Purchase an external hard drive that is larger than the hard drive you want to back up. [2] X Research source Inserting the USB of the external hard drive should automatically prompt your computer to give you the option to use the drive for back up. If you need more help, read the wikiHow article about how to back up a hard drive. If you are worried about losing or damaging an external hard drive, you can back up important files online. Subscribe to a secure backup service, or a cloud-based service like Google Drive, iCloud, or Dropbox.
Make sure you save any projects you are working on before turning off your computer!
Warning: Before touching anything inside your computer, be sure to ground yourself by touching something metal, or wearing static wrist bands. Static discharge can permanently damage the electronic components of your computer. Don’t use any liquid cleaners. If there is dust or build-up that you can’t remove using a dry microfiber rag, you can use a little bit of rubbing alcohol applied to the microfiber rag, or alcohol swabs. When cleaning your fans, hold them in place with your fingers. Don’t let them spin when blowing or cleaning the fans.
Open File Explorer. It has an icon that resembles a folder with a blue clip. You can find it in the taskbar or the Windows Start menu. Click This Computer. Check the disk drive space. All disk drives are listed below “Drives and devices. " There is a bar graph next to each disk drive that shows how much space is being used.
Don’t forget to empty your recycling bin.
Don’t forget to empty your recycling bin.
Don’t forget to empty your recycling bin.
Don’t forget to empty your recycling bin.
Right-click the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Click Task Manager Click More Details at the bottom of the Task Manager. Click the Startup tab at the top of the screen. Click an app. Click Disable in the lower-right corner.
Right-click the Windows Start menu. Click Power Options. Click Additional Power Settings in the menu bar to the right. Click Create Power Plan in the menu bar to the left. Check High Performance Click Next.
Click the Windows Start menu. Type Disk Cleanup and click the Disk Cleanup icon. Select a drive. Click Ok Check the file types you want to clean and click Ok.
Click the Windows Start menu. Type Defragment and click Defragment and Optimize Drives. Select a drive. Click Optimize.
Click the Windows Start menu. Type Control Panel and click Control Panel Click System & Security Click System, Click Advanced System Settings. Select the bullet which says “Adjust for best performance”.
To see if you need more RAM, initialize the Windows Task Manager by pressing “Ctrl + Alt + Del” and click Task Manager. Under the Performance tab, find the area devoted to Physical Memory (MB). If the number next to “Available” is less than 25% of the Total MB, you may need to add RAM. [11] X Research source Adding more memory may not necessarily make your computer run faster. If your computer is slow to switch between windows or tasks, or if you often have many browser tabs open at once, additional RAM may help. You can take your computer to an expert to add RAM, like the Geek Squad at Best Buy, or you may decide to add more RAM yourself. Just be sure to do your research before attempting to do it on your own.
Go to the Apple menu (the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your screen), Click About This Mac. Click the Storage tab. This will show you how much free space you have on your hard disk and will also break down your current usage, showing you how much space is used by your movie, music, photo, and app files. [13] X Research source
Open the Finder. Click Applications. Click Utilities. Launch the Activity Monitor by clicking it from the list of apps. Click the CPU tab. Click the % CPU column and see which programs are at the top. If it is using anything over 50%, running that program may be slowing everything down.
If you discover that one particular application is slowing down your Central Processing Unit (CPU), you can speed things up by deleting that application and using a faster alternative, or closing all other programs every time you use that application. Safari is often at the top of the list for CPU. Consider switching to a different browser, like Firefox or Chrome. [16] X Research source When in doubt, don’t remove anything you don’t recognize: it may be critical to the function of your computer or another application.
To compress a file right-click it and click Compress in the pop-up menu. Open the Downloads folder. Make sure you are viewing files as a list and then click on the Size header so that your largest files are on top. Get rid of anything you don’t need. [17] X Research source Movies are generally the largest files–they can be between 1-2GB. Consider removing anything you are not watching or plan to watch soon. [18] X Research source Remember to empty your trash bin. If you delete photos in iPhoto or Aperture, you must empty the trash bin that exists in that program, or else the files will not be deleted. To empty the Trash bin, right-click it in the Dock and click Empty Trash. [19] X Research source
Click Apple icon in the menu bar. Click System Preferences. Click Accounts or Users & Groups. Click your account. Click Login Items. Select any items you don’t need. Click the minus (-) sign to remove them.
Go to Applications in the Finder. Click Utilities. Open the Disk Utility app. Select your startup disk. Click First Aid at the top of the screen. Click Run.
No matter which language you use, never delete the English language files. Doing so may cause OS X to malfunction. [22] X Research source
Click the Magnifying glass icon in the upper-right corner and Enter “Activity Monitor” in the search bar. Open the Activity Monitor App. Check the “Memory Pressure” chart at the bottom. To see what kind of RAM your Mac uses, go to the Apple menu, then click About This Mac, then More Info. Under Memory in the Hardware tab, you can find the memory, size and type of RAM your computer uses.
