Why does mac keep freezing

Leave a comment and let us know. Andreas is a freelance tech writer based in California. He works on a Mac in the office and lives with a PC and many old computer electronics at home. Fairly recent development; occasional freeze, maybe once an hour, with no pattern I can discern. I can almost always gesture up my fingers on the touchpad for Mission Control, then do it again, and the clock and the apps all wake again. No smoking gun in the bewildering mess that is the console.

Hi,My Macbook air powers on with a silver screen but has a folder icon that blinks with a question mark in the middle. What is that from? Thanks for your time. I can move my cursor but when i click to something the cursor will change to a spinning circle. My gf always restarts the computer for some reason when logging in as guest and this always freezes my iMac?

I usually have to unplug the damn computer but now even that is not working.. My i mac keeps freezing when I use finder. I am trying to organise my files into folders but Finder keeps freezing. I had an external GPU for a while but moved that aspect of my life to a Windows machine for reasons of support. I noticed in MS Word that the window bar was occasionally getting scrambled. The freezing has since stopped and the Macbook become totally responsive like the old days since removing the NVidia drivers.

Hopefully this will solve your problem. You can start as many accounts as you want , but they all run off the same drive. Your Mac ownership manual will tell you that 8 gigs of RAM is your maximum , but in truth , you can install up to You have 2 RAM slots, so you could put in say 4 gigs and 4 gigs, or 8 and 8 ect… If your mac is an older model up to your in Luck!

Good luck. Of course, when I held the power button before -nothing. Then, when reading, hold 5 seconds, it reboots in 3! My MAC Mini will totally freeze up, sort of.

In other words, I can have 2 windows open, the first e. Interestingly too, that video will still be playing in the background in that first window.

My MAC freezes up randomly, maybe once a day, once a week or 3 times a day. It will even freeze up when opening e. System Preferences. The best thing you can do is not panic, then follow some simple instructions to get up and running again. If you are finding this is happening more often, maybe it's time to look at long-term solutions. Maybe you've not updated your operating system recently?

If that is the case, then you should note a new one comes out soon. At the same time, you may need to declutter the Mac, removing old files and long-forgotten documents to avoid troublesome Mac freezes.

Macs are fairly powerful, durable devices. It takes a lot to slow them down, or a simple issue of the Mac running too many programs, apps and browser tabs all of then use processing power. Like with any computer, when too much is stored and too many apps are fighting for CPU processing power, you're stuck with a spinning wheel and your beloved Mac not responding to clicks and pleas. Apps crashing are some of the most common reasons behind a Mac freezing.

Usually, an app freezing won't crash the whole Mac, but that is a risk when your memory is full, or there are lots of applications running at once. Let's start with a bit of obvious advice: don't panic, don't do anything you'll regret, don't push every button. In this part we'll go over unfreezing a Mac and preventing issues in the future. Depending on your current trouble, we'll try to determine the core reason and what to do in each case. First, you need to bring your Mac back to life.

When it's unresponsive - either as a result of an app or the computer is struggle to function — you can either click Restart, from the main menu, or press Command-Control-Power Eject for keyboards and iMacs to get it to restart.

If neither of those solutions works, then you can hold the power button down which will restart the device. Not an ideal solution, since you can lose anything unsaved, but at least that should restore it to normal. What if you resurrected your Mac and realized some of the files are missing?

Don't worry just yet, install Disk Drill , the world's premier data recovery software for macOS. It was created for the cases when Mac crashed and you lost data and when you accidentally deleted files. Disk Drill is powerful enough to retrieve long-lost, mistakenly deleted files from Macs, external hard drives and USB drives and camera cards. Simply open the app and scan the chosen drive or partition, preview to find exact files you want to restore and restore them.

Apps may running in the background, freeze and crash. Try to determine which apps cause the crash. You start at this: when does the crash happen? If it's when you turn on or work in a specific app, maybe you need to either reset it or remove it entirely.

FIX: To remove apps or set them to back default, use a Mac optimizer app called CleanMyMac , it's has a specific Uninstaller module which can safely perform the task.

CleanMyMac is available on Setapp collection and you can use it for free during the trial period. To reset an app, repeat the first three items and then right-click on the arrow near the app name and select Application Reset instead. Resetting an app to default settings and cleaning up its cache can help if you're sure you really need the app and you can't afford to simply remove it.

Also, don't forget to check for app's updates, there's a change your problems sprout from an outdated version. Contact Us. Sign In. How to Fix Freezing on a Mac. Authored by: Support. With decades of experience, our Tech Pros are passionate about making technology work for you. We love feedback!

Main reasons a Mac can freeze: Too many apps running Too many browser tabs open Not enough hard drive space Hardware issues such as problems with your RAM or hard drive Malware No matter the reason for the freeze, do not panic and start pushing every button to try and wake it up.

Let's see if we can get access to your workspace by unfreezing your Mac first. Quit the Frozen Program If your freezing issue is just a program or happened while a program was open let's try to force that program to quit. Click the application menu at top, then choose Quit at the bottom. Make sure the application leaves your Dock at the bottom or no longer has a dot underneath it.

If the program does not quit properly Click on the Apple menu , then click Force Quit. Select the app you want to force close, then click Force Quit. Click Force Quit when prompted. If you were able to get access to your workspace by force quitting a program, your freezing issue is most likely caused by the app you were using.

Test the Program by Restarting It Open the program you were using again. Try to use it normally. If it freezes, force quit it again.

Reinstall the Program If your app keeps freezing and you can't seem to get it to stop freezing, you can try reinstalling it. Click and hold on an icon until all icons start to jiggle. Click the " x " on the top left of the icon you want to remove.

Click Delete to confirm removal. Click on Applications on the left. Drag the app you wish to remove to the trash can. Right click on the trashcan and click Empty Trash. If Your Mac is Running On the bottom you'll see Updates. Updates will be on the right. If you're not just experiencing freezing because of an app, there could be an issue with your hardware or operating system. Booting to Recovery If you're unable to properly use your Mac, for example it freezes as soon as you try to boot up or move your mouse, let's use the Recovery option.

Power on the computer. You will see a macOS Utilities page once recovery mode loads.