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How to Force Shut Down a Mac

January 4, 2024 by admin Category: How To

You are viewing the article How to Force Shut Down a Mac  at Tnhelearning.edu.vn you can quickly access the necessary information in the table of contents of the article below.

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This article is co-authored by a team of editors and trained researchers who confirm the accuracy and completeness of the article.

The wikiHow Content Management team carefully monitors the work of editors to ensure that every article is up to a high standard of quality.

This article has been viewed 15,580 times.

This wikiHow teaches you how to force your Mac to shut down (Force Shut Down). This is a quick way to shut down your Mac without using a mouse, but we’ll usually only do it in the event of a crash or system malfunction. The article also shows you how to fix common problems if the problem persists on your Mac computer even though you’ve forced it off.

Table of Contents

  • Steps
    • Force shutdown of Mac computer
    • Force shutdown of a standing Mac
    • Fix the problem before reboot
  • Advice
  • Warning

Steps

Force shutdown of Mac computer

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 1

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 1

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You need to understand that forcibly shutting down can cause problems for your Mac. When the Mac is forced to shut down, open programs (if any) will also be forced to close and lose any unsaved data in the session. In some cases, this can even cause an open program or installer to fail.

  • To be as safe as possible, you should close all open programs before forcefully shutting down your Mac.
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 2

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 2

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Find your Mac’s power button. Most Mac computers have a physical button with a “Power” icon.

Windows Power

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, you can click here to shutdown: [1] X Research Source

  • On MacBooks without Touch Bar — The power button is located at the top right of the keyboard.
  • On MacBooks with Touch Bar — The power button is in the Touch ID section to the right of the touch bar.
  • On iMac — The power button is on the back, bottom left of the iMac screen.
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 3

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 3

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Hold down the power button. Once you find the power button, press and hold it for five seconds.
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 4

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 4

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Release the power button after five seconds. At this point the Mac computer will turn off.

  • If a dialog box pops up asking if you want to turn off your Mac, you haven’t pressed the power button long enough.
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 5

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 5

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Wait a minute before turning the machine back on. This will allow the Mac to power off completely before being turned back on.

Force shutdown of a standing Mac

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 6

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Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 6

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Determine the severity of the computer. If your Mac freezes and you can’t interact with any items on the screen, even hover, skip to the next two steps.

  • If you are still able to interact with some items on the screen, you can try to force close the program causing the freeze.
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 7

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 7

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Try force closing the app. If your Mac freezes after an application launches, you can force quit the application as follows:

  • Press ⌘ Command + ⌥ Option + Esc to open the Force Quit window.
  • Click the program that you want to force quit.
  • Click Force Quit at the bottom of the window.
  • Click Force Quit if asked.
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 8

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 8

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Try to save unfinished work. If you determine that you cannot force quit the program that is causing the problem, try to save all unfinished work on any remaining responsive programs. Normally, you can proceed by pressing ⌘ Command + S on the program’s window.

  • Because forcing shutdown of your Mac will also close all open programs, you may lose unsaved sessions.
  • Many programs, like those in the Microsoft Office suite, will save session backups that you can restore after restarting your Mac.
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 9

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 9

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Find your Mac’s power button. Most Mac computers have a physical button with a “Power” icon.

Windows Power

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, you can tap to shutdown:

  • On MacBooks without Touch Bar — The power button is on the top right of the keyboard.
  • On MacBooks with Touch Bar — The power button is in the Touch ID section to the right of the touch bar.
  • On iMac — The power button is on the back, bottom left of the iMac screen.
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 10

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 10

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Hold down the power button. Once you find the power button, hold it down for five seconds and don’t release it until the screen turns off.
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 11

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 11

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Release the power button when the screen turns off. This sign indicates that the Mac computer is powered off.

  • It may take about a minute for your Mac to completely power off, so make sure it’s stopped making noise before continuing.
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 12

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 12

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Reopen your Mac in a minute. Once your Mac has completely shut down, you can press the power button to turn it back on. After restarting, the Mac computer should work normally.

  • If your computer is still frozen after restarting, you need to work on troubleshooting your Mac.
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Fix the problem before reboot

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 13

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 13

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Start the computer in Safe Mode. If the device continues to freeze after being forced off, restart it again, as soon as it is turned back on, press the ⇧ Shift key immediately and release once you see the Apple logo. The computer will boot into Safe Mode and try to fix the problem with the drive. [2] X Research Source

  • Many apps will not work in Safe Mode. Apply Safe Mode for the next steps, then reboot to return the computer to its normal state.
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 14

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 14

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Disable programs that start with the system . Safe Mode will prevent programs from starting automatically with the system. To prevent certain programs from opening themselves after the system boots, do:

  • Open the Apple menu
    Mac Apple

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    .

  • Click Users & Groups .
  • Select the user account in the left pane.
  • Click the Login Items tab.
  • Select the program that caused the error.
  • Click the – below the program list.
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 15

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 15

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Uninstall the cause program. If you know of a specific program that’s causing your Mac to freeze, uninstalling (and reinstalling if you prefer) should fix the problem:

  • Open
    Mac Finder

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    Finder.

  • Click the Applications folder (or click the Go menu and select Applications in the drop-down menu that appears).
  • Find the program causing the shutdown.
  • Drag the program to the Trash (trash can).
Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 16

Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 16

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Repair the drive. If the computer is still experiencing problems that don’t seem to be related to a specific program, perform the following steps to fix the drive: [3] X Source of Research

  • Restart the computer and hold down the ⌘ Command + R key combination as soon as it starts up.
  • Click Disk Utility on the boot screen.
  • Click Continue .
  • Select the boot drive and click Repair Disk .
  • Wait for the process to complete (it may take a while), then restart the computer.
  • Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 17

    Image titled Force Shut Down a Mac Step 17

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    Reset SMC. SMC or System Management Controller (System Management Driver) is responsible for handling many of the physical components inside a Mac computer. Just one problem with the SMC can cause the power button to not work properly or the machine to be slow. If the above steps do not solve the problem, reset the SMC: [4] X Research Source

    • For laptops with non-removable batteries — Turn off the machine and unplug it from the power source. To the left of the integrated keyboard, hold down ⇧ Shift + Contrp + ⌥ Option simultaneously with the power button, then release all keys and press the power button again.
    • For laptops with removable batteries — Turn off the computer. Unplug the power adapter and remove the battery, then hold down the power button for five seconds. Release the power button, reinsert the battery, and plug in the computer. Press the power button.
    • With a desktop computer — Power off the iMac and unplug it. Wait fifteen seconds, then plug it back in. Wait another five seconds and then press the power button.
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  • Advice

    • When you hold down ⌥ Option + Contrp + ⌘ Command at the same time as the power button, your Mac will try to quit all open programs before forcing it to shut down.
    • If the mouse pointer is rotating, you should try to wait a few minutes to see if your Mac can complete the task that is causing the problem. Intermittent rattling sounds coming from the hard drive are another sign that the computer is working and can handle the problem on its own. [5] X Research Source (Solid state drives on some Apple laptops don’t make this sound).
    • If you’re using a Windows keyboard with your Mac, use the Alt key instead of ⌥ Option and the Windows key instead of ⌘ Command . [6] X Research Source

    Warning

    • Unsaved session data is lost when you force shut down the computer.
    X

    This article is co-authored by a team of editors and trained researchers who confirm the accuracy and completeness of the article.

    The wikiHow Content Management team carefully monitors the work of editors to ensure that every article is up to a high standard of quality.

    This article has been viewed 15,580 times.

    This wikiHow teaches you how to force your Mac to shut down (Force Shut Down). This is a quick way to shut down your Mac without using a mouse, but we’ll usually only do it in the event of a crash or system malfunction. The article also shows you how to fix common problems if the problem persists on your Mac computer even though you’ve forced it off.

    Thank you for reading this post How to Force Shut Down a Mac at Tnhelearning.edu.vn You can comment, see more related articles below and hope to help you with interesting information.

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