Old mac email program install#

On very tight systems, running Monolingual can save you a decent chunk. It might not be clear what files are taking up space on your hard disk, but apps such as DaisyDisk can help you identify them, and you can then either trash them or move them to an external drive. You can even link them exactly like a Fusion Drive if youвЂ™re prepared to get your hands a little dirty in Terminal.

Old mac email program install#

Many tower Macs will support at least one additional internal drive, and in this case (or also if you install a second internal drive in a laptop at the expense of your optical drive), consider using a fast SSD as your boot drive and pairing it with a high capacity, cheap hard disk. You can replace the optical drive in some laptops and Mac minis with a second internal drive, or use something like a Nifty MiniDrive to add more flash storage to a laptop. This might be external storage-just plug in a USB or FireWire hard disk-but donвЂ™t forget about internal options. SSDs will also likely extend the battery life of a laptop.Д¬omputers perform badly when their main storage drive is full-an oft-cited rule is to leave at least 10 percent of your drive free-so consider adding more storage and offloading files you donвЂ™t need all the time to it. Note that with older Macs (definitely true for those with IDE, but also true for those with SATA I and SATA II connections), the connection to the motherboard itself will be a bottleneck, so donвЂ™t waste your money by buying anything other than a basic SSD you donвЂ™t get the benefit of a high-performance model. Most often these days that will mean a SATA connector, but you can buy SSDs with the older IDE/PATA/ATA connector from, say, OWC MacBook Airs use different connectors again. Other World Computing even makes one specially for the 2009вЂ“2012 Mac Pro.Д¬heck you get one with the correct connector, too. 3.5-inch SSDs are rare, though they do exist, but you can convert 2.5-inch drives to 3.5-inch ones with a bracket one might even be included with your 2.5-inch SSD, but if not, buy one separately.

For laptops and the Mac mini, this typically means a 2.5-inch drive-though the MacBook Air has always used more exotic and different options throughout its life-while for desktops 3.5-inch drives are more usual this isnвЂ™t a hard-and-fast rule, though, so do check your specs carefully. Yes, itвЂ™s usually a colossal pain, but itвЂ™s often the most effective way to reinvigorate your Mac if you can set aside the time and accept the temporary disruption.Д«e sure you get the right form factor. Instead, manually copy all your documents across and reinstall your apps from the App Store or CD-omitting those you donвЂ™t need. Usually, a Mac that has slowed further and further down has just accreted apps, files and more, and one of the surest ways of restoring the pep and vigor it had out of the box is to wipe the hard disk, install a fresh OS, and then, crucially, donвЂ™t clone everything across using Time Machine or the like. Oh, and never be tempted to install MacKeeper. One good idea is to run Verify Disk in Disk Utilities (/Applications/Utilities) on your main startup disk every now and then to identify problems, and watch the SMART status for your boot drive in Disk Utility too itвЂ™s monitoring for signs of imminent failure. These days thereвЂ™s less need for that, but thereвЂ™s usually no harm.

In the early days of OS X, we regularly repaired permissions and ran apps such as Cocktail or OnyX to clear caches and more to keep the system trim and tidy. (And donвЂ™t ever bother with вЂњRAM cleaningвЂќ or flushing apps OS X takes care of that for you.) Again, you can sort the RAM chart by Memory to see what apps are demanding RAM consider quitting RAM-hogs if youвЂ™re not actively using them. Start using your Mac as you would typically, and if the Memory Pressure graph on recent OSs isnвЂ™t looking full, you donвЂ™t need more RAM on earlier systems, if the pie chart of RAM use shows mostly green and blue, the amount of RAM you have is вЂњcoolвЂќ if itвЂ™s mostly red and yellow, youвЂ™re in hot water, and need to add more. If youвЂ™re trying to run many, complex apps at once, your Mac might struggle. If you donвЂ™t recognize a process, Google it it might be a background app thatвЂ™s run rogue.ДЄctivity Monitor will also show you pressure on your memory (RAM). This will show you what applications are demanding the most from your main processor (CPU) click the %CPU column header to sort by this, and ensure youвЂ™ve selected All Processes from the View menu. So your first diagnostic step is to launch Activity Monitor (/Applications/Utilities) and see where the pinch points are. Like a doctor, you need to understand why your Mac is sluggish before blundering in with treatments.