MacLife - USA (2020-09)

Purchase a Pro license to be able to set up multiple

custom configurations that you can quickly switch

between as needed.

IT DOESN’T MATTER whether

you’re running the latest Mac

mini or an ageing MacBook,

they all suļer from one

unavoidable al·iction: heat. The harder

you push your Mac’s hardware, the hotter

it gets — so every time you do anything

taxing, from playing games to editing

video, its insides heat up.

The cumulative eļect is to stress your

Mac’s components and reduce their

lifespan, a problem compounded by the

fact your fan isn’t necessarily doing all it

Keep your Mac cool

Improve performance and increase Mac lifespan with Macs Fan Control

can to mitigate the rise in temperature.

Macs prioritize keeping themselves quiet

over cooling your components, relying

on their built–in ability to “throttle” the

CPU when it hits a certain temperature.

Throttling reduces performance while the

fan sits practically idle when it should be

cooling your Mac.

This is where Macs Fan Control enters

the fray. This app enables you to take

control of the fans in your Mac — from

the one or two in your MacBook, to the

multiple fans in the Mac Pro. You can set

it to your own choice of speed to keep

things permanently cooler, or adopt

a more nuanced approach that only kicks

in when your Mac is working harder than

it normally does.

The app is free to download, although

the Pro version (around $18) enables you

to create a series of switchable presets

for diļerent tasks — handy, but not

essential. Here, our step-by-step guide

will show you how to set up the free

version to prevent throttling, improve

performance, and help extend the life of

your Mac. NICK PEERS

REQUIRES

Mac OS X 10.7 or later,

Macs Fan Control

YOU WILL LEARN

Take full control of your

Mac’s fans to cool down

your computer

IT WILL TAKE

15 minutes

CURRENT

SETTINGS

Open the main app window

to quickly set new fan

control settings for each

fan in your Mac.

PREFERENCES

Click “Menubar display”

to customize the menu bar

icon — including the

display of the fan speed.

MONITOR

TEMPERATURES

The app’s main screen

provides a handy list

of all available

temperature sensors.

MENU

BAR ICON

Save time by applying

new settings quickly

via the program’s

menu bar icon.

Create

76 SEP 2020 maclife.com Image rights: CrystallDEA.