How to make Mavericks faster

[Supernerd]

I upgraded to Mavericks from Snow Leopard and I noticed a significant decrease in speed. Is there anything I can do to try to speed up my Mac? I know it's a common question, but it's the only thing I currently dislike about Mavericks is the measurable performance decrease directly caused by upgrading.

Also, I had an app from the Mac App Store called RAM optimizer, specifically the lite version because it worked fine and it was free, but I think this is not compatible with Mavericks. It just won't open. Anybody have an alternative?

 

[benwiggy]

Firstly, what Mac do you have, and how much RAM?
Mavericks should be fast. If you are not getting the performance, something is wrong.
Next: stay away from apps like "RAM optimizer". You don't need them on 10.9, you really didn't need them much in 10.8, and you sure as hell don't want to use a version from a previous OS.

Memory management is completely different ib 10.9, and it's not something you need to oversee.

If you have got any third-party apps that monitor, "optimize", "clean" or do any other such nonsense, then uninstall them and see if that helps. Anything else that runs constantly in the background, too.

 

[JPamplin]

Try a clean install

Try a clean install of 10.9, then manually add your apps back. Might be a fair amount of cruft from running 10.6 all that time.

 

[Kyle2595]

I had much the same issue you have. I updated from Snow Leopard and everything was a bit slow. There were a few things I learned when searching around.

As soon as you update, Spotlight will index your entire hard drive. It took about 4 hours for it to finish on my MBP. This takes up system resources and can make things a bit slower.

A new feature is that Mavericks will create a local backup of everything without telling you. This is useful if you don't regularly back things up, but I have an external HDD that I use for backups so I disabled the auto backup
(Spotlight will reindex your HDD after you do this so you won't see much of a speed boost until that is done).

I had other issues too, but after a few days everything worked itself out and it is running much smoother. Just give it time and I'm sure it will get settled it and become faster for you too.

 

[Ateace3]

I've never done a clean install, but during class I just copy and pasted all of my important files, saved my iTunes playlists, and then freshly installed Maverick. It's working even better than I expected.

I tried a clean install last night and then re-installed everyone using Time Machine, but that defeated the purpose of the clean install as all of my settings were ported back. Consequently, the lag/sluggishness ported back, as well. It may take some time, but doing it manually is certainly worth the trouble.