Debloating macOs - run faster on old machines / low ram

[WhenMusicAttacks]

Hi everyone! I wanted to start this topic about debloating macOs because i love getting the best out every machine and older hardware. When doing my restoration of a very old first gen i7 i started looking for services that are not needed to run the "unix core" of macos, all the icloud/icrap stuff that most power users do not use anyway.
It all started with this - https://www.macobserver.com/tips/how-to/disable-tailspind-spindump-macos-cpu-speed/

I stumbled upon the following github and started from the script provided by PWNSDX  - https://gist.github.com/pwnsdx/d87b034c4c0210b988040ad2f85a68d3
 

While the improvement on the i7 machine was not night and day, i have run the script on a friend's Macbook Air with 2gb or ram after updating it to High Sierra with dosdude patches and it really made a huge difference in usability. It literally came back to life from 1.8gb to 1.2 occupied on startup, he is now able to browse the internet again.

 

With some spare time now in the summer i am looking to expand and understand a little bit better the list of disabled services by testing on my own machine.

I would define 3 main "levels" of "applezation" on the system:

full - being able to use iCloud - most services are needed - just disable Siri and as much tracking / helpers as possible
partial - no more icloud, but still able to login and install apps from the App Store - i already broken this and i will try to start from scratch to get the bare minimum needed to achieve this
barebone - no more App Store - i am now in this state as i don't need App Store at all, and i am now in the realm of "might aswell disable something crucial and not being able to boot anymore"

 

additionally, Spotlight is probably a huge resource hog exp when using external hard drives
i also disabled Time Machine as i manage all my backups with superduper images anyway

I'd like to learn as much as possible on the subject - these are some other references on the internet but any other link is very appreciated

 

- http://tech.masterofsql.com/os-x/unload-disable-unwanted-agents-daemons-os-x.html

 

- https://vilimpoc.org/blog/2014/01/15/provisioning-os-x-and-disabling-unnecessary-services/
 

- https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/296482/macos-10-10-on-4-gb-memory-bloat-which-launch-daemons-agents-services-can-i-dis

 

- http://www.mutface.com/speed-up-mojave-mac-os-technical-guide/

 

i personally focus my research on High Sierra (being the latest perfectly functioning OS on pre-metal macbooks up to 2011) and Mojave (being the latest running 32bit apps it's the most common among power users)

I have been using the macos Console to keep track of changes and services. I noticed that many services are connected in a way that taking one service down (like apsd ) can literally make a lot other go crazy with failed calls, that now need to be disabled aswell to prevent hangups.

I will report some of my findings in the next sections, with articles linked
 

CONTENT CACHING

-- https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/07/17/howto-mac-content-caching/

 

# ContentCaching
TODISABLE+=(
    'com.apple.AssetCache.builtin' \
    'com.apple.AssetCacheLocatorService' \
    'com.apple.AssetCacheManagerService' \
    'com.apple.AssetCacheTetheratorService'
    )

 

TOUCHID

 

# Biokit, touchid
TODISABLE+=(
    'com.apple.biokitaggdd' \
    'com.apple.biometrickitd' \
    'com.apple.touchbarserver'
    )

 

Edited July 24, 2020 by WhenMusicAttacks

[PippoX0]

Hi,

i always too like to get the best out every older hardware machine.

By now i upgrade one Sony Vaio notebook to run faster and stable ...

This is the core of Think Different approach ...

 

See Ya