How to Fix a Slow Computer (Without Buying Anything)

A slow computer is rarely a worn-out computer. It’s usually a pile-up, and pile-ups can be cleared. Here’s the checklist we actually run, in the order we run it, with the free fixes first.

1. Restart it. Actually restart it.

Not sleep. Not closing the lid. A real restart. Windows and Mac both accumulate memory clutter over weeks of sleep-wake cycles, and machines that “haven’t been turned off since Christmas” are slow for exactly that reason. If a restart fixes it, make that a weekly habit and you’re done.

2. Audit the startup queue

Every program that launches at boot is a passenger your computer carries all day. Most of them invited themselves: video call apps, printer “helpers,” game launchers, that trial software from 2024.

On Windows: right-click the taskbar → Task Manager → Startup apps. On Mac: System Settings → General → Login Items. Disable everything you don’t recognize as something you want running before you’ve asked for it. You can’t break the programs. They’ll still open when you open them.

3. Check the storage twice

Fullness: a drive above ~90% full slows everything, because the system needs scratch space to think. Empty the recycle bin, clear the downloads folder, offload old video files.

Health: a drive that’s failing also reads slow, with much higher stakes. If the slowness came on suddenly, or you hear clicking, stop reading this and back up your files today. Slowness is how failing drives introduce themselves. (When to replace instead of repair covers the follow-up question.)

4. Weigh the browser

For many people it’s the browser that’s slow rather than the computer. Forty tabs and a decade of extensions will humble any machine. Close what you’re not using, then prune extensions ruthlessly: each one runs on every page you visit. If the browser feels quick again after a cleanup, you’ve found your culprit.

5. Do not install a “cleaner” app

The ads promising to “speed up your PC” are selling the disease as the cure. We remove far more of this software than we’ve ever installed. Much of it slows machines further, and some crosses into outright scam. The built-in tools above do everything a cleaner claims to, for free, without the subscription nag.

When it’s genuinely the hardware

If the checklist doesn’t move the needle, the honest answer is usually one of two upgrades: more memory, or (on older machines) swapping a spinning hard drive for a solid-state one. The second is the single biggest upgrade in computing. It makes an eight-year-old machine feel new, and it costs far less than a new computer.

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Want it done for you? A tune-up is one remote session while you watch. And if you’d rather it never got slow again, Plus membership keeps your machine patched and monitored continuously. That’s the tune-up that never stops.