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1 day ago Free Up Space. Your Mac is an awesome machine but it’s not a superhero. Putting too much on your machine is a burden on your Mac. Easy Ways to Speed Up Your Mac. You can speed up your Mac. Feb 14, 2020 Now, the next time you power on your Mac, the startup time should be much better without all those programs and applications trying to start with the operating system startup. This also increases your boot time speed and will free up working memory while your Mac is running enabling your Mac to run faster and other applications to run faster.
Clean up system files and documents. A clean Mac is a fast Mac. File clutter can lead to. Clean Up Your Hard Drive. Hands down the easiest way to increase the speed of your system is to. Test your internet speed. If you keep asking yourself how to speed up your internet, first of all, test.
Best Ways To Speed Up Illustrator On Your Mac
Anyone who’s spent any time at all using Illustrator will know that it’s one of the most demanding apps out there, with the average .ai file taking up tens or even hundreds of MB of space. It’s no surprise that, for users of Adobe Illustrator, slow performance is a common issue.
Sometimes the problem is easily solved: it may be that you simply have too many documents open at once or that your computer has a lot of active apps and needs a quick restart. However, it’s sometimes the case that large Illustrator files will slow your Mac down even if you’ve just done this.
There are various ways to speed up Illustrator with more consistent results than rebooting and hoping for the best, and most of them require very little technical knowledge. Here are a few steps you can take when you start noticing your Adobe Illustrator running slow.
Quick Fixes For Adobe Illustrator Slow Performance
When the issue of the day is Adobe Illustrator running slow Mac users will typically want to look to the source: Illustrator itself!
Many of the tips that follow are pretty simple, but it’s easy to forget that many Illustrator users (especially those who are self-taught) fall into bad habits and fall back on the excuse that “it’s how I’ve always done it.”
Adobe suggests using Outline View to hide paint attributes and speed up the display of complex objects, or creating custom views to make it easier to magnify, scroll, and switch between layers. Speaking of layers, turning off any that are unnecessary can also make tasks run a little quicker, as can ditching any artboards (and unused elements from document profiles and templates) you’re not working with.
Using links to images, such as TIFF or BMP files, can increase the size of .ai files and slow things down, so employing the Link option wherever possible is always a smart move. Likewise, turning on low-resolution EPS previews will give you a clear idea of what you’re doing but use less RAM.
Disabling thumbnails, or hiding the navigator altogether, is another thing that seems small but can have an impact on the time it takes for screen redraw.
If you have multiple drives available, or partitioned drives, consider transforming one into a scratch disk. This allows Illustrator to use a portion of another hard disk as virtual memory and while not as effective as increasing the amount of RAM available to the app it can still help.
Additionally, if you’re working with large images, it’s possible to set yet another disk as a Secondary scratch disk.
Counterintuitively, one last resort for those looking to speed up Illustrator CS6 might be to ditch the app altogether and make the move to CC 2019. Using Adobe’s monthly cloud subscription service means that you’ll always have access to the latest version of the app which should, in theory at least, be the most efficient and bug-free on the market.
Effectively tweak macOS settings
If you’ve tried all of the above, it may be time to take a less granular approach and look at how tweaking your operating system might speed up Illustrator. For example, many designers are guilty of clogging up their system with countless fonts that they keep “just in case.” Using a font management utility, or simply ditching any you haven’t used in a while, will free up RAM.
It’s difficult to imagine that a printer driver could be the cause of Adobe Illustrator slow performance, but it’s one that Adobe themselves recognize as a common factor in sluggish Illustrator speed.
If you have a PostScript printer, make sure you’re using it as your default one. You can also configure Illustrator to print to a non-default printer by choosing File > Print, then selecting Adobe PostScript File, and clicking Save.
Optimize your use of hardware
Naturally, all of the usual steps you’d take to improve the performance of any other app also apply when you’re trying to speed up Illustrator: use a faster processor, install additional RAM, and optimize your hard disk space.
Freeing up hard disk space and available memory is something you can try to do manually but, for a quicker and easier solution, download an app like CleanMyMac X, which allows you to identify and (with your approval) delete all the unnecessary and temporary files, clean up duplicate content, and so on.
To optimize your hardware with CleanMyMac X:
- Download CleanMyMac X with a free trial
- In the left-side panel, click on Smart Scan > Scan
- Review Details and delete everything you don’t need
- Repeat the process with other CleanMyMac X tabs as required
CleanMyMac X is by far the best way to turn your Mac in the speedy state it was when you bought it. Remember that if you just use it to improve your efficiency (e.g. by reducing the time spent waiting around for Live Trace previews to render) by as little as 10%, it’ll be freeing up 4 hours of time every week for those working 8-hour days.
Automate your Mac maintenance
At least one of the above tips should help you seriously speed up Illustrator on your Mac, unless it really is time to replace your machine, but the easiest way to ensure that Illustrator doesn’t get sluggish is to make sure that your Mac has plenty of disk space and RAM for the app to make use of.
That’s a task you can tackle manually, searching your hard drive for duplicate files and other junk you no longer need, but it’s a lot easier to automate the process (not to mention digging out hidden files and outdated caches) with an optimization app such as CleanMyMac X.
Even an iMac Pro with an 18-core Intel Xeon W processor can always go just a bit faster … or can it? There’s actually a pretty short list of tweaks that you can apply to your iMac’s hardware to speed it up, and these suggestions are covered in this chapter.
You can also work considerably faster within Mojave by customizing your Desktop and your Finder windows, which makes it easier to spot and use your files, folders, and applications. That’s in this Part of Tens chapter, too.
Finally, you can enhance your efficiency and make yourself a power user by tweaking yourself. (Sounds a bit tawdry or even painful, but bear with me, and you’ll understand.)
Nothing Works Like a Shot of Memory
Okay, maybe shot is the wrong word, but adding additional memory to your iMac (by either replacing or adding a memory module) is the single surefire way to speed up the performance of your entire system. That includes every application as well as macOS itself.
With more memory, your iMac can hold more of your documents and data at once, and thus has to store less data temporarily on your internal drive. It takes your iMac much less time to store, retrieve, and work with data when that data is in RAM (short for random access memory) rather than on your hard drive. That’s why your system runs faster when you can fit an entire image in Adobe Photoshop in your iMac’s system memory.
At this writing, you can cram up to 128GB of memory in an iMac Pro, up to 64GB in a 27″ iMac model, and 21.5″ models can be configured with up to 32GB of memory as well when you order from the Apple online store.
Only 27″ iMacs can be upgraded with additional memory by the owner after purchase – the iMac Pro and iMac 21.5″ models must be upgraded by an Apple Authorized Service Provider (and usually at quite a cost).
Hold a Conversation with Your iMac
Many Mac owners will attest that you can significantly increase your own efficiency by using the Dictation feature, which allows you to dictate text by speaking within many applications. Your voice is indeed faster than your fingers!
To enable Dictation, choose System Preferences →Keyboard, click the Dictation tab and click the On radio button next to Dictation. Remember that by default, Dictation is active only when you press the Fn (Function) key twice. (You can change the Dictation shortcut from the Dictation tab).
Vamoose, Unwanted Fragments!
Apple would probably prefer that I not mention disk fragmentation because macOS doesn’t come with a built-in defragmenting application. (Go figure.) A disk-defragmenting application reads all the files on your magnetic drive and rewrites them as continuous, contiguous files, which your machine can read significantly faster.
To keep your hard drive running as speedily as possible, I recommend defragmenting at least once monthly. You can use third-party applications like Prosoft Engineering’s Drive Genius to defragment your drive.
You should never defragment your iMac internal drive if it’s a SSD (solid-state) or Fusion drive (the memory in a solid-state drive has a limited number of write/delete cycles during its lifespan, and the defragment process continuously writes and deletes data from the drive). Only traditional magnetic hard drives benefit from defragmenting. To determine which type of internal drive you’re using, launch Disk Utility, click the internal drive entry in the list on the left, and check for the acronym SSD in the drive description. If you see it, your iMac has an SSD or Fusion drive installed.
Keep Your Desktop Background Simple
It’s funny that I still include this tip in a chapter dedicated to improving performance. After all, I recommended using a solid-color background in my first books on Mac OS 8 and Windows 98! Just goes to show you that some things never change.
If you’re interested in running your Retina 5K iMac Pro system as fast as it will go, choose a solid-color background from the Desktop & Screen Saver pane in System Preferences. (In fact, there’s even a separate category that you can pick called Solid Colors. Someone at Apple has the right idea.)
Can You Speed Up Mac
Column Mode Is for Power Users
One of my favorite features of macOS is the ability to display files and folders in column view mode. Just click the Column button on the standard Finder window toolbar, and the contents of the window automatically align in well-ordered columns.
Other file-display options require you to drill through several layers of folders to get to a specific location on your hard drive — such as Users/mark/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music, which I visit on a regular basis. In column mode, however, a single click drills a level deeper, and often you won’t even have to use the Finder window’s scroll bars to see what you’re looking for. Files and folders appear in a logical order. Also, it’s much easier to move a file (by dragging it from one location on your hard drive to another) in column mode.
Make the Dock Do Your Bidding
Just about every Mac owner considers the macOS Dock a good friend. But when’s the last time you customized it — or have you ever made a change to it at all?
You can drag files and folders to the Dock, as well as web URLs, applications, and network servers. You can also remove applications and web URLs just as easily by dragging the icon from the Dock and releasing it on your Desktop.
I find that I make a significant change to my Dock icons at least once every week. I find nothing more convenient than placing a folder for each of my current projects on the Dock or adding applications to the Dock that I might be researching for a book or demonstrating in a chapter.
You can position the Dock at either side of the Desktop or even hide the Dock to give yourself an extra strip of space on your Desktop for application windows. Click the Apple menu at the left side of the Finder menu bar and then hover your pointer over the Dock item to display these commands.
Speed It Up Free For Mac Os
It All Started with Keyboard Shortcuts
Heck, keyboard shortcuts have been around since the days of WordStar and VisiCalc, back when a mouse was still just a living rodent. If you add up all those seconds of mouse-handling that you save by using keyboard shortcuts, you’ll see that you can literally save hours of productive time every year.
You’re likely already using some keyboard shortcuts, such as the common editing shortcuts Command +C (Copy) and Command +V (Paste). When I’m learning a new application, I often search the application’s online help to find a keyboard shortcut table and then print that table as a quick reference. Naturally, you can also view keyboard shortcuts by clicking each of the major menu groups within an application. Shortcuts are usually displayed alongside the corresponding menu items.
Hey, You Tweaked Your Finder!
Here’s another speed enhancer along the same lines as my earlier tip about customizing your Dock: You can reconfigure your Finder windows to present just the tools and locations that you actually use (rather than what Apple figures you’ll use).
You can right-click the toolbar in any Finder window and choose Customize Toolbar, for example. By default, the macOS Finder toolbar includes only the default icon set that you see at the bottom of the sheet, but you can drag and drop all sorts of useful command icons onto the toolbar. You can save space by displaying small icons, too.
With Finder tabs, you can even open multiple tabs within a Finder window (making it just about as efficient as it can possibly be for operations such as moving files, quickly navigating between locations, and comparing items in different locations).
The Finder sidebar — which hangs out at the left side of the Finder window — is a healthy, no-nonsense repository for those locations that you constantly visit throughout a computing session. I have both a Games folder and a Book Chapters folder that I use countless times every day (it’s important to balance work with pleasure, you know), and I’ve dragged both of those folders to the sidebar.
How To Make Mac Speed Up
Keep in Touch with Your Recent Past
Click that Apple menu and use that Recent Items menu! I know that sounds a little too simple, but I meet many new Apple computer owners every year who either don’t know that the Recent Items menu exists or forget to use it. You can access both applications and documents that you’ve used within the past few days. Consider the Dock and Finder sidebar to be permanent or semi permanent solutions and the Recent Items menu to be more of a temporary solution to finding the stuff that you’re working on Right Now.
Go Where the Going Is Good
Another little-known (and underappreciated) Finder menu feature (at least among Macintosh novices) is the Go menu, which is located on the Finder menu bar.
The Go menu is really a catch-all, combining the most important locations on your system (such as your Home folder) with folders that you’ve used recently. Also, the Go menu is the place where you can connect to servers or shared folders across your local network or across the Internet.
Pull down the Go menu today — and don’t forget to try out those spiffy keyboard shortcuts you see listed next to the command names. (Press Command +Shift+H to go immediately to your Home folder, for example.) And if a Finder window isn’t open at the moment, a new window opens automatically. Such convenience is hard to resist!
Hold down the Option key when you click the Go menu, and you’ll be able to choose your personal Library folder (which is normally hidden) from the menu. This comes in handy when you have to troubleshoot problems with applications that save files or store configuration data in your Library folder.