Other problems

Battery safety and scary failures

My Mac just won’t switch on!

> A Mac that appears to be turned off might not be: the display may be off while the Mac itself is okay. Press and hold the power button on your Mac for 10 seconds to turn the entire Mac off, and then press and release the power button like you normally would. If your Mac partially starts up and displays a no-entry symbol that means your macOS is corrupt or incompatible. You can fix this in macOS Recovery. If that doesn’t work or your Mac didn’t get that far, it’s time to give Apple Support a call.

How do I stop my battery dying in storage?

> If your Mac laptop is going to be left unused for a long period – months rather than days or weeks – you should charge it to 50% before you put it into a dry place away from temperature extremes. This is important because if your battery is flat it could go into what’s called a “deep discharge state” that won’t hold a charge any more; a fully charged battery may lose some capacity. Apple recommends that if your Mac will be in storage for longer than six months, you should half-charge it every six months.

There’s a spinning globe on my startup screen!

> macOS Recovery has failed so your Mac is trying to do it over the internet instead. If this Recovery doesn’t work then you’ll see a globe with an exclamation mark. That’s usually because of a connection problem, so restart and select the correct Wi-Fi network when prompted or connect to Ethernet.

My Mac wants me to enter a PIN code!

> This is a security feature: it’s what happens when you remotely lock a Mac via the Find My app. If you were the person who locked it you should have been given the appropriate code at the time; if you’ve lost the PIN or never had it, then go to iCloud.com/find and sign in to unlock your Mac. Make sure you change your password afterwards.