How I fixed slow boot on Mac

I finally figured out why my Mac took 10 minutes to start up.

I bought my Mac in 2023.

At first, it felt super fast. Just opened the lid and started working.

But over time, the startup got slower. Some mornings, I pressed the power button, made a coffee, checked my phone, and when I returned, the Apple logo was still there.

For a MacBook Pro not even three years old? That’s ridiculous.

Here’s exactly what I did to fix it.

3 things I tried to fix slow Mac startup

The first tip people usually advise on Reddit is simple: make sure macOS is up to date.

I ran straight to system settings, hoping for an easy fix.

But I was already on the latest version.

No quick fix this time, so I had to dig a little deeper.

1. See how fast startup should be (Safe Mode)

This tip actually came from a habit I picked up years ago: when something seems slow, start fresh and see what happens.

Safe Mode does exactly that.

It starts up your Mac without loading extra system extensions or background items.

Here’s what I did:

1. Shut down my Mac and waited about 10 seconds
2. Pressed and held the power button, then released it when startup options appeared
3. Selected my startup disk and held down the Shift key
4. Clicked Continue in Safe Mode
5. Released Shift and logged in

I really felt the difference:

• Startup was much faster
• No long pause at the Apple logo
• The system appeared lighter before login

👉That showed me everything I needed to know:

My Mac wasn’t slow because of the hardware.

Something I’d installed was slowing startup down.

2. Review what launches at startup

Next step: I went straight to System Settings > General > Login Items.

I looked at “Open at Login” and “App Background Activity.”

I was surprised to see a lot of tools I didn’t even recognize…

But what was actually safe to disable?

To get a clearer picture, I run CleanMyMac.

It took 3 seconds to scan my system and reveal 35 background items.

No wonder my Mac took 10 minutes to start up — too many things were loading at once.

I reviewed the items and removed more than half of the list.

3. Check storage pressure

Finally, I checked my storage.

I opened System Settings > General > Storage and took a closer look.

My disk wasn’t full, but it was tight enough to affect performance. macOS needs free space to breathe freely, especially during startup.

To make cleanup easier, I used CleanMyMac to quickly see what was actually taking up space and safely remove files I no longer needed.

I cleared out:

• system clutter, like caches and language files
• duplicate files
• old downloads and unused apps

It wasn’t a dramatic fix by itself — but combined with fewer background operations, it made startup much smoother.

Quick fix checklist

If your Mac startup is slow, here’s what I’d do right now:

✅Check startup speed in Safe Mode

✅Cut down login items and background tasks

✅Free up storage → aim for at least 15% free space

After all that, my Mac starts up in seconds again. Hopefully yours will too.

Till next time.