Chrome is the preferred web browser for thousands of users as it seamlessly syncs across devices and effectively integrates with all of Google’s products. But this makes it especially annoying when the usually speedy web browser slows to a snail’s pace.
Aug 04, 2019 5 Reasons Why Chrome Can Be Slow on Mac (And How to Fix It) August 4, 2019 July 28, 2019 Chrome is the preferred web browser for thousands of users as it seamlessly syncs across devices and effectively integrates with all of Google’s products. “Anytune Pro+ is priceless as my personal trainer, for helping me practice parts, songs or an entire setlist. It organizes all of my playlists, slows down tricky sections while remembering detune settings and with the mobile and LiveMix play along features I can learn Anything, Anytime, Anywhere.”. Phil Soussan – Songwriter, producer and bass guitarist who has played with Ozzy, Billy. Slow down mp3 free download - Pitch Switch for Mac, SoundPitch, Anytune, and many more programs. Spotify Desktop App Slow? Here’s How To Fix It For Mac And Windows 3 min read. The problem comes down to the cache management of the Spotify app. Overtime the cache files grow to a size that passed efficiency to the point of being very large and therefore more difficult the computer to use them without expending more memory and processing. Jan 19, 2019 21. Notifications can slow Mac OS X 10.9 down. Go to Apple menu - System Preferences - Notifications to disable those notifications you don't need. ICloud syncing (in 10.7.2 and later) can slow things down. Manage iCloud through the System Preferences to. Mar 26, 2009 NYC Violin teacher here, uses frequently I am violin teacher and I use and recommend this app a great deal. However, there is one thing I would really love if the developers would consider (which would make this a 5-star review) and that is a way to adjust speed percentages by + or - 1 with the tap of a +-1 button just like you can with moving forward or backward in seconds.
Luckily, we’ve got a couple of ways that should help Chrome get back to the peak condition in no time, allowing you to get back into the swing of things as quickly as possible.
Note: there is no one-fit-all solution that can speed up Chrome like magic. A slow Chrome is usually due to a specific cause, or in many cases a combination of several.
Let’s get started to pinpoint before getting them fixed, and make your Chrome browser fast again.
Reason 1: Your Cache is Beyond Overworked
Maybe you’ve heard this one before — but for a good reason! The cache seems like the mysterious fix-all solution for dozens of tech issues, but it’s actually very important to keep up to date on.
The cache is the temporary storage file where Chrome stores frequently used information in order to load that information faster. However, once this very limited space becomes full, the browser can’t react as quickly to new sites that you want to load and becomes bogged down searching for information.
To fix this, you just need to clear the cache. First navigate to the top right of chrome, where there is an icon with three dots: then choose More Tools > Clear Browsing Data. You’ll be prompted to pick a time range, in this case, “all time” is your best bet. You should also check all of the boxes.
It will take a bit for your Mac to speed up after doing this since it will need to rebuild the important parts of the cache. But overall, you should see performance pick up pace pretty quickly.
Wait…for those of you who are using CleanMyMac (if you’re not, you should), it’s even easier to get this done. Just open the app, go to Privacy > Chrome > Cookies, and hit the “Remove” button.
By the way, CleanMyMac also does a number of other things. It’s an app that we use and recommend for most Mac users unless you’re super tech-savvy. You can learn more about the app from the official MacPaw site here.
Reason 2: Chrome is Outdated
It’s easy to close the reminder box and postpone updates, especially when they require restarting apps you installed or worse, the whole computer. But these updates are critical to the functionality of any application, including Chrome.
Checking for an update in Chrome is super easy. First, look for the three dots icon in the top right of the browser. If there’s an update waiting to be installed, the icon will be one of three colors:
Green: An update has been available for two days
Orange: An update has been available for four days
Red: An update has been available for more than a week
If any of these are showing, you’ll see an option to “Update Google Chrome” at the top of the three-dots menu. If this option isn’t present and the icon is colored, then you’re running the latest version of Chrome, and this isn’t your problem.
Reason 3: Flash is Always Enabled
Besides the fact that Apple has a tumultuous history with Adobe Flash, the plugin has always been known to be a drag despite its frequent necessity. Luckily, you can change a single setting to force Flash to ask your permission before it activates on any page, which will prevent Chrome from unnecessarily loading Flash elements and slowing down your whole browsing experience.
To do this, go to the Chrome Menu and choose Settings near the bottom. Note: This page may look different depending on whether or not you have signed into Chrome.
Once in settings, either choose “Privacy” or scroll to the bottom of the page and pick “Advanced” and then find “Privacy”.
Then choose Content Settings and find the label for Flash. Here you’ll be able to pick “Ask First” for running flash.
After this has been changed, you’ll see a small dialog box in the top left of Chrome anytime a page wants to run Flash, which you can accept or deny at will.
Reason 4: Overzealous Plugins/Extensions
Some people are avid proponents of extensions, gladly installing anything they think will help. Others can’t understand the hype. However, extensions and plugins have a profound impact on the day to day operation of your Chrome browser, so they’re a good place to check for issues when the application is acting up.
First, you’ll want to see which extensions are currently running by opening the Chrome menu, then choose More Tools > Extentions.
This will open a new tab listing all of your extensions. Disable all of them by unchecking the box on the right side that says “Enabled” (you don’t have to delete them).
Then, relaunch Chrome and see how things run. If you see an improvement, you know one of your extensions is to blame and can systematically enable and disable them to figure out which it is. If you don’t see a difference, then this probably isn’t your problem and you should try a different method listed here.
Reason 5: It’s not Chrome, It’s Your Internet
Has all else failed to fix your slow Chrome problem? Maybe it isn’t Chrome that’s slow in the first place — the culprit could be your internet connection. This is also fairly easy to check, and you have a couple different options to do so.
The easiest one is to run Google’s speed test by simply googling “speed test”. The first result will be an option to run the test. Once you do, your results will show in a small box and will even help you determine if your internet is performing up to par.
If you’re a gamer or techie and also want to know your ping rate, you can use speedtest from Ookla, which will also provide quick and accurate results of your internet speed.
You can compare any results to this internet speed chart that will identify whether or not yours is performing as advertised. If it’s not, then it may be time to contact your provider (ISP) about your service quality.
Also, since your MacBook is probably connected via Wi-Fi, and it’s often possible that your Internet router needs help getting the Wi-Fi signal to part of your house or apartment where your laptop locates. In this case, all you need is a Wi-Fi repeater like this one from TP-Link to extend your WiFi network for ultimate performance and coverage.
How To Fix A Slow Mac
Final Words
A slow browser is the bane of modern existence. You can’t check your email, research pages for work and school don’t load, and even when you just want to have a bit of fun with an internet game or Buzzfeed article you’re cut off.
Hopefully, this guide has given you a starting place for fixing the problem, but we’d love to hear your solutions as well! Leave us a comment below if you’ve ever fixed a slow Chrome problem or tell us what you tried that didn’t work.
Apple takes great strides to ensure that your Mac thermals run well within the hardware specifications automatically without consumer intervention. The goal for Apple is to give you the best possible performance while keeping the system as quiet as possible all whilst using the least amount of power. And they do a pretty decent job of it too. However, sometimes you may wish to forego the quiet for cool. Or perhaps forego the cool for quiet. You can take more direct control over your Mac's fan speeds with the Macs Fan Control app!
Why bother overriding the fans
If you are one to leave well enough alone, then this is not something you'd want to delve in to. As mentioned, Apple does its homework when it comes to what fans should run at what speeds for the amount of heat and power being produced and used. It ensures that your Mac being a MacBook, MacBook Pro or even a Mac Pro can function with decent capabilities while maintaining stability and safe operating temperatures.
To see hidden files on a Mac using the command line, follow these steps:. Hidden mac hacks. Open the Terminal application from Launchpad. To operate the app correctly, you will need to be familiar with Terminal commands.
That being said, even Apple is a prisoner to the hardware specs. If a CPU starts to run at too high of an operating temperature, it will have to throttle its frequency to a lower setting. This lowering of frequency allows the CPU to run less power and in turn run cooler thus lowing the operating temperature. This avoids damaging the CPU. However, the lowering of the frequency also lowers the performance capabilities of the CPU. Making it run your tasks slower as a result.
In order for the CPU to not throttle its frequency to a lower state, sufficient cooling must be available to avoid high operating temperatures. Sufficient cooling means faster fan speeds. Faster fan speeds means louder computers. Apple tends to configure its hardware towards quiet operations. Since the tendency is for quieter computers, that will also mean you'll have a tendency for throttling your CPU due to higher temperatures.
If you are on that doesn't care about fan noise and want 'ALL THE POWER' then running your fans at higher spec to keep temperatures lower for longer may be what you're looking for. And vice versa, if you want quiet operation for a long as possible, then limiting when your fans speed up or slow down may be in your best interest. But be warned!
Some warnings
Changing your fan speed can cause a minimum greater wear and tear on your components. Maybe unnecessarily so. At worst, you can completely destroy your hardware components if you allow temperatures to rise too greatly with adding sufficient cooling. So be aware that fiddling with your Macs designed specifications will indeed break warranty and can even break your Mac.
Macs Fan Control
If you think that you still want to go ahead and manually control your Mac fans, here's what to do.
Download the Macs Fan application.
Use Finder to navigate to your Downloads folder.
Drag the Macs Fan Control ** app to your **Applications folder.
Double-click the Macs Fan Control app in Applications.
Click Open.
You'll now see a list of Fans that you can manually override on the left and a list of current operation temperatures on the right. Let's for example decide that we want to make certain that our Mac gets the most amount of fresh cool air into the system. We can decide to override the settings for INTAKE and EXHAUST.
Next to the EXHAUST section, click Custom.
You can use the slider to manually set a constant fan speed at whatever you desire.
Or you can choose to set a Sensor-based value where given a certain temperature on a specific sensor one the system, the fan can start to increase speed and go to its maximum speed at yet another temperature for that same sensor. Here we choose Ambient temperature as our sensor. We left the temperature range as default.
Click OK.
Repeat the same steps from 1 to 4 but with the INTAKE fan.
You'll immediately hear a change in fan speed once you click OK. You can keep an eye on your sensor value to see if the change you applied makes a difference to your liking.
If you decide that you want these changes to persists after a reboot do the following.
Click Preferences.
Check the Autostart minimized with system (recommended) box.
Click Close.
See if the changes are worthwhile
Now you should monitor your system and the temperatures. Perform your normal tasks and see if the changes you made are 1) working like you envisioned and 2) worth the extra heat or sound emanating from your machine.
Final comments
I can make my system cool down a good 5 degrees celsius with my own custom changes but at a cost of considerably louder fan speeds. For my day to day task it's not worth it. But If I only enable my changes when I use CPU intensive tasks where I'd expect more fan noise, then for my it's worth the increase in noise. What about you? Any interest in controlling your Mac thermals? What do you do about it? Let us know in the comments!
macOS Catalina
Main
We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.
exposure notification
National COVID-19 server to use Apple and Google's API, hosted by Microsoft
The Association of Public Health Laboratories has announced it is working with Apple, Google, and Microsoft to launch a national server that will securely store COVID-19 exposure notification data.