macOS Big Sur.
FAQs of Free Mac Cleaner
How do I clean and optimize my Mac?
Download and install Aiseesoft Mac Cleaner. Click Cleaner and you can clean up your Mac by cleaning system junk, iPhoto junk, email junk, similar photos, iTunes junk, trash bin, large & old files and more.
Why is my Mac so slow?
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The reason that why is your Mac so slow may includes there is no enough hard drive or RAM on Mac. Or there is too many startup items or icon clutter on desktop. Perhaps your macOS is outdated and you should update it. Adobe flashfor mac free download.
Does Catalina slow down your Mac?
No. Catalina won’t slow down an old Mac. You can check to make sure if your Mac is compatible with macOS Catalina.
By now, 6 free Mac cleaners have been shared here. You can choose your preferred Mac cleaner according to your need. Please share it in comment if you have any better Mac cleaner recommendation. Check ere if you want to speed up your slow iPhone.
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December 29, 2020 17:50 / Updated by Louisa White to Mac Cleanup