Restart using Startup Manager: Restart your Mac, then immediately press and hold the Option key. When the Startup Manager window appears, release the Option key, select your macOS startup disk, then press Return. If you’re using a portable Mac with an external keyboard, make sure you press and hold the Option key on the built-in keyboard. Pressing the Control+Command+Eject/Power button is the most reliable way to restart a Mac because it doesn’t rely on the Mac OS X operating system. Restarting a Mac computer isn’t the same as turning the computer on and off, which completely resets it.
Before we get our hands dirty, here’s a word of warning. If you’re wondering how to reboot a MacBook Pro, bear in mind it’s the last resort when all other methods to unfreeze your Mac had failed. Don’t try it too often as it may harm your system. No question, your Mac can handle rapid power losses and your hardware most likely won’t be hurt. What’s at risk though, is your data because each time you force reboot a Mac it affects the consistency of the file system. Now that you’ve been warned, let’s go.
Symptoms your frozen Mac needs a force restart
- Applications are not responding
- Pointer is not responsive
- Loud fan noise
- The screen goes black
- Mac unable to restart
Can you move the cursor? If yes, try this
Before you force restart a Mac, it’s always recommended to first try a software solution.
Go to the Apple menu
Choose Restart
Click Restart in the menu that appears
Two ways to force restart a Mac
The simplest method: hold down the Power button till your Mac shuts down. Press the button again to restart it.
If your Mac hangs for good and the pointer is inactive:
Hold down Control + Command while pressing the Power button.
This is an alternative key combination to force restart a Mac. By the way, if you are on an iMac, the Power button is found on the back of your Mac. Voila!
Is Shut Down any different from Restart?
The difference between Shut Down and Restart is quite self-explanatory. When you perform a restart, your Mac will turn on again loading its previously active apps. As for shut down, your Mac won’t start until you press the Power button again. Interestingly, all new Macs have an automatic reboot feature built-in. So even if you sit and do nothing, your frozen Mac would eventually reboot by itself, though it takes a bit of patience.
How to force shut down a frozen Mac
If you need to force shut down a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, all you need is again to press a Power button on your Mac’s keyboard.
Press and hold Power button for 2 seconds
Choose Restart, Sleep or Shut Down in the menu that appears
If you don’t want to reload the baggage of your previously opened apps, tick off “Reopen windows when logging back in”. We do recommend you to deselect this option when your Mac is slow in order to lighten the weight on your RAM.
If your Mac won’t shut down:
Press and hold Power button for about 6 seconds
Hold the button until the Mac shuts down.
Needless to say that when you force restart a Mac all your unsaved projects may be lost. It’s unfair, we know.
Why does my Mac keep freezing?
The obvious explanation is your Mac lacks memory. Or to put another way, there are too many active processes running on your Mac. First off, go to Activity Monitor to check your memory usage.
Go to Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor
Click the Memory tab
Now, look into how heavily your Memory is loaded. Quit apps that eat up too much memory for no reason. While this may work as a temporary solution, it doesn’t stop your Mac from freezing up again. You can either force reboot your Mac each time or opt for a radical solution. Below are a few more ideas you can try.
More ways to fix a frozen Mac
Restart your Mac in the Diagnostics mode
Shut down your Mac and reboot while pressing D key. Within the menu that appears, launch the Apple Diagnostics tool. This will check your Mac’s drive for errors. From then, follow the prompts to finish the diagnostics.
Terminal Command For Restart Mac
Clean up your Mac
Remove old unused apps, system junk, and pervasive browser extensions. For this purpose, try running CleanMyMac application on your Mac.
It’s quite effective in removing all junk from your Mac and has a number of helpful utilities, like RAM free up or app uninstaller. Download it for free here .
Reinstall your macOS
This is the most radical of all methods, that’s why it’s so effective.
Check out how to clean install macOS Sierra
Instructions for macOS High Sierra
How to clean install macOS Mojave
Command For Reboot Mac
How to clean install macOS Catalina
Hope this guide has helped you. Before you force shut down this article, feel free to share it, using the social buttons below. Cheers!
Command For Reset Microsoft Store
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We can reboot a Windows computer from command line using the in-built shutdown command. Below you can find syntax of this command for various use cases. The below commands work on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 and all other server editions.
Command to reboot windows computer
The above command will set a time out of 30 seconds to close the applications. After 30 seconds, windows reboot will start.
If you want to reboot Windows with your own time out value you can use the below command.
To shutdown a Windows computer
To abort computer reboot
Mac Restart Command Terminal
If you have issued a reboot command and have changed mind, you can stop Windows reboot by running the below command.
When you run this, you would see a pop up window at the right bottom part of the screen(near system tray) that shows the message “The scheduled shutdown has been cancelled”.
Command Restart Macbook
To force reboot by closing applications without warning
Open the shutdown GUI
Restart Computer Command
Add reason for the reboot of the computer
Reboot Windows using WMIC commands:
Reboot windows using WMIC
How To Restart An Imac
You can run the below wmic command to reboot Windows OS.
Shadow blade for mac. Developed by Creative Assembly and published by SEGA.
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