Rather than keeping all your files on your hard drive-which can fail and cost you all your data, especially if you’re not diligent about keeping a reliable and up-to-date backup–store your files on a cloud service. If you’re not already using a cloud storage system like Dropbox or OneDrive to store your documents, spring cleaning is a good time to switch.

Western Digital’s Black line is reasonably priced for the performance and promise of reliability. These hard drives can be installed directly onto the motherboard without having to rework your cable management, and they can achieve much faster speeds than their SATA counterparts. You may need a manual to help you find the exact location on your motherboard of choice. To check, simply look up your motherboard model and check whether there’s an M.2 slot. If price is no concern, consider stepping up to an M.2 NVME SSD if your PC supports it. WD_Black SN750 1TB NVMe Internal Gaming SSD BUY FROM AMAZON TEAMGROUP GX2 512GB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD An SSD is many times faster than an old-fashioned mechanical drive and will enable your computer and applications to boot in seconds instead of minutes. If you have an older computer with a hard disk drive (HDD) for storage, the single best way to make your computer feel brand new again is to replace the hard drive with a sold state drive (SSD). Sometimes, no matter how much you try to spruce up a PC, the only way to really breathe some life into it is to upgrade one or two key components. Use the + and - buttons at the bottom to add or remove applications you’d like to run at startup.

On Mac, you can open the Settings menu, navigate to ‘Users and Groups,’ find the user you’d like to manage startup apps for, and click the ‘Login Items’ tab. If you later realize you really needed that program to run at startup, return here and turn it back on. Just swipe the buttons to the left to turn off an app. Scan the list and disable anything you don’t think you need, especially if Windows says it has a medium or high impact on your computer’s performance. Windows maintains a list of all the apps that run at startup without your knowledge.

Clean my computer