Suddenly your Mac is not responding. You have the spinning pinwheel of death, or worse, no runner at all. Nothing you do will bring your computer back to life. Here are a few things you can try.
Wait a minute or two
Wait a bit before unlocking your Mac or wrestling your control by hammering on the keyboard. Many freezes are caused by a very demanding task like problem application. Give your Mac some time to scratch the issue before taking action.
How long you wait depends on how patient you are, but we recommend a minute or two. Get up and stretch as you make yourself a cup of coffee, and see if your Mac is back when you’re back. If you know for a fact that a demanding process is causing the delay, such as a video render, this will give you time to complete.
It may not be as fast as setting up your machine hard, but it comes with less risk. Once you’re finally back in control of your Mac, save your work, close your apps you do not need, and restart your computer.
The other possibility is that you get just enough control back to kill some unusual app or process causing the problem. Let’s see how you can do that.
Power-stop any problem apps
If your Mac is crawling but you still have mouse pointer control, you can try to shut down (or “kill”) any problem apps that may be causing the delay. This could be a web browser with hundreds of open tabs, a demanding image editor such as Photoshop, a game or other software that uses 3D graphics, or a large spreadsheet or word document.
To quickly kill apps, press Command + Option + Esc to bring up the macOS “Force Quit Applications” dialog box. In this window you will see all running applications. You can mark them with a click and then kill them by clicking “Force Quit.”
All unresponsive apps will be named as such, and these need to be killed because they probably require a reboot to function normally. Kill as many apps as you need until your system feels stable again. Be aware that you may lose all unsaved data.
You can also start Activity Monitor to see a list of all running processes. Many apps, like Safari or Chrome, use multiple processes that separate each tab into a separate process. You can launch Activity Monitor via Spotlight (or access it under Applications> Utilities) and search for all processes with more than their fair share of your available CPU.
Once you have cursor control, you can also right-click (or Control + Click) on an app icon in the dock, press and hold the option, and then click “Force Quit” to kill an app .
RELATED: How to fix your Mac with Activity Monitor?
Force your Mac to shut down
If you have patience and forced any problem apps to stop without success, it may be time to go down and shut down your Mac by force. You can do this by pressing and holding the power button on your Mac until it shuts down.
The power button is pretty clear for most models. If your MacBook has a Touch ID sensor instead of an on / off button, press the Touch ID button at the top right of the keyboard (see image below).
On desktop models, such as the iMac, Mac mini, and Mac Pro, you hold down the power button on the computer.
You will lose all unsaved data in open apps if you do so. While this is not likely to cause any harm, there is a reason why Apple recommends that you shut down through the Apple menu. To minimize the chances of something going wrong, do so only if you have no other choice.
Even if things go wrong, you can easily save yourself by knowing that you have backed up your Mac with Time Machine.
Is your Mac frozen during or shortly after booting?
If your freezing issue occurs regularly, it can be caused by a hardware failure. To disable this, make sure your Mac is running the latest version of macOS, and that you have all the required firmware updates installed under System Preferences> Software Updates.
Disconnect all external peripherals, including mice, keyboards, USB audio interfaces, storage devices, and webcams, and then test the problem again. If it seems that you have solved the problem, consider updating software related to that peripheral.
If the problem is easy to replicate, try restarting your Mac in safe mode to see if the problem persists. Safe Mode starts your Mac with the bare minimum number of drivers needed to run the system. It also scans your hard drive for startup issues, which can help resolve the issue.
To boot into safe mode, turn off (or restart) your Mac, and press Shift when it starts. Release the key when you see the login window and login. “Safe boot” should appear at the top right. With your Mac booted into Safe Mode, retry for the frozen issue.
If you do not encounter the problem again, try restarting and testing. It is possible that by checking your disk for errors the problem was fixed.
If you still have the problem, make sure that external peripherals are unplugged, and try again. Prune your login items to remove any software that starts at startup and may cause the problem.
If you still have a frozen issue, it may be time to reinstall macOS from scratch. However, the problem could also be hardware-related.
RELATED: How to delete Mac and reinstall macOS from Scratch
Diagnosing hardware problems
If the problem persists and you think it is hardware related, you can try diagnosing the problem with “Apple Diagnostics” (or “Apple Hardware Test” on machines older than June 2013).
To do this, shut down (or restart) your machine and then press and hold D while it restarts. A gray screen and progress bar should appear indicating that your Mac is being scanned for problems. If Apple Diagnostics will not run, try restarting and pressing and holding Option + D at startup. This will instead download the test from the internet.
Unfortunately, Apple Diagnostics can only tell you if there is a problem. It will not provide too much information about what the problem is. You should get a vague idea about where the error was discovered. However, you will receive nothing more than an error code for an Apple technician to use.
If you want to dig a little deeper, you can download Memtest86 + to a USB stick. Then press and hold Option to boot your Mac, and boot instead of the USB stick. This tests your RAM for errors without starting the operating system. This way, the RAM is not used in part when the test happens.
If it detects that defective RAM is the cause, it may be possible to replace it. Unfortunately, the RAM in most modern MacBooks is sold to the logic board, which makes repairs difficult, if not impossible.
How to prevent freezing in the future
While Mac releases may be a sign that something is wrong, they are more often a sign of a temporary issue that will go away when you restart. There are a few things you can do to reduce the chances of freezing happening again in the future.
The first is to make sure you are running the latest version of macOS. Apple also releases firmware updates for specific components, which can make a huge difference in terms of system stability. For best results, set your Mac to install updates automatically when available.
Not maintaining a decent buffer of free disk space can also cause performance issues and freezes. Apple does not specify how much space macOS should “breathe”, but we recommend 10 percent of the total space for drive. This should also give you a decent buffer to load files before storing them anywhere else, if needed.
Sometimes performance is directly tied to the age of your Mac. Some modern websites can do old hardware crawling, so it pays to know the limitations of your machine. Avoid heavyweight browsers like Chrome. Use Safari instead, and think twice about editing videos or playing requirements.
More things you can try
If your Mac is not completely frozen, you stand a better chance of recovering all unsaved work. Here are some other things you can try to get an unresponsive Mac back on track.
We also have some tips for dealing with a frozen PC.
RELATED: How can you repair a slow or unresponsive Mac?
