• Reinstall macOS. Select Reinstall macOS from the utilities window in macOS Recovery, then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions. Follow these guidelines during installation: If the installer asks to unlock your disk, enter the password you use to log in to your Mac. If the installer doesn't see your disk, or it says that it can't install on your computer or volume, you might need to erase your disk first.
  • Tom is plummeting to earth from quite a height. Help break his fall by collecting feathers to flap with, keeping him in the air for as long as possible. Balloons and umbrellas will help his cause but naturally there's a lot of nasty stuff to watch out for: missiles, rockets, stormy clouds and a variety of birds. See how many feathers you can collect before you hit the ground.
  • Near the surface of the Earth, an object in free fall in a vacuum will accelerate at approximately 9.8 m/s 2, independent of its mass.With air resistance acting on an object that has been dropped, the object will eventually reach a terminal velocity, which is around 53 m/s (190 km/h or 118 mph) for a human skydiver.

The downside to preventing your Mac from sleeping is that it’ll use more battery. There are some additional settings you can use to help prevent your Mac from running out of juice. To access these settings, click the Amphetamine icon in your Mac’s menu bar, then select “Preferences ” You can then select the “Sessions” tab. I have a problem with the Finder App in Mac OS 10.9.4 where the finder will freeze after a few minutes. This is very similar to the issue here: Finder slow/freeze under Mavericks In fact, deleting the plist file resolves the issue. But only for a few minutes then the freeze comes back.

Although Macs are extremely proficient computers, they sometimes experience freeze ups. This can be unfortunate when you’re in the middle of something important — a work project, or a FaceTime conversation. Modern RAM-intensive applications can easily put earlier Mac models into a coma. What should users do when an app or the macOS itself stops responding to any actions? Why can OS X freeze up all of a sudden? Read on to find out the typical reasons causing this malfunction and ways to solve the problem fast!

Discover the reasons for Mac freezes and macOS glitches and next, learn what to do when something like this happens to your computer.

  1. Unnecessary apps launched at startup.

Certain applications sneak into Mac’s login items and launch on macOS startup without you knowing. If something goes wrong, apps like this can freeze up in the background and slow down your Mac. Check the startup items and remove the unwanted programs launched on startup.

2. Multiple background processes.

A Mac app may be running several processes at once, and some of them can freeze up. Depending on your Mac’s RAM capacity, there can be too many processes hindering its overall performance. Check the Activity Monitor to see the list of app-related or system processes running in the background and the memory consumption.

3. Cluttered hard drive.

Free Falling Mac Os X

The chances are huge, your Mac’s hard drive needs serious maintenance and decluttering. Use macOS Optimized Storage toolkit to reclaim the disk space and restore system capacity. Alternatively, use third-party Mac cleaning application to find and delete trash, system junk, temporary files, and unused apps.

If your Mac freezes at login and you have no idea about what’s causing it, use a Safe Boot mode. It allows checking the functionality activated during startup and performing its diagnostics. To launch Safe Boot, turn off your Mac, then start it up holding down the Shift key.

If you wish to get feedback on how the process is going, restart the computer holding down the Shift and Command-V key combination. While the Mac is entering the Safe Boot, it’s Verbose Mode, will display messages about the Safe Boot troubleshooting stages. If your Mac successfully starts up with a Safe Boot the issue is fixed, so you can restart it normally.

If the problem persists, your Mac may be stuck in boot loops. Another reason for this to occur is a serious hardware-related issue demanding a more in-depth diagnostics.

If your MacBook Pro or Air is frozen, hold down Command + Control + Power keys to force-reboot your Mac. If you own one of the earlier MacBook models, use the same key combination, but press the Media Eject button instead of the Power key. Note: the force-reboot scenario will inevitably lead to data loss. The ‘hard restart’ can corrupt the files you were working on. Try recovering what is left and create a new file to save the important data. Actually, the same force-reboot scenario works for iMac or Mac mini as well.

“My Mac is frozen, and I can’t click anything” is a typical plea for help one can come across on Apple community forums. Most often it is related to the issue when Mac’s screen freezes and a user can’t even move the cursor around the desktop as a touchpad, mouse or a keyboard do not react. Also, the “spinning beach ball of death” may be present on the screen. It usually appears when your Mac’s hardware fails to handle the currently executed software task.

Other reasons are:

Complex tasks overloading the CPU

Memory-intensive apps

Lack of free space on Mac's startup disk

To understand what is causing the “beach ball,” a user needs to monitor the CPU usage, check the RAM consumption in Activity Monitor, and run hardware diagnostics. As you see, the spinning cursor is a symptom of a malfunction that needs close attention before your Mac fails.

A specific app can freeze up making your Mac partly or totally unresponsive. Here’s how to close a frozen program:

  1. Try switching to another macOS area by clicking on the desktop or another app window. Alternatively, use the Command-Tab key combination to switch to another program.
  2. Locate the app icon in the Dock, then Control-click the icon.
  3. Hold down the Option key (Quit will change to Force Quit on the menu).
  4. Click Force Quit.

If force-quitting the app didn’t work, here’s another way to abort a frozen program. Hold down Command-Option-Esc to access the Force Quit Applications window. Next, select a frozen app from the list, and click Force Quit.

On older Macs, upgrading to OS X El Capitan on top of Yosemite led to system slow down and freezing. Upgrading to macOS Sierra or High Sierra from earlier versions would cause similar issues. This is why a clean macOS installation is always preferable to prevent issues down the road. Apple users wait months before installing the latest software updates to make sure they will run a stable OS version.

To fix the freezing issue caused by an OS/software upgrade, do the following:

• If you upgraded the software, use a Time Machine backup to revert to the previous state;

• If you upgraded to the latest OS version, try downgrading to the previous version, or install the new one from scratch

Mac’s slow work or freeze-ups can be caused by an array of reasons. Use the ‘isolate & identify’ way of thinking to check all possible causes. Running the latest OS and software version compatible with your Mac’s hardware will help you avoid serious performance issues. Keeping your Apple computer clean and healthy will guarantee its steady work for years to come.

Start up from macOS Recovery

Determine whether you're using a Mac with Apple silicon, then follow the appropriate steps:

Apple silicon

Turn on your Mac and continue to press and hold the power button until you see the startup options window. Click the gear icon labeled Options, then click Continue.

Intel processor

Make sure that your Mac has a connection to the internet. Then turn on your Mac and immediately press and hold Command (⌘)-R until you see an Apple logo or other image.

If you're asked to select a user you know the password for, select the user, click Next, then enter their administrator password.

Reinstall macOS

Select Reinstall macOS from the utilities window in macOS Recovery, then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions.

Mac

Follow these guidelines during installation:

  • If the installer asks to unlock your disk, enter the password you use to log in to your Mac.
  • If the installer doesn't see your disk, or it says that it can't install on your computer or volume, you might need to erase your disk first.
  • If the installer offers you the choice between installing on Macintosh HD or Macintosh HD - Data, choose Macintosh HD.
  • Allow installation to complete without putting your Mac to sleep or closing its lid. Your Mac might restart and show a progress bar several times, and the screen might be empty for minutes at a time.

After installation is complete, your Mac might restart to a setup assistant. If you're selling, trading in, or giving away your Mac, press Command-Q to quit the assistant without completing setup. Then click Shut Down. When the new owner starts up the Mac, they can use their own information to complete setup.

Other macOS installation options

When you install macOS from Recovery, you get the current version of the most recently installed macOS, with some exceptions:

Mac Os Mojave

  • On an Intel-based Mac: If you use Shift-Option-Command-R during startup, you're offered the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available. If you use Option-Command-R during startup, in most cases you're offered the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac. Otherwise you're offered the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available.
  • If the Mac logic board was just replaced, you may be offered only the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac. If you just erased your entire startup disk, you may be offered only the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available.

You can also use these methods to install macOS, if the macOS is compatible with your Mac:

  • Use the App Store to download and install the latest macOS.
  • Use the App Store or a web browser to download and install an earlier macOS.
  • Use a USB flash drive or other secondary volume to create a bootable installer.