How to Speed Up Your MacBook Air (M1, M2, M3)

A MacBook Air with an M1, M2 or M3 chip that feels slow is usually short of memory, short of free disk space, or running hot. The Air has no fan, so it lowers its own performance when it gets warm, and many were sold with 8 GB of memory, which fills quickly with a browser and a few apps open. The checks below take a few minutes and need nothing beyond what macOS includes.

1. Check memory pressure

1. Open Activity Monitor from Applications > Utilities.
2. Click the Memory tab and look at the Memory Pressure graph at the bottom.
3. Green is fine. Yellow or red means the Mac is short of memory and is using the startup disk as swap, which is slower.
4. Click the Memory column to sort, and quit the apps at the top that you are not using. Use Cmd + Q, since closing the window often leaves the app running.

2. Keep the browser in check

On most Macs the browser is the largest user of memory.

• Close tabs you are finished with, and bookmark the ones you are keeping for later.
• Remove extensions you do not use. In Safari they are under Safari > Settings > Extensions.
• In Chrome, turn on Memory Saver in settings under Performance, so inactive tabs give their memory back.
• In Chrome, choose Window > Task Manager to see which tab or extension uses the most.

3. Keep it cool

With no fan, the Air gets rid of heat through its case. When it gets hot, macOS reduces performance until the temperature comes down.

• Use it on a hard, flat surface. A bed, sofa or cushion holds the heat in.
• Keep it out of direct sun and out of a hot car.
• Open Activity Monitor, click the CPU tab and sort by % CPU. One app working hard for a long time is the usual source of heat. Quit it if you do not need it.
• Long video calls, exports and games warm it up the most. Closing other apps while they run gives it less to do.

4. Leave free space on the disk

When memory runs short, macOS uses the startup disk as swap, and it needs free space for that. An Air with a small disk that is nearly full has little room left. Open System Settings > General > Storage to see what is free, then empty the Trash, clear the Downloads folder and remove apps you no longer use. There is more in our guide on how to free up Mac storage.

5. Check login items and Low Power Mode

1. Open System Settings > General > Login Items and remove apps you do not need at startup. Under Allow in the Background, switch off helpers you do not use.
2. Open System Settings > Battery and look at Low Power Mode. It saves battery by reducing performance, so set it to Never, or to battery only, when you want full speed.
3. Restart the Mac now and then, and install updates from System Settings > General > Software Update.

What MacPrune does here

MacPrune is a disk cleaner, and we do not promise that it will make a MacBook Air faster. It helps with two of the checks above. Its Monitor page shows live CPU, GPU, memory, disk, network and battery use, lists the apps using the most CPU and memory, and lets you quit them. Its Clean page finds caches, old downloads and other files on a nearly full disk and moves what you choose to the Trash after a confirmation. The space is freed when the Trash is emptied. MacPrune runs on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs with macOS 13 or later. The basic version is free and Pro is a one-time purchase.

If your Air is short of disk space, you can download MacPrune and see where it went. Related guides: what to do when a Mac overheats and why your Mac is slow.