Speed Up Your Mac – Quick Easy way to make Mac OS X Lion/Mountain Lion faster

Mac OS X LionI am sure there are dozens of methods, and dozens of programs and apps that do wonderful things for your Mac computer running OS X Lion/Mountain Lion, but in my opinion, the folks at Apple have built in the best, quickest, and easiest way to give your Apple computer a boost. It’s called “Repair Permissions”.

A few years ago I was involved heavily in editing high def video for a motorsport operation, and it never ceased to amaze me how much quicker and happier my mac pro was after a permissions repair.

**NOTE** – It can take a while for this operation to complete, so make sure you have plenty of down time before tying up your computer with this procedure.

The good thing about OS X Lion/Mountain Lion is that you don’t have to go and find your install disk to do this anymore (Like you used to have to do with Snow Leopard, Leopard and Tiger). When you installed Lion/Mountain Lion, it created a rescue partition for you, and to access this partition, and speed up your mac, all you gotta do is hold down your “ALT” key, and turn your mac on! Once you here the “BONG” sound, you will see this:

Mac Alt Recovery HDWhen your Mac boots, it selects the regular hard drive automatically. But when you hold down the ALT key, your telling your Mac that you want to see what other devices you can boot. Lion/Mountain Lion creates a very small “Virtual” hard drive, that you can boot into instead of your normal hard drive and operating system, that lets you perform maintenance operations. To restore your permissions, click the arrow for “Recovery HD”. Your computer will boot from this second partition, leaving your main partition unmounted, so you can perform maintenance.

Once your computer has booted up from the Recovery Hard Disk you will see Utilities Window.

mac os x utilities windowTo get started, select the “Disk Utility” option, then click continue in the bottom right corner. The Disk Utility will now open.

restore permissions mac osx lion disk utility windowSelect/Highlight your main hard drive partition (the one you want to speed up) in the left side of the window, and click “First Aid” to get to the repair window. Here you can verify/repair the condition of the disk. I usually just hit “Repair Disk” and let it do its thing. This can take a bit of time, so go put the coffee on!

mac lion repair disk processYou will see all kinds of activity, but the only thing you need to worry about is that green text that says the disk is ok, and that the repair is complete. The next step is to click “Repair Permissions”. Again, this may take some time, but when it is complete it will tell you down the bottom of the window in bold font.

mac osx lion repair permissions window completeWhen its done, Quit out of Disk Utility using the “Disk Utility” menu bar option.

quit disk utilityThen Quit out of the Utilities Window from the Mac OS X Utilities menu bar option.

quit mac utilities

The final window/step is to click “Restart” from the “Choose Start Up Disk” Window. As we didnt permanently change the start up disk, there is no need to change any other parameters here, just click Restart.

choose start up disk

Your computer will now restart (It may take a little longer than normal to do so – so don’t worry if it does!) and hopefully you will notice a pleasant increase in performance!

If you want to go one step further and clean your caches and log files, rebuild indexes and execute your Macs built in maintenance scripts, check out my follow on article about using the free application called ONYX!

How to Save your OS X Mavericks, Mountain Lion and Lion Install Program and make a Install/Boot DVD or USB key

OS-X-Mavericks-Header

UPDATE – **I HAVE TESTED THIS METHOD WITH OS X MAVERICKS AND IT WORKS GREAT!**

This tutorial was written using Mountain Lion as an example, but it works for Mavericks as well – just follow the same process

Just like OS X Lion, it is really important to save your OS X Mountain Lion and Mavericks “Install File” BEFORE you install it. Without it, you can not make an install disk, and it is deleted automatically once you install your new operating system.

Once you have purchased Mountain Lion or Mavericks, your purchase/price button will turn into a “downloading” button.

mountain lion download screenA short time after, your launchpad may spring open and show you the downloads progress.

mountain lion download progress screen in launchpadYou can leave it open and watch the progress if you want. Close it up when your finished watching, or when the file has completely downloaded.

**CRITICAL** – When the file has finished downloading, a window will pop up and ask you if you want to go ahead and install the new software. QUIT THE INSTALLER IMMEDIATELY! This can be done by clicking the file menu and selecting the “Quit” option.

mountain-lion-install-begin-now

Don’t worry, you are not going to loose the program you just bought, you are just telling your computer that you want to install later. Once you have closed out of the installer, open a new finder window, then open your “Applications” folder. Inside this folder you will see your OS X Mountain Lion or Mavericks Install File.

mountain lion installer in applications folderRight click and “Copy” the installer file, then “Paste” it onto your desktop.

save your mountain lion install fileOnce the file finishes copying to the desktop, you can go back into your applications folder and double click and run the installer, if you are ready to install your update.

If you want to make a bootable install DVD disk or a USB Key, the easiest way to do this is with Disk Maker X (Formerly called Lion Disk Maker).

LDM_GemGo to the Disk Maker X web site HERE and download the latest version of the program. Once downloaded, unzip and run the program.

TO MAKE A DVD DISK:

With Disk Maker X open, select Mountain Lion to make a Mountain Lion DVD, Or Mavericks to make a Mavericks Install DVD.

lion disk makerOnce you select your Operating System, the program will try to locate the install program automatically. It doesn’t matter if it uses the one in your Applications folder, or the one on your desktop. In my case, it found the one on my desktop.

lion disk maker location confirmThe next step is to tell Disk Maker X if you want to make a DVD or a USB key. Keep in mind, if you want to make a DVD you will need a 8.5gb Dual Layer DVD, and a Dual Layer DVD Burner, as the installer will not fit on a single layer 4.7gb DVD.

lion disk maker dvd or usbClick “Burn A DVD”. Disk Maker X will ask you to select your Burner.

choose dvd driveYou will now be prompted to insert a disk, and begin the burning process.

burn disc now

TO MAKE A USB KEY:

With Disk Maker X open, select Mountain Lion to make a Mountain Lion USB or Mavericks to make a Mavericks install USB key.

lion disk makerOnce you select your operating system, the program will try to locate the install program automatically. It doesn’t matter if it uses the one in your Applications folder, or the one on your desktop. In my case, it found the one on my desktop.

lion disk maker location confirmThe next step is to tell Disk Maker X if you want to make a DVD or a USB key. Keep in mind, if you want to make a USB Key you will need a 8gb thumb drive, due to the size of the installer. Click “Create a Boot Disk”.

lion disk maker dvd or usbNext, Disk Maker X will ask you about your Thumb Drive. In keeping with the recommendations of the makers of the program, we will select “8gb USB Thumb Drive”.

(My understanding is, that this option will completely erase the entire USB drive, and ALL existing data will be over-written. If you have a larger drive, which is divided up into partitions, and you do not want to erase the whole drive, use the “Another kind of disk” option. IF this is incorrect, or there is also another reason, please reply in comments.)

You will now be asked to confirm your drive selection, and its location.

usb selectOne last warning! Your thumb drive will now be erased COMPLETELY!

final warningDisk Maker X will now begin crunching files to make your USB Installer.

usb creation in progressDuring this process, particularly towards the end of the process, a lot of new windows and “Get Info” dialogues will pop up, and disappear. This is normal. This is just your computer acknowledging the creation and mounting of new drives and volumes.

Once it is all completed, you will hear Homer yelling “WooHoo!” and see your new USB drive ready to go!

Finished!

homer-woohoo