Advise to treat older Mac's

Question

Level 1

42 points

I would like to know the average startup time of MBP mid 2012

I have a MBP 10.1 mid 2012, quad core i7 2.6, Retina. 16 GB RAM, 750 GB SSD. Running Big Sur.

I have cleaned and tweaked the machine and the result is startup in 28.4 seconds.

I use MS Office 365 and Adobe Acrobat and it runs sweet and crispy.

Just removed all unnecessary items and unused progs which took me several days but the result is a reward.

It is possible to have old machines running great.

My MBA mid 2013, i5, 4 GB RAM, 500GB ssd, got the same treatment and runs all the same progs without any issue.

It starts in 29.8 secs.

If this is a measure of course but after the cleanup sessions both Macs are great to work on.

I therefore advise any person owning an old machine to give it a thorough cleanup and tweak.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 11.7

Posted on Dec 18, 2025 5:39 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Re: “ a MBP 10.1 mid 2012, quad core i7 2.6, Retina. 16 GB RAM, 750 GB SSD. Running Big Sur.”

MacTracker indicates that Catalina is the maximum version of macOS that is compatible with that 15” Retina MBP.

Reply

Answer 2

Level 10

155,360 points

dialabrain wrote:

Can't say I've had any reason to measure the startup time of any of my Macs in the last 20+ years.

Can't say I've had any reason to shut down any of my Macs in that period of time.

Half a minute seems reasonable though.

I use MS Office 365 and Adobe Acrobat and it runs sweet and crispy.

Imagine how well it would run if you didn't use that bloatware.

Reply

Answer 3

Level 10

135,905 points

Lance.scs wrote:

I would like to know the average startup time of MBP mid 2012

Can't say I've had any reason to measure the startup time of any of my Macs in the last 20+ years. Maybe someone has.

Reply