My ten year old MacBook Pro has been returned to me by a family member after a longtime loan!. It is running macOS Catalina Vers 10.15..7. and is very very slow. I have reinstalled the OS but it is still running very very slowly. I would like to return the computer to factory settings but can find no way of doing that. Advise please on whether this is the best course of action and how do I do it in Catalina?
macOS Catalina
- Thread starter Simol
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Apple has this article for you,
Erase and reinstall macOS
To restore your Mac to factory settings, erase your Mac, then reinstall macOS.
support.apple.com
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How long has it been running since you installed the new OS?
Sometimes it seems to take a few days before any reasonable speed returns after such an operation, and I guess it needs time to get everything built back up into proper order and all the maintenance functions done.
Maybe give it a few extra days and see if things improve?
- Patrick
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The second thing I always think of is Storage. Insufficient free storage space eg. 20% of total storage, can slow down your device a lot but if you're not seeing spinning "beach balls" it may be something else.
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Very good valid point, but I would be very surprised if the OP was in that position with their MB Pro assuming they just did a new clean OS install, at least if they did so on a white clean Drive.
If not, that would certainly be something to check.
I see those models came equipped with a solid state drive SSD, but I don't know if they were that fast in that era, but certainly much faster than the older rotating HDDs.
- Patrick
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Could just be because it's old
. I have a 10 year old MacBook running High Sierra and although it still works perfectly I'm always surprised when I fire it up how slooow it is compared to my M1 MBP.
. I have a 10 year old MacBook running High Sierra and although it still works perfectly I'm always surprised when I fire it up how slooow it is compared to my M1 MBP.
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Could just be because it's old
A Mac that used to seem fast doesn't suddenly seem horribly slow just because new computers are faster.
I have a 15 year only iMac in my office that I keep to run legacy software, and I'm actually impressed by how peppy it is.
I think that the most likely explanation for the OP's very noticeable slowdown is because his Mac has an internal boot drive that is a rotating disk hard drive, and somewhere along the way it was reformatted from HFS+ to APFS, which will cause it to run like a dog.
See:
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I was thinking the same thought but when I checked every Mac it seems that that model came with us SSD unless I misread something.
I didn't think that ssds were generally used by Apple in that era when the model was manufactured.
Maybe the OP will respond back with any new information they have discovered or if they found a solution.
I'm assuming they aren't running any antivirus software that can slow things down or any other similar utilities.
EDIOT:
MacBook Pro "Core i7" 3.0 13" Mid-2014 Specs (Retina Mid-2014 13", MGXD2LL/A, MacBookPro11,1, A1502, 2875): EveryMac.com
Technical specifications for the MacBook Pro "Core i7" 3.0 13" Mid-2014. Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.
everymac.com
Assuming of course it is the same or a similar model of the same era.
- Patrick
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Agreed. My 2011 iMac running Mavericks DID become horribly slow, but after upgrading to 16GB RAM & SSD main drive, it's as fast I want and need.
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