Tip: Controlling the Resource Hogging Dashboard
Dashboard can be grizzly-slow at times and slow down the system along with it. The problem is very common for all of us - and I’ve got a few tips for keeping the Dashboard under control.
Remove unwanted widgets.
It’s that simple. The problem here is that Dashboard is a memory hog - period. When you first access your Dashboard, to perhaps find lyrics for a song or check the weather, it’ll take a few seconds (or minutes in some cases) to load all your widgets. However, when you exit Dashboard - it doesn’t ‘shut down’. Instead, the widgets remain active. Here’s the technical side: a common widget will use approx. 15mb of RAM as a minimum, so - if it doesn’t properly ‘shut down’ it’s wasting memory which can lead to your mac slowing down.
If you are a frequent dashboard user, it makes sense to leave this the way it is, but if you just occasionally open it up, it is best to kill it.
Shut down Dashboard/widgets once you’ve done.
It is very annoying when your mac locks up. A common cause (as shown above) could be your Dashboard. If you use Dashboard and want it to completely shut down follow these simple steps:
Open Terminal (Applications » Utilities » Terminal.app) and type the following command:
$ killall Dock
You’ll see your Dock disappear - but don’t worry, it’ll re-appear almost straight away.
Kill the widgets with a widget
There is also (ironically) a Dashboard widget which does the above in one simple click.
The author writes:
“StopDashboard widget is basically a modified version of the DisableDashboard widget. StopDashboard only kills the Dashboard without losing the ability to restart using F12.
All this widget does is kill the Dock process (which Dashboard is a part of). MacOSX will automatically restart the Dock but without Dashboard in memory. Press F12 to start it up again (or use expose).”
Now you have successfully ‘shut down’ Dashboard, and will free up a reasonable amount of RAM and VRAM for other programs to use. (Note: You can re-load Dashboard as you normally would even if you’ve shut it down in the same session).
If you have any problems, tips or recommendations to add to what I’ve discussed today, please leave a comment.
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Thanks so much for this tip! I looked into my activity monitor and was surprised to find I was losing a (after calculating) whopping 320MB on widgets (yeah, I have a lot of them). Deleted some of the ones I never really used, and installed the stop dashboard widget. Phew! My Macbook is a lot faster now!
(Next job: Go through this entire new site I’ve discovered)
Hydie November 13th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Nice tip mate! I knew about the resource hogging dashboard and used to refrain from using it. Well, StopDashboard it is!
NotoGlossy November 14th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Thanks for the comments! If you have a problem or need more help, feel free to contact me directly - Evan@SmokingApples.com
Evan Garza November 14th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Thank you! This is wonderful!
I Blog Because November 15th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Excellent post. New author lives up to the Smoking Apples name I see (and I agree with those commenters that your first post wasn’t exactly up to mark).
skizzy November 17th, 2008 at 3:17 am