Summary :
- Part 1: If Mac Freezes on Specific Apps. If the Mac you are using is getting frozen on specific apps then you will be able to fix the problem by simply force quitting the app. There are several ways to perform the task. Here’s how to unfreeze Mac: Way 1: Force Quit via the Apple Menu.
- How to Exit out of a Frozen Computer Program. Sometimes a program will just not respond to any commands and will need to be forcibly shut down. There are a few different ways to do this, depending on the severity of the broken program,.
Pre-Mojave, you may be able to fix a stuck update by going to the Mac App Store, finding the software you are downloading, and pressing Option/Alt. When you do so you should see the option to.
Is your app freezing your Mac computer? Are you stuck at Spinning Pinwheel of Death (SPOD) when using your Mac? Does your mouse or keyboard stop working on your Mac? All these situations can be classified as Mac frozen. MiniTool Software will show you some solutions in this article to help you fix a Mac that has no response.
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Mac Is Unresponsive: Are Your Bothered by This Issue?
Mac frozen is a rare issue. But this does not mean that this problem will not happen to you. No matter you are using an iMac/iMac Pro, or a MacBook Air/MacBook Pro, this problem is likely to happen. When your Mac has no response, do you know how to fix it?
As per different situations of Mac unresponsive, solutions vary. In this article, we will show you some cases of Mac frozen along with some effective methods to fix a frozen Mac.
Different Cases of Mac Frozen
- Spinning Pinwheel of Death
- Your Mac Computer Has No Response
- Your Mouse or Keyboard Can’t Move
- Your Mac Is Attacked by Malware
Case 1: Spinning Pinwheel of Death
The spinning pinwheel is a variation of the mouse pointer arrow. It is used in Apple's macOS, indicating that the current working application is busy. Spinning Pinwheel of Death (SPOD) means that the app is not responding and the pinwheel keeps spinning and spinning. Yes, an app is freezing your Mac. It is the most common issue as to Mac frozen.
In this case, you can move your mouse or curse, but you can’t close the freezing app by clicking the close button on the top-left corner of the app. If you are facing this situation, you can take one of these measures to solve the issue:
How to Fix a Frozen App on Mac?
- Force quit the app
- Restart your Mac computer
- Update your software
Fix 1: Force Quit the App
Best mac antivirus app free. You can click the Apple menu and select Force Quit. Then, you will see the Force Quit Applications interface (you can also use the Command-Option-Esc shortcut to call out Force Quit Applications). Next, you need to select the frozen app and click Force Quit to close it.
Tip: This post shows you more methods to force quit an app on Mac: How to Force Quit Mac | 4 Ways to Force Quit an App on Mac.
Fix 2: Restart Your Mac Computer
If the above method can’t help you quit the frozen app, you can just reboot your Mac by going to the Apple menu > Restart. The app will be closed during the process.
Fix 3: Update Your Software
An outdated macOS or app can also cause a Spinning Pinwheel of Death. To rule out this possibility, you can update both your macOS and software to see whether the issue can be solved.
1. Update macOS:
Go to Apple menu > System preferences > Software Update. Another way is to go to the Apple menu > About This Mac > Software Update.
2. Update the Software Downloaded from the App Store:
Go to Apple menu > App Store > Updates.
Case 2: Your Mac Computer Has No Response
Another situation is that your Mac is unresponsive. Many factors can cause this problem like low free disk space, insufficient RAM, hard drive failure, old Mac, etc.
How to fix a frozen Mac? This part will show you some effective methods. No matter your MacBook Air keeps frozen, MacBook Pro has no response, or iMac is not responding, you can use these methods to fix your device.
How to Fix an Unresponsive Mac?
- Force restart your Mac
- Unplug any peripherals
- Free up disk space
- Repair Mac hard drive
- Upgrade RAM
- Start up your Mac in Safe Mode
- Replace your old Mac computer
Fix 1: Force Restart Your Mac
Rebooting your Mac can fix some temporary issues that may cause Mac frozen. Since your Mac has no response this time, you need to force restart it.
Way 1:
The direct and simplest method is to hold the Power button for a while until your Mac shuts down. Then, you can press the Power button again to boot your Mac.
Way 2:
You can also hold down the Control-Command keyboard combination while pressing the Power button to force restart your Mac.
Tip: If you are using an iMac, the Power button is on the back of your Mac.
Fix 2: Unplug Any Peripherals
The connected peripheral devices may not be compatible with your macOS. You can unplug all peripherals to see when your Mac computer can go back to normal.
If external hard drive freezes computer when plugged in, how to fix? We introduce some solutions in this post, and you can choose one to help you out.
Fix 3: Free up Disk Space
Perhaps, the available free disk space on your Mac is less, making your Mac run slowly almost have no response. So, you need to clear up disk space on your Mac.
Fix 4: Repair Your Mac Hard Drive
If the above methods don’t work for you, you need to consider whether there is something wrong with the hard drive. You can use the snap-in tool, Disk Utility, to repair the hard drive.
First, you need to force close and then restart your Mac. If the machine can boot normally, you should not do anything else but go to Finder > Applications > Utilities to open this tool. Then, select the drive you want to repair and click First Aid to start the diagnosing process.
This tool can check for your drive and automatically fix the found error on it.
Bonus: How to Recover Data from Your Mac Computer?
There should be a lot of important files on your Mac computer hard drive. If you lose some of them by mistake, do you want to get them back? If yes, you can use free Mac data recovery software, Stellar Data Recovery for Mac, to have a try.
In this post, we will show you some best and free Mac Data Recovery software that is useful for you to get your lost and deleted Mac data back.
This software has a trial edition. You can use it to scan the drive that has previously saved the lost data and then you can check whether you can find your needed files from the scan results. You can go to the MiniTool official download center to download and install this software on your Mac computer.
Next, you can follow this guide to recover your Mac data:
- Open Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.
- On the Select What To Recover interface, you can select the data types you want to recover and click Next to continue.
- On this interface, this software asks you to select the drive you want to recover from. Besides, if you want to perform a deep scan, you can turn on the button for Deep Scan (on the bottom-left corner of the software).
- Click Scan to start the drive scanning process.
- After scanning, you can see the scan results are categorized by three types: Classic List, File List, and Deleted List. You can just select one according to your situation. For example, if you only want to recover the deleted files, you can switch to the Deleted List section to find your needed files.
Besides, you can also preview the scanned files by double-clicking on one file.
If you can find the files you want to rescue after checking the scan results, you can upgrade this software to a full edition. After that, you can select your needed files and then recover them to a suitable location (this location should not be the original path of the files, otherwise, the lost files may be overwritten and become unrecoverable).
You can go to the MiniTool official site to select a suitable edition based on your needs.
However, if your Mac computer hard drive fails and the machine is unbootable, you will need to use the bootable edition of Stellar Data Recovery for Mac to rescue your files. This article can be helpful: What to Do If Your MacBook Won’t Turn On? (Multiple Methods)
Fix 5: Upgrade RAM
Another reason for your Mac frozen is that it has not enough Random Access Memory (RAM). In a situation like this, it is a big burden for your Mac to work when it has to deal with a lot of work. The best way to get rid of this issue is to upgrade Ram.
This Apple official post tells you how to select a proper RAM based on your MacBook model and how to install a new RAM: MacBook Pro: How to remove or install memory. This post shows you how to do the job on iMac: Install memory in an iMac.
Fix 6: Start up Your Mac in Safe Mode
Booting into Mac Safe Mode can also find and solve issues on your computer.
- Since your Mac has no response now, you first need to force close it by pressing and holding the Power button for a while until the machine shuts down.
- Press the Power button and press & hold the Shift key at the same time.
- When you see the login screen, you can release the Shift key.
- Log in to your Mac.
- Perhaps, you will see the login screen twice. It is normal. Then, you can see Safe Boot on the top-right corner of the screen.
- After accessing the Safe Mode, you can operate your Mac to check if it can work normally. If yes, this issue should be solved. You can reboot your Mac to make a confirmation.
Fix 7: Replace Your Old Mac Computer
If all the above methods can’t fix your frozen Mac, you should consider whether you are using an old Mac.
How old is an old Mac?
- If you are using an iMac, an 8-year old one should be old enough.
- If you are using a Mac laptop, a 5-year old one should be old enough.
If your Mac computer is too old, there is no point in fixing the computer. Check mac specs app. You’d better replace it with a new one.
Case 3: Your Mouse or Keyboard Can’t Move
If you can’t remove your mouse and keyboard, you can press and hold the Power button for a while to force close your Mac. After a few seconds, you can press the Power button again to start your Mac computer and then check whether you can use the mouse and keyboard as normal again.
Case 4: Your Mac Is Attacked by Malware
This situation rarely happens. But you should not ignore this situation.
For example, when you visit a website, a phishing scam can redirect you from a legitimate website to a fake website and then tell you that your computer is attacked by a virus. The scam will offer you Mac Defender 'anti-virus' software to remove the so-called virus. This software is a Mac Defender malware. Here is a guide on how to remove this malware: How to avoid or remove Mac Defender malware in Mac OS X v10.6 or earlier.
Bottom Line
After reading this post, you should know which situation of Mac frozen you are facing and how to fix it using different methods. Moreover, if you need to recover your lost Mac data, you can try Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.
If you have other related issues, you can let us know in the comment. You can also send an email to [email protected]. We will reply to you as soon as possible.
Mac Frozen FAQ
- Press the Power button and press & hold Command-R at the same time.
- Release these two keys when you see an Apple logo, spinning globe, or other startup screens.
- If asked, you need to enter your password and then you will enter the Mac recovery mode.
How do I fix the black screen of death on my iMac?
iMac black screen of death can be caused by many reasons like startup disk failure, operating system not compatible, computer screen issues, and more. This article shows you more useful information: How to Fix MacBook Pro Black Screen | Reasons and Solutions.
How To Unfreeze A Mac
A force shutdown on Mac may corrupt the files you are currently using. It will not save the changes you have made to your work document. So, you’d better not do this unless you don’t have other choices.
If you don’t mean to use your Mac for more than one or two days, you can shut it down. But if you want to use it just hours later, you can just put it to sleep mode. Besides, you should shut down your Mac at least once a month to clean up the temporary files in the device.
Blockheads mac server app. Mac is known for its stable system and fewer crashes than other computers, but there is no denying that sometimes Mac does run in cycles and even worse. When this happens to your Mac, you will find that an application, or the entire mac OS gets unresponsive, and you may call out like 'My Mac is frozen'!
Actually, such a problem is not as frustrating as you thought, especially when you understand the exact reason why your Mac gets frozen. This article will give you the most comprehensive instructions about Mac frozen. Please read on and learn.
Part 1: Why Mac frozen
1. Mac frozen on certain apps
Sometimes you may find that your Mac gets frozen particularly on certain apps. These apps do not respond as usual and your Mac indicates like 'Application Not Responding'. It happens more frequently when you are launching some heavy apps that require more system resources, such as Photoshop or other image and video-editing program.
2. Mac frozen now and then on everything
If your Mac gets frozen randomly on everything, even if you just open a few applications; or the operations you request has an obvious delay, it is likely that the hard drive in your Mac has run out of almost all the internal storage, or there are some problems in System Management Controller.
3. Mac is frozen upon start up
When the Mac becomes freezing mostly during the startup, it is possible that there are too many login items starting at startup, or there are too many background app clutters, even some 'non-volatile random-access memory' (NVRAM) problems can also lead to Mac frozen issue.
Part 2: Is a single app, or the entire OS freeze on Mac
After understanding the real reason behind Mac frozen issue, you need to confirm whether a single application is frozen on your Mac, or the whole of mac OS is affected.
If a single app gets stuck in the loop and takes up too much memory of the Mac, it is likely the problem of this frozen issue, and you will be sent an alert informing you that the software quits unexpectedly.
It the entire mac OS becomes unresponsive and locks up abruptly without any alert, it is the exact problem of the Mac frozen issue.
What to do if an app freezes on your Mac
A frozen application becomes unresponsive and results in your work to stop. You have to know the worst case is that it may result in your data loss or files crashed. Luckily, there are a few options for you to try out, and most of which are very easy. This is what you can do when a single program freezes on your Mac. The first step you need to do is to quit it quickly. Then, if the software still remains freezing at the second startup, try the next steps.
What to do if Mac OS X freezes
When you find that the mac OS is frozen and entirely unresponsive, or the single application cannot be force quit successfully, you can try to root the Mac, which is the most efficient option in the most cases.
Just click on Control button and Power button at the same time to launch the Restart, Sleep and Shutdown dialog box. If you do not choose, the default option is Shutdown. Or you can keep pressing on the Power button for 2 seconds to bring up the restart dialog box. And you may get a chance to save your work and file before the Mac rebooting.
Part 3: How to fix Mac frozen (3 Solutions)
Solution 1: Speed up Mac to Fix Frozen Mac (Universal)
Whether your Mac is frozen for a single app or the entire OS, the first step to fix the problem is to speed up your Mac and free up more space to run Mac computer smoothly.
To free up Mac computer, Apeaksoft Mac Cleaner is recommended too that can help you. It is the all-in-one Mac data cleaner and system optimizer software. It can clean a variety of type of data on Mac to free up Mac space to fix the frozen Mac. Moreover, it helps you to monitor your Mac OS to notify if the Mac is full and avoid the Mac freeze. Its toolkit can uninstall apps, hide private data, check the Wi-Fi information and more.
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Clean system junk, large and old files, duplicated data and more. Hootsuite desktop app mac.
Erase iTunes junks files and Trash bin to speed up Mac.
Check such Mac OS status memory, CPU and disk to avoid freeze.
ToolKit can optimize and manage Mac conveniently.
Now, let’s use this program to speed up Mac and drag your frozen Mac into normal.
Step 1. Run Mac Cleaner
Download Mac Cleaner and follow the on-screen assistant to install it on your Mac. Launch this software on Mac immediately.
Select Cleaner.
Step 2. Select data for clearing
Select the data you want to clean on Mac. It offers 8 types of data for erasing, System Junk, iPhoto Junk, Email Junk, Similar Photo, iTunes Junk, Trash Bin, Large & Old Files and Duplicate Finder.
Pick one of them as you wish, and here take cleaning System Junk as an example.
Step 3. Scan Mac junk files
Click Scan, and Mac will start scan all the system junk files like system cache, application cache, user logs and more.
Step 4. Clean junk files on Mac
While the scanning process is done, just click View to see what system junk files on Mac.
Select the junk files you want to clean, and click the Clean button at the bottom-right corner to start cleaning your frozen Mac and free up more space.
Then you can restart Mac and check if it is still frozen. You are allowed to clean other data like duplicated photos, uninstall malware, and more from Mac to fix Mac freezes.
Besides, you can move on the next part to see how to fix frozen Mac.
Solution 2: How to fix a single app frozen on Mac
Step 1. Check certain apps on Mac
Go to Settings > Users and Groups > Login items to check which apps are running in the background and launch your Mac with the startup. Then uncheck all the apps that you thing may cause the Mac frozen issue.
Step 2. Launch Activity Monitor
Open Activity Monitor on your Mac to confirm which program is causing the Mac frozen issue. You can open Launchpad or Spotlight Search and type Activity Monitor in to find it, or directly navigate to Finder > Applications > Utilities folder > Activity Monitor.
Step 3. Determine which cause the issue
After launching Activity Monitor, you are able to see CPU and Memory tabs in every process. Hit on the %CPU or % Memory in relevant tabs to sort process by their influence on the Mac. The heaviest ones on the top may be the main causes of the Mac frozen.
Step 4. Kill a certain process
Choose the selected program that is sure to be the main issue, and click on the octagon with an X sigh to kill it. But do not select the important system processes, such as kernel, which are also in the top list of process.
Solution 3: How to fix an entire Mac frozen
Step 1. Check free space in Mac
After restarting the Mac, check whether there are enough free hard drive space for the OS X, as well as enough free RAM for you to fix the Mac frozen problem. If not, you need to delete Mac cache, unnecessary files, app leftovers, mail attachments, and others.
Step 2. Run a clean install
If the system cleanup cannot help you fix the Mac frozen problem, you can also try to run a clean install of the Mac OS. And you can know the system the Mac runs by clicking on the Apple icon and choosing 'About This Mac', a pop-up window will tell you the detail information about the system your Mac is running.
Part 4: Recover lost data from Frozen Mac
After knowing why Mac is frozen, you can fix the problem with ease.
However, once data are lost due to the frozen Mac without saving data, how do you recover?
Do not panic and this part will teach you how.
To recover the lost data from frozen Mac, you will need a professional data recovery software. Apeaksoft Data Recovery is the simple-to-use data retrieval program on both Mac and Windows computer. Whether your data is lost due to the Mac freeze or other system errors, this software can recover the files quickly.
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Recover lost data from internal and external hard drive on Mac.
![How to fix frozen app on mac computer How to fix frozen app on mac computer](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134066988/876446349.jpg)
Offers deep scan and quick scan to find back the files as you wish.
Recover photos, videos, audio, emails, documents, and other files.
Recover data from Mac OS X 10.6 or above (macOS Big Sur included) and Windows 10/8/7.
Step 1. Run Mac Data Recovery
Download Apeaksoft Data Recovery from the above download links and follow the on-screen instructions to install it. Run this program. Select Mac Data Recovery.
Step 2. Scan Mac drive
In the main interface, you should select the checkbox for data type and hard disk drive.
Tick the box before Image, Audio, Video, Email, Document or Others.
Then navigate to the disk where the files you want to recover.
After that, click Scan at bottom right corner and trigger the quick scanning process.
Step 3. Recover data from Mac
When the scan is done, all the files will be categorized by Type List. Click the data type and open them in details.
Select the items that you want to recover, and click Recover to restore the lost files from Mac.
This software also supports saving the scanning result as a project, so that you can recover data from the saved project file directly next time.
Part 5: FAQs of Mac Frozen
Does Time Machine slow down Mac?
Fix My Mac Computer
No. Time Machine is created so that it does not interface with the regular operation of your Mac. If your Mac slows down, you should take actions to speed up slow Mac.
How do I unfreeze my Mac if my mouse is frozen?
Phone Frozen How To Fix
You can try the key combination, Command + Option + Esc to force quit window. Then use the up or down arrow key to select Finder and then Enter key to launch Finder. After that, you can see if the frozen mouse unfreezes.
How do I restart my Mac that is not responding?
Hold down the power button for several seconds. Alternatively press the Control + Command keys and then press the power button to force restart a Mac computer.
Conclusion
What should you do when Mac freezes? You need to know the reason for the problem first. The article also provides detailed solution for you to fix the Mac frozen problem. If you have any other query, you can inform more detailed message in the article.