speed up my 2012 without spending money until AS iMac comes out next year

[ravinder08]

My late 2012 is very slow, I am waiting on the Apple Silcom iMacs next year and will then upgrade my machine.
is there any tips I can use to speed up my current machine? Don't really want to spend any money if this machine can be optimised.

 

[Kyberplayer]

You can try upgrading the SSD and increasing the RAM but I wouldn't try it my self... You may try a Apple representative to do that for you.

 

[ravinder08]

You can try upgrading the SSD and increasing the RAM but I wouldn't try it my self... You may try a Apple representative to do that for you.

Not looking to spend any money, was hoping there was a way to clean out all the cruft and optimise settings, not worth spending any money now as I would rather put the money toward a new Apple Silicon iMac next year.

 

[4sallypat]

Wipe it out and put a fresh OSX on it - that usually does the trick.

My 2013 iMac doesn't use the internal spinning drive but instead it boots from an external SSD (Thunderbolt LaCie 1TB) and runs like a 2020 iMac!

Best $50 SSD upgrade ever!

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

If you're not willing to spend any money, you're NOT "getting more speed".
Understand that before going further.

If you have USB3 ports, you could buy a low-cost external SSD, plug it in, and set that up to be the "new boot drive" for the time being.

I'd suggest a $10 enclosure like this:

SABRENT 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP)

SABRENT 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP)

tinyurl.com

Then, get a 2.5" SATA SSD (I'd suggest 512gb or even 256gb) for it.
I'd recommend Crucial or Sandisk.
Something like this:

Crucial MX500 500GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD, up to 560MB/s - CT500MX500SSD1

Start your system in seconds store up to 4TB of data and upgrade with an SSD you can count on Join more and more people who are keeping their family videos travel photos music and important documents on an SSD and get the near-instant performance and lasting reliability that comes with solid stat...

tinyurl.com

Or, you could get a 256gb for even less.

Erase it with disk utility (either HFS+ or APFS, depending on what OS you're using).
Then, either install a fresh copy of the OS, or use CarbonCopyCloner to "selectively clone" the OS folders, app folders, and account (you may have to leave some things behind).

Get it set up and the iMac will run MUCH better (particularly if it has only a platter-based hard drive inside).

Do this, and you'll come back here and tell us, "I never would have believed that something so easy to do would speed it up so much!"...

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

Do as the fisho suggests and go external SSD. When you upgrade your iMac, you can use the SSD as an external for your backups.

 

[MirComputers]

Is there any thread about debloating macOs on this forum? Discussing stuff like this - https://gist.github.com/pwnsdx/1217727ca57de2dd2a372afdd7a0fc21