Are you having trouble turning off your frozen Mac desktop or MacBook? How to force shut down or restart a frozen Mac?
Are you facing a frozen screen, a spinning beach ball in place of the cursor, or unresponsive apps on your Mac? There are several ways to force restart or shut down your Mac when it’s frozen.
How to Force Shut Down or Restart Your Mac
Using a Keyboard Shortcut
To safely shut down your Mac, press Control + Option + Cmd + Power. That shortcut might not work if your Mac can’t safely close every app, in which case you need to force your Mac to shut down instead. Press Control + Cmd + Power (without Option) to do so. This time you need to hold the keys for a few seconds before your Mac will shut down.
Use the Power Button or Key
First, if possible, go for a normal shutdown and avoid force shutdown of your Mac. Don’t unnecessarily try force shutdown as it won’t allow saving any unsaved data and might cause corruption in the existing files. If you can’t shut down your Mac normally, you can turn it off using the power button or key. To force shut down your Mac, press and hold the Power button or key until the screen goes dark. Once the screen is dark, your Mac will turn off.
Drain the Battery
In case none of the methods mentioned above worked: Remove the Power Supply and Drain the Battery. Again, it’s important to know that powering off your Mac this way is potentially damaging. If you are on an older Mac with a removable back, you may remove the battery from the bottom and set it back again and turn it. You might need to wait overnight for this to happen, depending on the health of your battery. But eventually your Mac will power off. When it does so, charge it back up and turn it on. If you are on a desktop Mac, simply unplugging the power cable does the job.