Much to Apple’s chagrin perhaps, the MacBook Neo seems to be very popular. I say that because Apple normally prefers to attract “premium” shoppers, by which it really means middle- or upper-class buyers willing to shell out for the best of the best. The Neo is not that. It starts at $600, a full $500 less than the MacBook Air. It might as well be in another solar system compared to a MacBook Pro or Mac Studio.
In spite of this, some iPad Pro owners (myself included) are considering switching to a Neo the next time an upgrade is due. The reason for this is simple: for its price, the Neo is surprisingly powerful, capable of handling 4K video editing if you need it. There are also things you can do to maximize its performance, even if you probably won’t be playing Resident Evil: Requiem on it anytime soon.
Minimize the number of open apps and tabs
Prioritize your web browsing
This tip is probably obvious to many of you, but there are details worth elaborating on. The first is that as powerful as the Neo’s A18 Pro processor might be, that’s the same chip inside my iPhone 16 Pro. It’s optimized for running standalone apps, with perhaps a handful of minor processes running in the background. It’s not truly designed for multitasking, in other words, and this is reflected in the Neo’s benchmark scores.
Try to limit yourself to one app at a time when you can. Don’t just leave apps running in the background for convenience’s sake. You can run multiple apps, to be clear — but if you want to squeeze out every last millisecond or frame, stick to things you’re genuinely using. When you do run multiple apps, expect the best performance out of low-intensity clients like Safari, Slack, or Spotify. Once you fire up a 3D game or a video editor, you may need to close everything that isn’t mission-critical.
In web browsers and other apps with tabs, try to use as few tabs as possible. This has more to do with RAM than CPU or GPU performance — the Neo is equipped with 8GB, which on anything but a Mac would be completely impractical in 2026. It’s only Apple’s hyperoptimization of macOS that makes this feasible. Heck, I’ve seen Google Chrome consume nearly 8GB on my Windows laptop.
Remove any unnecessary login apps or extensions
The hidden devourers
This point is related to the first, but worth calling out separately. Some of the burdens on your Mac’s processor and RAM are subtler, since they’re just assistive tools that load at boot, and may not call any attention to themselves while running. Often these are sync utilities, such as the ones for passwords or cloud lockers. You might also have some OS mods or a VPN client in place.
On their own, these processes typically don’t amount to much. But the more you have active, the more likely they are to impact performance, so it only makes sense to halt anything you don’t care about. Start by heading over to Apple menu -> System Settings -> General -> Login Items & Extensions. Under the Open at Login menu, remove anything that you won’t actually need every time you power on. Be careful, of course — you could accidentally break something you rely on. While you might not care much about Google Drive while you’re watching Netflix in Safari, you will care if you were expecting important files to sync in the background.
You should also consider removing any browser extensions you don’t need. These are probably even less demanding than anything you might launch at startup, but they will force your browser to take longer to (completely) load. On top of this, sketchier extensions can pose privacy risks. Odds are, the fewer extensions you have, the safer you’ll be.
Stay on top of storage issues
Maybe rethink that 4K movie collection
There are only two internal storage options for the Neo: 256 and 512GB. Both should be plenty for most users, but you might be surprised at how quickly 256GB can evaporate if you’ve only ever used smartphones or tablets. Being more powerful, desktop apps tend to take up more space, and associated media services aren’t going to hold back on download quality unless you ask them to. A handful of 4K movies could leave you without any more room for apps.
This matters because all operating systems require a base amount of swap space to operate efficiently. If you fill your boot drive to the brim, you’ll have little to no swap space, forcing macOS to constantly erase and rewrite files. That in turn is going to bottleneck performance, which you can’t afford if you’re already pushing a Neo to its limits.
How much free space should you set aside? As a rule, you should keep at least 35GB free, which is the maximum size for (most) macOS updates. The more the better though, particularly on 512GB Neos. You should aim for 50GB in that case, owing to the way SSDs operate at larger capacities.
The smartest way of handling storage is to do it yourself on a daily basis. Delete any apps or files you’ve stopped using, and offload anything you can afford to onto a cloud service or external SSD. Offloading can be a lifesaver for other reasons — if your Mac suddenly dies, you won’t have files trapped on a drive you can’t access. Just be sure to save critical documents to multiple locations.
If you’re at a loss for what to scrub, head over to Apple menu -> System Settings -> General -> Storage. Options here can do things like automatically empty your Trash, offload files to iCloud Drive, or remove the local copies of movies and shows you’ve already seen (assuming you paid for them through Apple).
Restart or power down occasionally
Sometimes, convenience isn’t convenient
I imagine that partly because of iPhones and iPads, most people are in the habit of putting a Mac (or Windows PC) to sleep instead of shutting down. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this — the option exists for your convenience, and the majority of the time, you won’t encounter any issues when your Mac wakes up. You might find a MacBook low on power if you’ve left it alone for a while, but that’s about it.
Problems can creep up on you, however. While macOS Tahoe is good at scrubbing temporary files, a restart may still be required to clear up some caches. That can improve efficiency, and reduce the chances of a glitch caused by corrupt or outdated data. If nothing else, a restart is useful for giving the macOS kernel a fresh slate, with only its stock processes and login apps running. Some macOS updates can’t even finish without a reboot — so if you ignore restart prompts, you may not be getting important performance tweaks.
How often should you restart or power down? There’s no definite window, but once a week or even once a month ought to be fine. You could even do it every day if you like, which might also offer some marginal boosts to your Neo’s long-term battery health.
