Hi Peter, DON'T attempt to upgrade the operating system until you have the MacBook running perfectly. Do the correct Preparation before upgrading to Yosemite, or you will have problems.
There are other things to look for that cause slowness on a Mac. I'll post after your wife has cleaned up the Desktop and filed everything away in the correct locations in her Home Directory (Folders) Then if you need information on how to Prepare To Upgrade, post back to the list when your wife has the MacBook running well. Cheers, Ronni Sent from Ronni's iPad4 > On 25 Jan 2015, at 11:00 am, Peter Crisp <[email protected]> wrote: > > Thanks for that Ronni, will do those tidy ups then see how it responds. > > Thanks > > Pete. > > -------- Original message -------- > From: Ronni Brown > Date:25/01/2015 10:11 (GMT+08:00) > To: WAMUG > Subject: Re: VERY slow Macbook > > Hi Peter, > > Very quick reply.... First Thing to Do - Clean Up The Desktop!!! > 6.6GB of video files etc on the Desktop will be slowing the MacBook down. > Your wife's MacBook only has 4GB RAM installed so having that amount of files > on the Desktop would be a drain on memory. > > Why You Should Keep Your Desktop Clean in OS X > > A desktop is exactly what it sounds like: a place to store temporary > projects. > Once you’re done working on a project, store it in a folder. > > The folder system is really well done on OSX, just go to Macintosh HD > Users > > YourName and you’ll find 9 different folder categories, ranging from music > to documents. Use these folders to store your files. > > Mac OS X considers every icon on your Desktop a window, and because every > window uses additional RAM, more Desktop icons means greater RAM usage. > > Keeping your desktop clean is really important because every icon, folder or > alias on it is loaded into the RAM, slowing your system down. > > If there is a certain folder or file you need to access regularly, leave it > where it should be and slide it into the right side of the OSX dock; this > will create a stack, a feature that is incredibly useful. > > Your Desktop is actually a Folder. > > It lives at your startup disk, usually called “Macintosh HD” > Users > (your > user name) > Desktop. > The difference is that the desktop folder displays it’s contents on your > desktop as icons. > > These are not your normal icons, because the operating system treats every > icon on the desktop as a window. > And because every window uses additional RAM, more Desktop icons means > greater RAM usage. > > So having 100 icons on your desktop is like having 100 windows open at the > same time. > This uses tremendous amounts of system resources and slows everything down. > > It’s easy for the desktop to get out of hand. Icons on the desktop are > generally laid out in a grid. > When the grid fills up, the operating system starts to place any additional > icons in the same place, stacking them on top of icon for your start-up disk! > So now, the problem is getting worse and worse and you don’t even realise it. > > The solution is easy: > > Start by creating a new folder on your desktop. (File > New Folder) > Name it “Stuff to file”, or something like that. Then, take everything on > your desktop and put it in that folder. > It doesn’t matter how many items are in that folder or how much space those > items take up. > To the operating system, it’s just another window. > > Once you have done that, you should notice an immediate improvement in > performance. > > Then Do some house cleaning: > > Start moving things from the “Stuff to file” folder into the proper folders > in your Home Folder: > Documents, Music, Pictures or Movies. > Create sub-folders in those folders, if necessary. > > Then, just keep track of the amount of icons on your desktop. > > > Cheers, > Ronni > > 13-inch MacBook Air (April 2014) > 1.7GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost to 3.3GHz > 8GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM > 512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage > > OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 > > >> On 25 Jan 2015, at 9:53 am, Peter Crisp <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Good morning, my wife's Macbook Pro (13" mid 2012) 4GB memory, running OSX >> 10.9.5 is running very slow and has been for a long time. It has 114GB free >> out of the 499GB hard disc so I don't think that in itself would be a cause >> for immediate concern. >> >> She has some large items on her Desktop (video files and lots of other >> extraneous stuff) totalling 6.6GB and a huge amount of Mail. She is a >> prolific emailer. 1500 Inbox and 14,000+ in Sent dating back to 2011. Plus >> additional Mail accounts for kids each ill maintained as well. >> >> The thing is, it is slow all the time, whether Mail is running or not. >> >> She uses it for two main things, Mail and Safari for Facebook and general >> web browsing, and eBay for buying stuff. >> >> Is there a step by step process for doing some 'housekeeping' clean up and >> decaching of various things that will declutter this thing. It is sooooo >> slow its nearly unusable. >> >> I want to update her MBP to Yosemite but would like to do the clean up >> first, maybe update to Yosemite would be a good thing and clean up stuff in >> the process. >> >> Tips much appreciated. >> >> >> Regards >> >> >> Pete
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