So I have a Mac book pro and its starting to get a little slower and not so responsive.
Does anyone know of a good way of speeding it up and cleaning out so its back working well and free from programmes that slow it down.
All help appreciated.

Best thing you can do is backup any files you need to keep, make sure you have copies of any apps and do a complete wipe and reinstall of osx.

Failing that there are tools such as Cleanmymac which will get rid of junk. Have you updated to Mavericks yet? Get more ram…visit the Crucial website to run a test to see what you can have in your machine.

Copy all your important stuff onto your backup drive, then do a fresh OS install.

Or manually delete all the chaff and then run CCleaner.

What in particular is running slowly? What spec is the Mac?

CAn you add more RAM?

Go to the Crucial.com web site and use thier system checker to find out.

Install an older version of the OS and don’t ever upgrade.

What is it? What’s it running?

Or put an SSD in it if you have the inclination. It makes a huge difference to application startup times etc. 🙂

I`m not sure what version its on. I regularly update when needed. Think i may take everything off and do a complete wipe and reinstall.
I`ll try and do some of the other suggestions too.

Model of the macbook?

Bought just over a year ago.

I have never found the performance of a Mac downgrades over time unless something is wrong.

If you get the spinning beach ball constantly it could be an issue with the hard drive which would need replacing (unlucky after only 1 year though).

Other performance issues could be down to programs you’ve installed. I wouldn’t use Cleanmymac personally as I’ve heard of it causing as much harm as good. Try looking in the Console to see if there are frequently generated error messages which are slowing the computer down.

Bought just over a year ago.

In which case something is wrong. They don’t slow down that fast. My 2010 MBP is still zipping along…

You don’t need to take everything off and do a clean install, but it will help a little. Can I suggest the following;

How full is the hard disk ? The fuller it is the slower the machine will run especially if the RAM is being fully used. You can check disk usage on “About this machine” under storage. Delete old stuff you don’t need, this includes old emails and attachments, inbox and sent items. You can spend a couple of quid on “disk doctor” in App Store – it does some useful things but make sure downloads directory is empty and/or only has files you need (best to move them elsewhere). Clear/empty the Trash. You can run Activity Monitor to check ram usage. To be honest if disk isn’t full this housekeeping doesn’t matter.

RAM – more is good, I had a 2009 MacMini with a full hard disk and 2gb ram and it ran really slow. It now has 8gb RAM and 750hdd and runs really fast. Unless you are running graphics/viedo editing your machine will run OK with 4 and great with 8. I added my ram and new hdd myself. Online guides. Online sellers (I bought Corsair RAM and Western Digital 750gb 7200 rpm drive – cost about £125 I recall). You can pay for others to do this for you. Doing it yourself invalidates the warranty but if machine is 2+ years old that doesn’t matter

OSX (operating system) – I would definitely recommend upgrading to Mavericks (10.9) – it’s free and has many improvements inc better memory management. Ideally make sure the hard drive is cleaned first and you must have a backup. An external drive is £50, worth buying for backups (very easy with TimeMachine) and very useful anyway.

Note if you are going to upgrade hard drive (more capicity) or speed (a Solid State Drive SSD) you will want an external drive for backup, you can buy a cradle into which you can put your current hard drive and then can then be you backup device.

MacRumors is a good website with active and helpful forums

How much RAM do you have, how big/full is your hard drive, what OS are you running ? Answers available from about this mac under the Apple Logo menu.

My email is in my profile – ping me for more info

EDIT: Just seen your posts – 1 year old macbook pro should run pretty sweetly (it must have 4gb ram min and 500gb hdd ?). What have you installed on it ? I’ve seen things like dropbox and googledrive slow machines down due to speed of online file synching especially if wfi is slow. You MacBook Pro is much more powerful than my MacMini which runs fine.

I think I need to just try out as many of the above as possible.
I have recently deleted My ex’s user id and wonder if there was something on her User Id that may have been needed.

I have recently deleted My ex’s user id and wonder if there was something on her User Id that may have been needed.

Definitely not (even if she was the administrator account I doubt it)

Never had to reinstall the OS in 10+ years of macs.

Chances are your disc is full, or dying.

Check how much free space you have, ideally about 20% (very rough guide!)

Boot into recovery mode and run disk utility to repair your hard drive (you can just check it, but then you’d just have to “repair” anyway to try fix it).

Google will sort you out on how to do the above.

Omnidisksweeper is a great little program, scans your drive and lists files and folders by size so it makes clearing things out really easy. 1gb USB drive will do you favours as you could move stuff you don’t need on there.