13 easy ways to make your Mac run faster

No matter how much you loved your Mac when you bought it, chances are it doesn't perform the same way it once did.

A few years can take a noticeable toll on any computer, but luckily there are some tips and tricks that can help bring it back up to speed.

Here are a few things to look out for that can make your overall Mac experience more smooth and efficient — without having to upgrade the hardware.

The complete, easy guide to backing up your Mac

You know about Time Machine, but there are other ways to back up your Mac. Here's how to pick the best backup method for you.

If, tomorrow, something goes wrong with your Mac or if it gets stolen or damaged, replacing the hardware itself is technically very easy to do; it just takes money. But the data that was on its hard disk or SSD—those precious photos, that carefully amassed iTunes library, that work, that novel? The best case scenario is that you pay hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars to a data recovery specialist to try to get some back, and the worst case is that it’s gone for good.

And that’s why, today, you should back up your Mac. We all know this, but understanding the different ways of backing up, and picking a backup strategy that’s right for you—so that you can rest easy knowing that it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll lose any of your files—can be tricky. At least, it would be, but for this guide!

10 essential Mac tips and tricks

Last month we gave you a list of 10 essential tips and tricks to improve your life as a PC user. From shortcuts to programmes, these nuggets of info were designed to make you a quicker and more knowledgeable user of Microsoft Windows.

Naturally, it’s only right that we do the same for all the OS X users out there. Macs are more popular than ever before, and with people still making the switch from Windows to Apple’s OS for the first time there can be a lot to take in. With that in mind here’s 10 tips we think will come in handy during day-to-day use of your MacBook or iMac.

Terminal Commands:

1. Disable Lion/Mountain Lion's Pop-up Accent Window.
   

   defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

2. Change the Default Backup Periods in Time Machine.

   sudo defaults write /System/Library/Launch Daemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int 1800

3. Drag Dashboard Widgets onto the Desktop.

   defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES

4. Disable Lion/Mountain Lion's Auto-restore Feature.

   defaults write com.apple.Preview NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

5. Show Hidden Files in Finder.

   defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

6. Change the File Format for Screenshots

   defaults write com.apple.screencapture type file-extension