Why your Mac is running slow and what you can do to fix it

Jason Cipriani for CNET:

If you’ve used a Mac for an extended amount of time, you’ve surely seen the spinning beachball as your system slows to a crawl. It’s especially frustrating to have a Mac that’s just not performing as fast as it should when you’re trying to get work done… You could roll your eyes and learn to deal with frequent slowdowns, or you could do something about it.
Almost any app can hog your Mac’s processing power and memory, causing sluggish performance as a result. However, some apps are more prone to bringing your system to a crawl than others. If you use Google Chrome, you likely already know it’s usually at the top of the list.
Before switching up your favorite apps, you’ll need to figure out which ones are slowing down your Mac. To do that, you’ll need to get familiar with Activity Monitor.
MacDailyNews Take: Activity Monitor is your friend. We keep ours right in the Dock.