Give your Mac an instant speed boost

1 Grab the app

Open the App Store and search for ‘Memory Diag’. Download and launch this free app. You will be prompted to sign up for a newsletter. Click the red button to skip this bit.

2 Click to enable

The app exists as a Mac menu bar item. Click on the icon to get started and you will be presented with a doughnut chart showing exactly how your Mac’s memory is being used.

3 Check your memory

Click on the small ‘i’ icon and you will see a full breakdown of your Mac’s memory, including what modules you have installed, how much memory is available and more.

4 Identify draining apps

Back in the main Memory Diag interface, open apps that are causing a significant drain on your Mac’s memory will be displayed at the bottom of the menu. Consider quitting these.

5 Recycle memory

When you quit apps, click on the icon in the middle of the chart to ‘recycle’ the memory they’ve used and restore the memory’s state to that of a fresh system restart.

6 Free up memory

As you recycle memory, you should then see an increase in the amount of free memory displayed in the chart as you are forcing the system to empty caches.

7 Access preferences

Click on the list icon in the top-right corner of the menu and select ‘Preferences’. Here you will be able to configure a range of options relating to behaviour, appearances, etc.

8 Recycle automatically

Click on the ‘Advanced’ section and then tick the ‘Automatic Recycle’ option to automate the process to free up memory when memory-intensive apps have been closed.

9 Show free memory

In the Memory Diag preferences, click on ‘Appearance’ and then, under ‘Menu Bar Text’, tick the ‘Show Free Memory’ option to display the figure in the menu bar.