FAST FIXES FOR MAC
Having problems with your notebook or desktop? We can help
1 Restarting your Mac
Click on the Apple menu in the topleft corner of your Mac’s screen, and from the menu that appears, select Restart. A window appears inviting you to Cancel or Restart. Click on Restart, and your Mac shuts down and reboots, hopefully solving the problem in the process. If you can’t do this, maybe because your Mac has crashed or failed to boot up correctly when you switched it on, press and hold the Power button until it turns off. Count to 10 to make sure everything has switched off completely, then press it again to restart the Mac.
2 Start in Safe Mode
Restarting in Safe Mode stops the Mac from loading certain things, like login items or system extensions. It can be used to ascertain whether a problem has been caused by something you recently added. If your Mac has an Apple silicon chip, shut it down then press and hold the Power button until its Startup Options appear on the screen. Choose the drive you want to boot from, then hold Shift and click ‘Continue in Safe Mode’; log in. If you have a Mac with an Intel processor, restart your Mac while holding the Shift key. Release it when you see the login window, then log in as usual. You may be asked to do so a second time. When you see Safe Boot in the top-right corner of a login window, click it.
3 Reset PRAM/ NVRAM
This tip only applies to Macs that use Intel or older PowerPC processors. Resetting PRAM/NVRAM isn’t necessary on Apple silicon Macs; a simple restart is sufficient. PRAM (Parameter RAM, found in
PowerPC Macs) and NVRAM (Non-volatile RAM, in Intel Macs) stores information such as boot volume, sound volume, screen resolution and more. If you have a problem in these areas, resetting PRAM/NVRAM as you boot up might fix it. Restart your Mac while holding down the P, R, Cmd and Opt keys. Let go when you hear the second tone or the Apple logo appears and disappears for the second time. When it reboots, you might need to reapply settings that have been reset.
4 Mac can’t read external drive
If a USB flash drive or external storage drive cannot be read by your Mac, you should get a pop-up window inviting you to reformat it. If this doesn’t happen, open Disk Utility manually. Either way, in Disk Utility, click on the drive in question in the sidebar, then click Erase in the toolbar. Type a name for the drive (anything you like), and choose a format from the options. If you’re only going to use it with a modern Mac, choose APFS (encrypted or otherwise). Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is slower, but works with legacy versions of macOS/OS X as well as recent ones. If you want to use the drive with Windows and Linux PCs as well as your Mac, use exFAT.
5 Update macOS/apps
If you’re having trouble with an individual app, check to see if there’s an update available. Click the Apple menu, and if there’s a numbered Update badge next to App Store, you have apps that need updating. Select the App Store option in the menu to open it, click Updates in the sidebar and update your apps. In the Apple menu, if there’s a numbered Update badge next to System
Settings, you have an operating system update to apply. Select this option to open your System Settings, and go to General > Software Update.
6 Reinstall your OS
If your Mac has a serious software problem, is running very slowly or maybe won’t boot at all, it’s a good idea to reinstall macOS. You can do this without deleting your apps and data; the new install of macOS simply replaces the old one without erasing anything else. First, shut down your Mac. Now restart your Mac in macOS Recovery. If your Mac has an Apple silicon chip, press and hold the Power button until you see the Startup Options window. On an Intel Mac, press the power button and then immediately press and hold Cmd+R until you see the Apple logo. Either way, you get a window from which you should choose the ‘Reinstall macOS’ option.
7 Your battery is draining too fast
There are several reasons why your MacBook’s battery is draining too soon. If you’ve upgraded to a public beta version of macOS, this could be the problem – roll it back to the last official release.
Click on the battery icon in the top bar. The menu here shows if any apps are using a particularly significant amount of energy; quitting and relaunching a batteryhungry app could solve things.
Also from this menu, click Battery Settings. From this settings screen you can check your battery health, and turn on Low Power Mode to keep your notebook running for longer. If your battery health is poor, arrange to take it to your local Apple Store for a replacement.
8 Disk First Aid
If you’re having a problem with a connected or internal storage drive, you can use Disk Utility’s First Aid option to fix it. Open Disk Utility; it’s found in your Applications > Utilities folder, or simply type ‘Disk Utility’ in Spotlight and open it from there. Alternatively, if you need to repair your boot drive, or the Mac won’t boot up at all, open Disk Utility from the macOS Recovery window (see tip number 6 here on ‘Reinstall your OS’).
In Disk Utility, highlight the disk you want to repair in the sidebar. Click the First Aid option in the toolbar, and click Run in the window that appears. The drive is checked for errors, and you’re invited to repair any errors that appear.
9 Unresponsive app
If an app has become unresponsive, it may have crashed. Click the Apple menu and select the Force Quit option.