How to Optimize Your Mac for Video Editing

Video editing can be a daunting task for any laptop if it isn’t equipped with the right components or doesn’t have enough space to take care of all the memory space needed to cater to such a project. Macs usually come with a generous number of prerequisites for such stuff, but we wouldn’t bet our money on guaranteeing this would be the case every time.

Optimizing your Mac is a welcome practice you have to try doing every few months or, at least, annually. And to help you fast-track this procedure, we’ve prepared a few pointers. Without any further ado, let’s delve into our pointers to find all your answers on how to optimize Mac for video editing, among all other things:

Keep your Mac Clean

One of the most efficient ways to optimize Mac for video editing is to make sure that your system is clean and clutter-free. With the passage of time, temporary files, cache data, and all other unnecessary apps accumulate, which compromises the performance of your Mac. To take care of this problem, we recommend considering a reliable Mac Cleaner like ‘Clean My Mac’, a software that is useful in scanning and identifying your Mac and getting rid of unwanted files. This would free up the disk space, which would make MacBook faster.

Lessen the Burden via an External Drive

It’s a well-known fact that video files tend to take up copious amounts of space. And if you’re working regularly, with your laptop stock memory as the only storage for them, then this will come back to bite you sooner than you think. To help avert the impending doom, consider investing in an external HDD.

Buying one that has storage of one TB or two TB will help you keep your valuable content safely stored externally and keep your Mac’s health & storage intact as well. Doing so would enhance the overall experience of video editing on Mac. You can also Outsource Video Editing tasks.

Use an Updated Graphics Card

Video editing quickly becomes a cumbersome process if your Mac isn’t equipped with an updated graphics card. During editing, the better your graphics card is, the smoother your editing will be. Having an outdated graphics card will lead to a laggy experience which will only frustrate you the more you try to edit.

Many companies, such as Razer, sell external GPUs chock-full of power for such tasks. An eGPU can help take the load off and help your Mac breathe while it tackles your editing. Alternatively, an external graphics card is also considered as an option. It’s honestly all about diverting power from the main grid.

Get Rid of Bloatware

Any machine, when bought, comes with a ton of bloatware that does nothing but forward ads from the parent company to get the user to spend more on adding aesthetics to their system. These apps, in the long run, contribute to slowing down your system and adding to your woes. Tons of space can potentially be freed up when cutting down on these applications.

Update System Software

Apple takes great pride in providing the latest and greatest for their Mac devices. They also support said devices for a long time, often up to 4–5 years. Thus, even if you do not have the latest edition of your machine, chances are that Apple is still rolling out updates for it.

Keep these updates enabled because they will inevitably help organize space overall.

Use In-Built Cleaning Software

There are bunches of helpful features already installed on your Mac. Oftentimes, we tend to overlook these for something available on the App Store instead. Applications such as Clean My Mac or Duplicate File Doctor may be pivotal in detecting unnecessary storage and proceeding toward deleting or isolating them. This also helps in clearing up the cache, again freeing up a couple of hundred MBs in the proces

Use Proxy Files

If you’re a full-time editor and want to get your videos done properly without providing too much hindrance to your system, then consider setting up proxy files. A proxy file minimizes the actual video content in size, so you keep working on it without letting the computer take up its entire load. Once you’re done and satisfied with your product, then you set up a master proxy file, which can then be converted into a full-fledged video.

Upgrade Your RAM

Not everything is about storage. Your Mac’s RAM is equally important, as it helps the device speed up video rendering, among other things. There are various levels of pre installed RAM in MacBooks, but a local computer store might be able to help you expand it. You may also try using third-party tools to help clear up space.

In the long run, though, consider installing additional RAM to make MacBook faster and ensure longevity as well as its video rendering speed.

Use a 64-bit Application

By having video editing software that utilizes 64-bit, you’ll let your device hook up over 4 GB of RAM to get your task done. What this does is that it limits lag and lets you smoothly run applications and editing without your computer overheating or being ‘bricked’. Whenever you’re installing an application on your Mac, be sure to check if it’s 32 or 64-bit and go for the latter. By doing so, you’re helping the Mac use features to the max of its capability and, in turn, getting work done without the hassle of going back & forth with your device if it lags.

More Processors

There’s no such thing as too many processors. Provided you keep them cool enough. By having lots of processors embedded inside your Mac, you get amazing performance without any of the downsides. Basically, you get your system to go as fast as your wallet would allow. It’s a neat trick that you’d probably have to open up your laptop for, but if you get it done, you’ll have a beast ready to pounce.

Conclusion

That’s all we got for now on how to optimize your Mac for video editing. Editing is a big task, but video editing services like the one provided by benheine.com are always at your disposal to transform the quality of your videos.

Thus, try to find the right balance between video editing and computer specifications, and you’ll be flying through your workflows in a matter of weeks.