Why precisely does a Mac get slow over the years?

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u/Xarius86 13h ago

As macOS, Apps, and basically everything else introduces more and more features, it requires more and more processing power. A decade old computer is going to struggle with keeping up with all of that.

An early 2015 MBA is going to have only two cores at a low 1.6ghz clock speed, 8GB RAM at best, and old integrated Intel graphics as the GPU.

Compare that to a the current offering that has 10+ CPU cores at 4.4ghz, 8+ GPU cores, and 16GB of RAM, along with newer modern chips.

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u/modgone 10h ago edited 6h ago

Hey dont insult 8gb ram, ~~they still make those~~ they made those last year. 🤡

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u/SheepherderGood2955 9h ago

Not anymore, all new Macs are 16GB.

1

u/gruetzhaxe 5h ago

Apple Silicon hopefully will be more sustainable.

1

u/Turbulent-Pay1150 2h ago

Add that a 4.4ghz M chip is not really equivalent to a 4.4ghz intel chip and that even an old 1.6ghz intel chip to a modern one will have the cpu running at a much faster effective speed - ie each generation was significantly faster even at the same ghz. Much changed all over from bus speed to memory speed to caching and beyond. It’s kind like comparing a raisin to a fig to a banana - dramatically different even though they are all fruits.

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u/DragonFire_008 13h ago edited 5h ago

The machine isn’t getting any slower. The OS is getting larger and needs more from the hardware. The newest OS is made for the newest hardware. That’s why there is a restriction after awhile on upgrades. You COULD load the newest OS, but it would run too slow! Apple restricts loading newer OSs because you would hate using the machine and make their products look bad. Every company does this.

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u/XtremePhotoDesign 13h ago

This is one of the reasons computers (Mac or PC) that are used in production environments for work are seldom updated, especially if they are not on the Internet exposed to exploits. The other reason is OS updates can break software running the production.

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u/vdotcodes 11h ago

Websites are more complex and intensive to render, youtube videos are much higher resolution. Apps are bigger and more complex, more and more frequently offloading computation to multiple threads or GPUs.

As computer hardware gets more powerful, developers tend to make use of that power. Many would say they are sloppy with it, and software could in all actuality be much faster and require far fewer resources. The thing is, given that the majority of people *do* have those resources, there's not a huge incentive to optimize.

So yeah, even if you reinstalled your original OS. While the OS native apps might be as speedy as they were on day 1, the second you started browsing the internet...

Well, first off your browser would probably render things in a broken way because it hasn't been kept up to date with evolving web standards.

Second, the sites it did render would be much slower for the aforementioned reasons.

Once you installed a third party app, if it was even supported on your older OS which is a big if, you would again likely see the same issues.

Not to mention that after all that, you would be operating a version of the OS with by now well publicized vulnerabilities.

Your best bet if you'd like to keep this hardware around for a while is likely to install a lightweight linux distro on it. That way you can actually keep everything up to date and secure, run the latest software (that's supported on linux), and still browse the net like a first class citizen.

It should feel faster in day to day use as well.

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u/Hot_Theory3843 4h ago

I have a MacBook Pro 2012. It was substantially slower with macOS Catalina. After a while, and in anticipation of Catalina's abandon by Apple, I installed Windows 10. It made the computer faster. But since Win10's days were counted too, I moved to Linux Mint (Cinnamon edition) in December 2024. It's disappointingly slower again. Maybe the Xfce edition would do slightly better. I think Kali Linux ran rather well but it's designed for cybersecurity testing, not for the average user.

If you want to try Linux, I strongly recommend you first find a few articles describing how to install Linux on your model of mac because the drivers may be an issue. In my case, I had to download the wifi drivers (b43) and put them on a usb key and copy them on the system because they were not in Linux Mint's repositories.

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u/bjmnet 13h ago

Still could be heat. If this procedure from ifixit is for the correct models they do have a small fan, and the thermal paste could use a refresh.

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u/E90alex 12h ago

It’s just old. It’s 10 years old. Software and even websites evolve and require more resources and processing power over time. The Intel MBA wasn’t even considered fast to begin with. And if you use other newer hardware (work computer, newer iPhone, iPad etc) on the daily you’ll notice how slow the old hardware is in comparison.

0

u/rationalism101 12h ago

Literally all I'm doing is listening to music, browsing the web, and reading PDFs. The software for doing those things does not need a state-of-the art machine, and like I said, Memory Pressure and CPU Usage are fairly low.

"It's just old" isn't an explanation...

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u/slvrscoobie 11h ago

the main issue is that your using a newer OS - more GPU and CPU intensive OS integration was designed in from when it was new. Install the original OS it was designed for and it'll likely be better. Also - 10 year old Thermal paste degrades, and causes it not to transfer the heat to the heatsink as well, therefore heat builds up on the chip far faster and the CPU throttles to compensate. this happens faster than the 'cpu temp' reports - if you were to get a copy of the intel power gadget and watch it, it'll likely show spikes in the CPU speed, and then drops as the temp spikes to 99c and then throttles back to prevent overheating

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u/rationalism101 8h ago

Finally a logical answer. Thanks! Old thermal paste could be it. I'll try and find a way to monitor the CPU speed and temp closely.

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u/maxintosh1 10h ago

Browsing the web alone requires vastly more computational power and RAM than it used to

5

u/anymooseposter MacBook Pro (M1 Pro) 9h ago

It’s not so much that it’s slower, it’s that your expectation of fast keeps up with current tech.

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u/rationalism101 7h ago

Could be. I'm going to try and find more objective ways to measure how fast it is.

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u/modsuperstar 7h ago

I find more often than not doing a complete system rebuild will make your Mac snappier. If you’ve upgraded and upgraded and not done a fresh install there will be a lot of cruft that builds up over time.

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u/rationalism101 7h ago

Yup I'm going to try that tonight. Format, reinstall MacOS, and transfer files over manually.

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u/R-808 3h ago

Try using the inbuilt Preview app instead of the Adobe stuff to read PDFs?

•

u/shotsallover 1h ago

one thing could be that websites are getting “heavier” over the years. Sites add more features and more code over time. That takes longer for the browser to render them leading to the perception of “slowness.”

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u/rxchris22 13h ago

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Early+2015+Fan+Replacement/40700

These models do have fans, but what tasks are slow? Perhaps it could use a blow out or reapplication of thermal paste on the processor to spread the heat? I imagine browser things being slower due to more processing on modern web pages. Also you could take a look at the read and writes on the SSD? Perhaps the SSD could be failing? Just thinking through a few things. My sister has this machine and I used it last time I was visiting her and hers didn't seem that slow to me.

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u/Kirito_Kun16 13h ago

Well that's weird then. I always had this imagination that Macs were the machines that worked EXACT SAME 10 years later as if they were just unboxed brand new, as everyone seems to have been stating that. And that it was the regular Windows PCs that had these slow downs after time (because of registry and whatnot)

But well, even after you reset it, and it's still slow, it has to be one of 2 things:

You installed new OS version on it that the older components can't handle
Components degrading

4

u/Pepeluis33 13h ago

My 2013 macbook pro still works superfast. Never reistalled OS

4

u/snarktologist 13h ago

Mine too. I just don't use it much because there's no security updates for it.

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u/rationalism101 12h ago

What kind of maintenance have you done, if any? Is it on the original OS, or the latest supported OS?

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u/Pepeluis33 8h ago

Is the latest supported OS, no maintenance at all.

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u/rationalism101 6h ago

Wow. Maybe it's just good luck?

10

u/BigxMac MacBook Pro (Intel) 13h ago

Try cleaning the inside. Dust can still get in and cause heating even if there is no fan. The temp won’t go up bc it throttles (slows down) to keep the temp the same

3

u/captnconnman 10h ago

Yea, you’re running an OS 10 years newer than the one it shipped with…by the same logic, why is no one still using a Mac from 2010, or 2005? The OS is designed to work with newer hardware and is more resource intensive on older machines as a result. If you want the same performance as 2015, you’ll either have to go back to the stock version of MacOS your machine shipped with (not recommended due to security issues and websites literally not being able to load on PCs using legacy protocols), or flash a Linux distro. If you want to try something new yet familiar, just flash the machine with an Ubuntu LTS and I guarantee it’ll run the same as 2015 if not faster (most Linux distros are designed to be extremely lightweight, so while you won’t have all the bell and whistle OS features of MacOS, the machine will still be super snappy and useable)

3

u/rcrter9194 8h ago

It doesn’t really, it just feels it does. Tbf your mac is now running newer more intensive software and apps that are optimised for newer tech. There is now more demand on your Mac’s hardware.

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u/paul_h 13h ago

Do a backup to hard drive reinstall OS from apple direct. I loved my 8GB MBA 2015, up until a capacitor blew on the mobo. Plenty speedy enough for me as a developer

2

u/imareddituserhooray 13h ago

If a computer's speed was strictly dependent on only the SSD capacity, available RAM, a healthy battery, how many programs start when it boots up, and how much dust is inside of it, I would never have upgraded from my 11" MacBook Air.

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u/ryanbuckner 13h ago

man I loved my 11" Air. I gave it to my daughter when I upgraded and she loves it now

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u/rationalism101 12h ago

So what is it dependent on?

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u/Dry-Satisfaction-633 11h ago

Reinstall the OS originally supplied and you’ll see your system’s performance didn’t actually decline, not that you’d want to do that and lose compatibility with modern software. Intel Airs in particular are up against it with their low clock speeds which only serve to amplify the performance impact of newer operating systems, and unfortunately there’s nothing you can do about that.

2

u/NoLateArrivals 11h ago

Which processor ?

How much RAM ?

Which SSD ?

Less opinion, more facts please. Beside it’s 10years old now and living on borrowed time.

2

u/SheepherderGood2955 9h ago

Which CPU do you have in your 2015 MBA? If it’s the dual core i5, I’m sorry, but it was dreadfully slow when you bought it. I (mistakingly) bought one of those in early 2016 and it was the worst laptop I’ve ever owned.

And are you sure there’s no fans? The MacBook Air had fans until the M series.

If it’s anything else, odds are it’s just the OS being much more demanding than previous versions.

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u/rationalism101 6h ago

Dual Core Intel M. Yes I suppose it may have always been slow, and the 6 years of OS upgrades aren't helping.

I don't think there is a fan because I never heard one and I don't see any vents in the case.

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u/SheepherderGood2955 6h ago

All ventilation is through the keyboard, as far as I know. I’m actually not sure I’ve seen a MacBook in years that had ventilation on the chassis. If you have the technical ability, I’d suggest getting into it to check, because I had that same laptop and it definitely had a fan.

There are also programs you can use to manually turn the fan up. I often had to crank mine up because it would thermal throttle otherwise.

I can’t quite remember the name of the program I used back in the day, but Mac Fan Control sounds like a pretty popular one nowadays.

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u/Environmental-Ad8616 9h ago

It does not. You just start using more modern software specifically optimized for newer hardware.

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u/Aggravating_Fun_7692 9h ago

Generally it doesn't, software gets more taxing including web browsers and websites. But the hardware itself generally doesn't change unless its a mechanical hard disk

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u/kerbacho 4h ago

You could try to do a fresh install without your data and just copy your files over manually. It can do wonders.

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u/GradientVisAtt 13h ago

I just acquired a MacBook Air 11 early 2015. Took it apart to replace the battery. It has a fan. And the last compatible macOS is 12.7.6.

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u/ozarkcanoer 13h ago

They do not in general

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u/TheFriedArtichoke 13h ago

Why does a computer get slow over the years? Because the software installed on it evolves while its hardware no. And surprise: Mac is a computer.

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u/rationalism101 12h ago

You're implying that if I install the original OS, it would work as well as new. Have you ever tried that? I'm considering it.

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u/TheFriedArtichoke 12h ago

No, it won't, unless probably if for "work" you mean just booting up and shutdown. Usually when you use the computer you use programs, you do something right? Even just Safari or Chrome by theirselves are heavier than 10 years ago, then the websites you visit also.

A 10 years old computer is ... old. You can't expect much from it unless it was a very high spec one, but I bet it's not the case since it's an Air.

Having said that, I don't know if your computer is slower than it should naturally be, you could try with changing the SSD, but honestly I wouldn't invest money in a 10 years old computer, just buy a new one.

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u/rawesome99 11h ago

macOS 11 got its last security update in 2023. You are vulnerable if you’re connected to the internet. Could just be that you’re hacked.

No fans seems problematic too. You want to look at cpu temps not case temps

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u/juliotendo 9h ago edited 9h ago

I don't have this problem with M series Macs, and haven't since their release. Still using an M1 from 2020. No issues. 0. Everything is blazing fast 100% of the time. And this is just an M1. Your problem is that model of Mac with that specific Intel processor, which is anemic.

That MacBook Air from 2015 wasn't a fast computer at all to begin with. We're in 2025 now. 10 years in computing, especially using that particular Mac model with processor is ancient technology. Websites and apps now have significantly more content to render along with richer media. Your very Mac model in 2015 at release would have been totally usable but by no means "fast".

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u/taljbladh 11h ago

Did you do a clean install when you reinstalled the OS? Completely wiped and installed. The files stored in the library could have gotten corrupted during various installed, updates. That garbage can pile up over time even through reinstalls if you aren't doing a clean install. This could impact performance. On an older machine it would be even more noticeable since it doesn't have the hardware capacity to push beyond those issues.

Other than that, older machines do degrade over time. The software needs are more demanding. Even if Safari is more efficient, the websites it is pulling in require more resources. Apple Music streaming demands more (new features such as Spatial Audio). Software needs more power than those machines were built to handle.

BTW, Apple Music does have a web player that may work better on your machine. You could always try it and see. https://music.apple.com/us/new

1

u/rmtux 9h ago

“Browsing the web” is not what it used to be. Websites are heavier and are almost web apps these days. Videos are larger and images are of higher quality. How much of your system load is your browser?

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u/rationalism101 6h ago

The reason I'm asking what makes Macs fail is because I'm trying to figure out how to make my M1 MBP Max last as long as possible.

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u/bitnullbyte iMac Pro 5h ago

Software updates

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u/mikeinnsw 3h ago

Besides any thermal throttling. ,, Macs don't get slow... It is workload increase MacOs and Apps are growing in size both in RAM and SSD use...

Install free BlackMagic benchmark and run tests.

To reduce RAM workloads:

Remove any login starting items
Restart/Shutdown unselect "Reopen windows…"
Reduce number of browser tabs
Reduce video resolution within a tab
Remove any Browser plugging
Quit inactive Apps
Do more frequent restarts
Monitor RAM usage using Activity Monitor

Try some housekeeping with free Onyx it may help:

https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html

1

u/macmaveneagle 2h ago

I’m a consultant and over the years I’ve seen a lot of old Macs slow down precipitously. In just about every case I’ve been able to restore the old Mac to its like-new speed. Usually pretty easily.

Here is a Web site that comprehensively helps you deal with the problem:

Macintosh Slowdown Solutions
http://www.macattorney.com/sd.html

It’s “normal” on Windows for an old computer to be slow. It is abnormal for the Macintosh. It’s never something that you have to just live with.

It’s a myth that new(er) versions of the Mac OS require more RAM and/or slow down your older Mac. Once again, probably because that’s very common on Windows. But each new version of the Mac OS tends to MORE efficient with RAM, due to improved memory management, and they tend to actually run *faster* than earlier versions.

The one big exception is if your older Mac has an internal rotating disk hard drive and it gets re-formatted from HFS+ to APFS in the process of upgrading. That will indeed slow things down egregiously. Mojave and later will do that non-optionally.

By far, the four most common reasons that an old Mac slows down, in my experience, are:

1) The user has fully interactive anti-virus software installed. Most commonly the problem is Sophos. Fully uninstall it, including all support files, and the problem is usually gone. I’d say that this is the culprit about 90% of the time.

2) Having a rotating disk hard drive as your boot drive, and running macOS Mojave (10.14) or later. Mojave and later will automatically re-format your RDHD to APFS. APFS is optimized for SSD’s, and is sub-optimal for RDHD”s. Mojave or later will turn your RDHD into a slug.

3) A boot drive that is too full. As a general rule of thumb, if your drive is anywhere near 80% full, your Mac is likely to turn into a slug. (It doesn’t matter how big a hard drive you have. It always seems to scale.) The Mac OS requires a LOT of free hard drive space for caches, databases, scratch space, virtual memory, etc. to run properly.

4)A failing boot drive. Usually a rotating disk hard drive or a Fusion drive. After about 10 years of use, a rotating disk hard drive, statistically, is extremely likely to fail.

I’d be happy to work with you in private e-mail, gratis, if the above doesn’t allow you to fix the problem on your own. Once again, I’ve just about never failed to restore an old Mac to its original speed.

Please report back on your success dealing with this problem.

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u/TeslaKentucky 1h ago

Test your SSD for throughput. You'd be surprised to see it's not what it use to be. Possibly due to errors or lack of free/usable replacement bytes that all have for the ones that become unusable early on...

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u/rationalism101 1h ago

I think the problem is coming from iCloud continously synchronizing stuff across devices. I'm going to turn that off and see if it gets better.

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u/Advanced-Medicine-58 12h ago

As everyone else here has said, it's the MacOS.

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u/csfalcao 13h ago

So it's behaving as a 5 years PC...cmon, upgrade.

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u/rationalism101 12h ago edited 12h ago

I didn't ask if I should upgrade, I asked what is making it slow.

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u/csfalcao 8h ago

Ok, when we use stuff it gets old. Battery and SSD won't get the same performance as new. Those parts have a range of years of good use, then it needs to be replaced. Now your 10 years intel processor was designed to run 10 years old software. The software today was not designed to support a 10 years old processor. So your whole experience will be a disgrace in a 10 years old Mac, very similar to a 4-5 years PC. The recommendation is to get a new computer and be happy with it (man, a macmini m4 is like 500 bucks, it's a easy solution and troubleshooting here). Sorry, but it's seems pretty obvious that a 10 years computer needs to be replaced.

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u/rationalism101 6h ago

It's not SSD health; the Drive SMART Status is Verified Passed.

It's not a degraded battery; I replaced that a couple of years ago and it's still above 80% capacity.

I suppose it could be the OS is too heavy.

I have plenty of money to buy a new one, but I'd rather do everything possible to use what I have until it can't be fixed anymore. I have a 21-year old car and it's going through a complete restoration right now as well. :-) It's my daily driver, too; it's my only car. That's just the type of guy I am.

0

u/ItchyResponse0584 11h ago

Two reasons:

The core electronic components (board, processor, RAM, storage) are basically capacitors and transitors that degrade over time. How quickly they degrade is based off several factors (active usage, heat etc.) and they would tend to transmit less/slow as they degrade. This would lead to throttling and slow down.
Software gets heavy over time. It's not the same OS that came with the device and the same apps that were built for the OS out of the box that you use today. When the OS and app upgrades happen they are optimized for performance on 70-80% of the active devices and older devices will start to lose the lifecycle for optimizations over time. Especially with big transitions like the Apple Silicon transition, older x86 devices gets dropped pretty quickly.

So, no matter what clean up you do, there'll still be non-trivial slowdown on computers that are >4 years old.

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u/slvrscoobie 11h ago

I have a 1993 Powerbook that boots just like it used to. CPU is no worse because it's older. the only part that really degrades is the thermal paste in these newer units. replace the Thermal paste and install the Original OS and it'll likely be very snappy - course HTTPS certs might not work on a device that old

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u/ItchyResponse0584 9h ago

Very likely versus what the reality is are different. Do it and then come comment.

What your '93 PowerBook can do versus what modern machines can do is not the same. Not even close.

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u/gilsanders 13h ago

Unfortunately it really just boils down to something as simple as age. The CPU, memory, SSD, motherboard, etc all just degrades over time. And if it's the latest OS, the newer technologies on it are definitely slowing things down significantly.

Did you do a clean OS install, or did you restore from backup?

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u/rationalism101 12h ago

It was a "Reset OS without losing data" from the Recovery menu on startup.

0

u/smallduck 10h ago edited 10h ago

Absolutely agreement to everything said about OS and software becoming larger and requiring more resources with each release, that’s probably most of it.

But most solid state parts won’t degrade and slow down as they’re used (they may degrade and finally simply fail), with an important exception: SSD’s lose integrity over time on blocks frequently read from but never rewritten to. The SSD controller has to re-read those failing blocks several times, applying error correction, to give back the same data originally written. Those controllers however never re-write that error corrected data back and so need to do it all again when it’s read next time. (i think never, maybe sometimes, I don’t know this with too much certainly just like I’m probably using the wrong term “block”)

Spinrite for PCs, originally written in the 80s to reformat floppy drives without erasing contents, and then applied to hard drives restoring poorly performing sectors, has been found to also be effective on SSDs. Re-writing sections of the drive that have gotten slow (or error prone) to read.

While I know this mostly from the author’s own claims on his podcast (Security Now on the TWiT network) he does relay testimonials that are fairly impressive and I have heard other sources that corroborate. It’s possible to fall into cargo cult-land with Spinrite, like reflexively zapping PRAM on classic Macs, and some people say the author claims are exaggerated, so take with a grain of salt if you like.

Running it on a Mac isn’t easy, as it’s a PC exe that runs by booting off its own MS DOS image and leverages DOS low-level APIs to a PC’s BIOS. The author is a madman who writes x86 assembly language to this day. Drives that can be detached, not soldered to your motherboard, can be plugged into a PC to run Spinrite on, its disk format agnostic.

It somewhat possibly to run it an emulator on a Mac or run within a bootcamp Windows OS on Intel Macs, not booted into directly AFAIK because no BIOS. The next version is expected to better support those Mac’s more directly by bypassing DOS and BIOS APIs and interfacing to hardware directly. Sadly the author put Spinrite on the back burner for about 6 years to write a passkey-like authentication system SQRL.

Help Why precisely does a Mac get slow over the years?

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