If you are seeing the spinning beach ball with increasingly regularity, then it's time to take a look at what might be causing the slowdown. (You can also select multiple apps to force quit by using holding down the Command or Shift keys when making your selections.) Just highlight the app that's not responding and hit the Force Quit button. You can call up the Force Quit menu from the Apple icon in the upper-left corner or by hitting Command-Option-Escape.
And when an app hangs, it freezes you out and won't let you do anything, including quit out of it.
You might find that an app will occasionally trip up your Mac and hang. You can add items back to the Startup Items list by hitting the "+" button and selecting items from your Applications folder. If not, you can head back to the list and remove another app and keep going until you find the culprit. It'll get removed from the Login Items list and you can restart your Mac to see if your startup issue has been fixed. Highlight an app and then click the "-" sign below. Next, click the Login Items tab above the window to the right. To do so, go to System Preferences > Users & Groups and click your name on the left under Current User. You can remove login items one at a time and start up your Mac after each removal to see if the problem is gone.
With a bit of trial and error, you can identify which app is the problem child. If you find yourself staring at a blue screen when you start up your Mac, it might mean that one of your startup items - apps that start automatically when you start up your Mac - is incompatible with MacOS. To leave Safe Mode and start up your Mac per usual, just restart your Mac without holding any keys. It may take a few minutes before you get to the login screen as MacOS runs its diagnostics on your hard disk. You can release the Shift key when the Apple logo disappears and the login screen appears. The Apple logo will appear and then the login screen. To start up in safe mode, start your Mac and then press and hold the Shift key.
In Safe Mode, MacOS will boot with the bare minimum of software and drivers required and will run a check of your startup disk and repair any directory issues that might be the cause of your startup ills. This option is fairly straightforward and the first method Apple recommends.įrom the top left corner of your screen, click on the Apple logo.If your Mac fails to boot properly and you find yourself staring at a blank screen or gray startup screen instead of your desktop, then it's time to try booting in Safe Mode. Once you’ve identified the culprit, there are a few ways to go about forcing the app to quit. When a frozen app isn’t responding, you’ll see the colorful wait cursor. When an app is working fine, you’ll see your normal arrow cursor. But you can also figure it out by switching between your apps.
In most cases, you’ll know which app isn’t working properly because it will be frozen and you won’t be able to use it. It’s time to force quit the unresponsive app causing the problem so you can get back to what you’re doing. When the wheel of doom - more formally known as Mac’s wait cursor - pops up, it signals that one of your apps has crashed, likely taking with it any work you haven’t saved.
An app on your computer is slowing down your MacOS, and it’s time to take action so you can get back to work. We’ve all dealt with it: the colorful spinning wheel of doom.