How Do You Force Restart a MacBook?
Restarting your computer is an option available to you to help your Mac function faster and more efficiently. It is also a useful option in completing pending installation that requires you to restart your computer. Programs on your Mac can cause your laptop to slow down considerably and restarting it is a great way of making it work smoothly once again.
Things to Check Before Force Restart
For the sake of the data from your work-in-progress activities, force restarting your Mac should be your last resort. Force restart, in some rare cases, can result in file corruption in your macOS. Force restarting your Mac while updating software could also lead to corrupting your Mac’s operating system installation. That’s why you should always check for solutions on the internet first, where you can find the right instruction manual and maybe fix your problem without restarting your Mac. However, force restarting can be useful for situations where Mac won’t restart.
In your normal circumstances, shutting down your Mac is the best option via your Apple Menu and selecting the ‘Shut Down’ option. This is a safer option to shut down your Mac while finishing pending updates. In the cases where your Mac is not shutting down normally, you can use the following steps to reduce the risk of data loss.
- Eject External Hard Drives
Forcing a restart will probably have an effect on your external hard drive. In any case, where you have to do a force restart, ejecting any external storage that is plugged-in on your Mac is a good decision. Ejecting your external hard drives is relatively easy. Find the external drive icon on your desktop and drag it to the ‘Trash’ icon to eject. Another method is to use the ‘Finder’ program to process the eject option. From the ‘Finder’ option, click on the Eject option that you can find next to your external hard drive.
- Save Your Documents
To avoid losing ongoing work on your document, it is wise to save it. This is to preserve your current progress and continue when your Mac is backing up and running. Saving a work-in-progress document is quite straightforward. You can either save the document by using the ‘Save’ option from ‘File’ on your document option page or use ‘Command’ + ‘S’ directly.
How to Force Restart Your Mac?
In the scenario where your Mac is frozen or unresponsive, the way you can fix it is to force restart or shut it down totally. Here are the top recommendations on ways to force restart your MacBook.
- Click and Hold the Power Button
Every laptop has a power-up button. This power-up button doubles as the power-off button. On your Mac, you typically have your power button in the top right corner of your keyboard. It usually comes with a power symbol to make identification easier for Mac users.
In order to force a shutdown on your Mac, click and hold your laptop’s power button for up to 10 seconds or a little bit more. Up until the screen goes blank, keep holding on to the power button. A little bit after your laptop is shut down, wait about 30 seconds before clicking the power button to restart it all over again.
If this method can’t force restart your Mac and your MacBook won’t turn on after using this method, you can try the next method to force your MacBook to restart.
- Use Keyboard Shortcuts
Sometimes, you will have to perform the restart using your keyboard. To force restart your Mac via keyboard, there are two options viable on your MacBook. The first option provides the opportunity to close your applications before restart. The other option proceeds to force restart without closing anything. In most situations, the first option is the best option for force restart.
If you are hoping to shut down your Mac, click on ‘Control’, ‘Option’, ‘Command’, and ‘Power’ key combination. The power key should be the last button you click on to complete this restart process. It is important to note, do not click and hold the power button. This force shuts down your Mac while closing all open apps.
In the case where this shortcut command is not successful in safe closing some apps, you will need to initiate a force shut down process. To do this, click the ‘Control’, ‘Command’ and ‘Power’ key combination on your keyboard. Click and hold these key combinations to force shut down before restarting your Mac after some minutes.