MacOS – Clean Install of Lion OS X / Optimizing My Machine

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I downloaded Lion OS X (an upgrade on top of Snow Leopard) but my MacBook pro is becoming quite slow now. I'd like to install a fresh new copy of Lion OS X. I know how to do that, I can just re-download Lion from the App Store and there are a ton of tutorials online on who to do a fresh install.

My question is, how would I back up my documents? Logically, I would like to keep almost all my files and apps. I do have Time Machine. Can someone suggest to me how I should back up and then restore my apps and files and all that? That also includes apps I purchased not through the App Store, like Office and Mailplane. I'd like to continue to use those..

If someone knows of a way to optimize my machine without going through all this, could you please suggest to me what to do? It's becoming really slow and I hate it.

Thank you!

Best Answer

The only way to do this if you really want to have a "clean state" is by manually copying your documents, music, photos, etc to an external hard drive

Personally I wouldn't do this. If you're a programmer you know that you're going to lose a lot of stuff. What I'd suggest you instead is just to try to find the cause of the slowness.

Check this:

  • If you can upgrade your RAM
  • If you have enough hard drive space available (you should leave about 5-10% hard drive sspace empty for swap)
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