3 Ways to Restart or Force Shut Down Any Frozen Mac

– Force Shut Down Any Frozen Mac –

Restart or Force Shut Down Any Frozen Mac: You can shut down your Mac if you won’t use it for an extended period or even perform a forced shutdown, which forces all running programs to shut down immediately. You have three ways to shut down your Mac.

Before taking this extreme option, though, it’s worth making sure that you’ve exhausted all potential software solutions.

READ ALSO:

• Why Teachers Quit their Jobs: Honest Reasons Reviewed
• Best Quit-Smoking Apps on iPhone and Android for 2020
• How to Contact a Credit Card Issuer When You’re Rejected or Waiting
• What Happens When You Lie On A Credit Card Application

Why My Mac Won’t Shut Down or Restart

Every Mac user gets greedy. We are very accustomed to multitasking with a multitude of apps and programs running on our machines simultaneously.

However, there is a limit to even the hardiest of Mac products.

Although we rarely see this happen, there is such a thing as too much for our computers to handle.

Here are a few of the main reasons our Macs lag and cause our computers to become unresponsive:

We’ve used up too much of the memory.

We’re running way too many programs.

We’ve downloaded way too many programs that run at startup.

One of our peripherals is causing the lag (check anything/everything extra plugged into your machine).

We need a software update.

When one, or a few, of these issues, is affecting your computer, you’ll find that your Mac’s response time is slower than usual.

You’ll notice that the mouse is not tracking exactly, and you’ll probably witness a few programs close unexpectedly.

These situations are a few of the first signs that your computer is working overtime.

Here are a few strategies for how to force quit, force shutdown, and force restart an unresponsive Mac.

Is it Safe to Force Quit Mac?

Forcing a frozen application to quit is the same as killing the symptoms when we get sick versus curing the virus.

We need to see the bigger picture and understand what causes the problem and how to cure it while understanding how to avoid it from happening again.

The number one reason we have a problem with frozen applications in a Mac is insufficient RAM—or a lack of computer memory to operate the system compared to the number of applications you usually open (including those many open tabs in a browser).

So anytime your system uses all of its existing resources to run the task, it becomes unresponsive.

Think of RAM as a physical workbench. The more space (memory) you have to work, the more projects you can have out to work on.

Less space? Less ability to work on multiple things at once.

Forcing Mac to quit the application resolves the problem but may have downsides.

When you close an application in the traditional manner, it will clean everything it runs in the background and alerts you to save the work.

When you force close on Mac, you may end up losing files and data, or mess things up on the drive.

Although the effect will only be related to that one particular application that got stuck, sometimes it can hurt.

Ways to Restart or Force Shut Down Mac

1. Via  Power Button

If your Mac is unresponsive, you have to do a hard shut down. To do that, hold the power button down for about 5-10 seconds, wait for the computer to shut down completely, then restart it.

At that point, you can see if the system has regained normal functionality. If you’re still experiencing freezing issues, it could indicate a potential hardware issue, so it’s best to shut down the machine entirely.

2. Close Application from Activity Monitor (Ctrl+Alt+Del Alternative)

Yes, we all know that in Windows that keyboard shortcut is often used to open the Task Manager window.

(To be honest, it’s needed too often, which is why we’re on a Mac.) From Task Manager, you can track applications, services, performance, and processes, and kill some of them when they’re unresponsive.

You can easily do all of that and more on the macOS native application called Activity Monitor.

To kill an application using Activity Monitor, do the following.

1. On your keyboard, press Command + Space, or click on Spotlight in the top-right corner of the screen.
2. In the “Spotlight Search” window, start typing “Activity Monitor.”
3. Once Activity Monitor is highlighted, hit Enter.
4. In the Activity Monitor processes list, select the application you want to quit and click “Force a process to quit” in the left corner.

3. Drain the Battery

Though there is two more option to force the shutdown of your Mac there is some situation in which those methods do not work.

If your Mac is frozen and you could not force shut down your Mac then you need to try this method.

The third method is to remove the power supply cable from your Mac or drain the battery of your Mac.

But remember that powering off your Mac in this method can damage the battery of your Mac. The damage can lose your unsaved data or even worse.

Though This method can force the shutdown of your Mac we suggest you go for the two above option which is much safer for your Mac.

You should look for the third method only as a last option.

If you are using a new Macbook then you can unplug the power cable and wait until the battery of your mac stops powering Mac.

It might take some time until the battery stops to power your Mac. When your Mac is powered off then charge it and turn it on back.

We hope this article has been helpful to you. Please share it with anyone you think will appreciate the information and kindly drop your comment below.