If you are using Mac OS X you might have noticed that, Terminal can become noticeably slow on launch. Terminal application should be fast enough, since it does not have any complex UI or plugins to be loaded. Unfortunately, it became so slow that it takes atleast 10 seconds after it’s launch, before you can interact with it. To see what’s going on, I went through all the preferences and could not find anything in relevance to this. My first guess, was that it’s loading something in the startup due to which it has become slow.
After I could not find anything in the preferences, I decided to clear the log files. ASL (Apple System Logs) files contains the information about your applications and their activity logs. After i removed the .asl files, the launch time of Terminal dipped. Though it’s a temporary solution, but it’s like cleaning your backyard ever now & then.
So let’s see how you can remove the .asl files and improve the speed of Terminal in Mac OS X. Please note, that it’s my own finding to clear logs so that the Terminal launches faster. It worked for me quite nicely, I am not sure if it will work for you or break something, so please run the following commands at your own risk.
- Open Terminal.
- Change directory by typing :
cd /private/var/log/asl/ Press Enter.
- List the .asl files by typing.
ls *.asl Press Enter.
- Now we are going to delete all .asl files from the log folder.
sudo rm -f *.asl Press Enter. Password: ***** Press Enter
- Quit Terminal and Launch Terminal.
I am sure you will notice the speedy launch this time, if you have performed the above steps correctly. Now enjoy playing around with the stupid, powerful black window !
Stay Digified!!
Sachin Khosla
