How to Speed Up Your Laptop

Laptops (laptops) execute commands slowly for many reasons: you have too many tabs or programs open at once, or there are many programs running in the background without your knowledge. All methods of speeding up a computer involve freeing up memory. Even disabling the motion effects improves speed dramatically!

Table of Contents

Tips for All Notebooks

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Exit unused programs and applications. Running many programs and applications at the same time will consume a lot of laptop memory, making it slow. Turning off unused programs and applications will improve the speed of the device. ^{[1] X Research Source}

Find a program you’ve hidden but haven’t turned off.

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Turn off unnecessary tabs on the browser. Each tab on a web browser uses some memory. The more tabs you open, the more memory your laptop uses to run a web browser. Limiting the number of open tabs on the browser can speed up the laptop.

After using it, turn off the tab.
If you open a tab to “remind” yourself to do something, write a note or email yourself. ^{[2] X Research Source}

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Restart the laptop. Laptop works more smoothly with frequent reboots (~1x/week). Restarting improves the machine speed significantly. ^{[3] X Research Sources}

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Delete unnecessary programs, applications, files. Uninstall unused programs, applications and files to free up space on your laptop’s hard drive. ^{[4] X Research Sources}

Try finding a folder containing old or unused apps to delete or uninstall.

Mac

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Click on the Apple menu to check for software updates. Select “App Store” in the Apple menu in the left corner of the screen and check for software updates. Regular software updates help laptops run faster.

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Limit the number of programs that start automatically in “System Preferences”. Click on the Apple menu in the upper left corner of the screen and select “System Preferences”. Select “Users and Groups” in the “Login Items” section. Check the box next to the program you don’t want to start with your computer and click the “-” sign to remove the item from the list. Not letting programs and applications start at the same time is an effective way to speed up your laptop. ^{[5] X Research Sources}

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Turn off unnecessary background processes with “Activity Monitor”. Your laptop has many programs running in the background. Those background processes can take up memory, causing the machine to run slow. Turning off background processes will improve laptop speed. Open the “Applications” folder > “Utilities”. Open “Activity Monitor”, click the “Memory” tab, followed by the “Memory” filter. Double click on the program you want to quit and click “Quit.” To close the program, click “Quit” again. ^{[6] X Research Source}

Turn off only programs that you know well.
The memory filter sorts the program by memory usage. The program that uses the most memory will appear at the top of the list.

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Disable visual effects in “System Preferences”. Visual effects like the hidden window effect can slow down the laptop. To turn them off, go to the Apple menu in the upper left corner of the screen and select “System Preferences”.

Select “Dock”. Change “Minimize windows using” from “Genie effect” to “Scale effect”.
Return to the main menu of “System Preferences” and open “Accessibility”. Check the box next to “Reduce transparency”. This is a feature that reduces the transparency of drop-down menus, tool trays, etc. ^{[7] X Research Source}

Windows 10

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Check for updates. Windows releases updates on the 2nd Tuesday of every month. Update your laptop regularly to patch bugs and make it run faster and smoother. Select “Start” > “Settings”. Click “Update and Security”. Select “Windows Update” > “Check for Updates”. Windows will automatically download available updates. ^{[8] X Research Sources}

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Limit the number of programs that start with the computer in “Task Manager”. When you turn on your computer, some programs and applications start automatically. You can improve your machine’s startup performance by reducing the number of programs and applications that start automatically.

Right click on the bottom right corner of the screen and select “Task Manager” to open it.
Click “More Details”.
Open the “Startup” tab.
Right-click on a program or application and select “Disable”. This is not a program delete operation. It just prevents programs and applications from starting with the machine. ^{[9] X Research Source}

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Run the Performance Report. The Windows 10 performance monitoring tool provides users with a comprehensive report on their computer. The report will detect problems and suggest fixes.

Click “Start” and type “perform/report” in the search box. Press ↵ Enter . This is the start of Performance Monitor. It takes a few minutes for the program to finish composing the report.
Read the report and fix the problem. Take the time to study the report. Follow the instructions to fix the error stated. ^{[10] X Research Source}

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Turn off background apps. Besides the programs you see, your laptop also runs many other programs in the background. These implicit processes continue to receive information (and use memory) even though you are not using them. Disabling these programs can speed up your laptop.

Select “Start” > “Settings”.
Click “Privacy” > “Background Apps”.
Identify the apps you don’t want to run and slide the switch to “off”. If you want to use this program, you can open it manually. ^{[11] X Research Source}

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Defragment the hard drive. Over time, the files stored on the hard drive become fragmented, instead of storing the file’s components in the same place, the parts are separated. When you open a fragmented file, the hard drive has to find the rest and slow down the computer. The machine will automatically defragment the hard drive according to the scheduled schedule. However, you can manually defragment the hard drive. ^{[12] X Research Source}

Click Start and type “Defragment and Optimize Drives” into the search bar. Start the tool.
Select the hard drive and click “Analyze”.
Select “Optimize” to defragment the hard drive. Do not use the computer while defragmenting the hard drive. ^{[13] X Research Source}

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Clean up the drive. Run Windows’ Disk Cleaner tool to easily find and remove unnecessary files, programs, and applications on the drive. Removing these files will free up more memory to make the computer run faster.

Click on the Start button and type “Disk cleanup” in the search bar. Start the program in the search list.
Select the drive you want to clean.
Check the box next to the file type you want to delete. You can read a brief description of each file type by clicking on the respective category.
Click “Ok” to clean the drive. ^{[14] X Research Source}

Windows 8

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Check for updates. Updating operating systems, programs, and applications can significantly improve laptop speed. Here are the steps to check for Windows 8 updates:

Swipe the screen from right to center and then select “Settings”.
Click “Change PC settings” and select “Update and recovery”.
Select “Check now”. Windows will look for available updates.
Click “Install Updates”, accept the terms and click “Finish”. ^{[16] X Research Source}

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Limit the number of programs that start with the computer. When you turn on your computer, some programs and applications start automatically. If the laptop has to run too many programs and applications at the same time, the boot time will be longer. You can improve your laptop’s startup performance by disabling programs and applications that start automatically.

Click on “Start” and select “Task Manager”. ^{[17] X Research Source}
Open the “Startup” tab.
Select the program you want to disable.
Click “Disable”. ^{[18] X Research Sources}

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Turn off unnecessary background processes. When there are too many programs running in the background, the computer’s ability to perform simple tasks also decreases significantly. Closing programs with Task Manager will improve laptop speed.

Right-click the toolbar on the desktop and select “Task Manager” in the menu that appears.
Click on the “Processes” tab to see the results.
Select the resource-intensive task of the computer (they are highlighted) and/or the task that runs in the background (under the background Processes section). Only choose programs you know well.
Click “End Task”. ^{[19] X Research Source}

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Defragment the hard drive. When you use and relocate files stored on your hard drive, they become fragmented—instead of storing all of the file’s components in the same location, they are split apart in different places. Although the computer automatically defragments the hard drive on a scheduled basis, you can defrag the hard drive manually. ^{[20] X Research Sources}

Click on the Start button and enter “Defragment” in the search box.
Select “Disk Defragmenter” in the results.
Select the hard drive and click on “Analyze disk”.
Click “Defragment disk”. ^{[21] X Research Source}

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Clean up the drive. The Windows Disk Cleaner tool allows users to easily find and clean up unnecessary files, programs, and applications on their drives. Remove files with the built-in Disk Cleanup tool to free up more memory and make your computer run faster.

Swipe the screen from right to center and select “Settings”.
Click on “Contrp Panel” and select “Administrative Tops”.
Double click on “Disk Cleanup”, then select the drive you want to clean and click “Ok”.
Check the box next to the file type you want to delete and click “Ok”.
Select “Delete Files”. ^{[22] X Research Source}

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Disable visual effects. Windows 8 has many motion effects enabled by default. Disabling those effects can improve the speed of the laptop.

Click on the Start button and type “Contrp Panel” into the search bar. Press ↵ Enter .
Select “Apps” > “Ease of Access” > “Ease of Access Center”.
Select “Make the computer easier to see”.
Check the “Turn off all unnecessary animations” dialog box and click “Apply”. ^{[23] X Research Sources}

Windows 7

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Check for updates. Update operating systems, programs, and applications to patch bugs, improve performance, and speed up your laptop. Here’s how to manually check for updates:

Click “Start” > “All Programs” > “Windows Update”.
Click “Check for updates”. Windows will search for available updates.
Select “Install updates”. ^{[24] X Research Sources}

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Defragment the hard drive. When you use and change the location of files on your hard drive, they become fragmented—instead of storing all of the file’s components in one location, they get separated into different places. Although the computer automatically defragments the hard drive on a scheduled basis, you can do it manually. ^{[25] X Research Sources}

Click the Start button and type “Disk Defragmenter” into the search box.
Select “Disk Defragmenter” in the search results.
Select the drive you want to defragment and click “Analyze disk”. Enter the administrator password if required.
Click on “Defragment disk”. Enter the administrator password if required. ^{[26] X Research Source}

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Clean up the drive. Windows Disk Cleanup tool allows users to easily find and remove unnecessary files, programs and applications on the drive. Removing these files will free up more memory to make the computer run faster.

Click the Start button and type “Disk Cleanup” into the search box.
Select “Disk Cleanup” in the search results.
Select the drive you want to clean and click “Ok”.
Select “Delete Files”. ^{[27] X Research Source}

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Disable visual effects. Windows 7 has many motion effects enabled by default. Disabling these effects can improve the speed of the laptop.

Click the Start button and select “Contrp Panel”.
Select “System and Maintenance” > “Performance Information and Tops”.
Select “Adjust visual effects” > “Custom”.
Uncheck the dialog box next to each motion effect and click “Apply”. ^{[28] X Research Sources}

Advice

Consider increasing memory for Mac and PC. This way will definitely improve the speed of the laptop.

Warning

Do not install programs you do not use. Don’t uninstall programs you don’t know well because Windows may need them to perform basic tasks.

Steps