How to Restart MacBook Pro?

How to Restart MacBook Pro – Overview

Apart from the fact that Apple builds some of the most dependable PCs around, you might still encounter a frozen Mac screen.

When that happens, applications become impassive; the cursor becomes into a rotating beach ball, and your PC fans whir at high speed.

Therefore you might need to force restart your MacBook Pro to fix its unresponsiveness. Restarting your MacBook Pro is a relatively easy process that mainly serves two purposes.

All applications shut down by restarting your MacBook Pro, which is a big way to optimize its performance. When in doubt, just restart your MacBook Pro.

You can also reboot your MacBook Pro to install macOS updates. When these updates are accessible, you’re likely to see an alert asking to restart the PC now or at a later time.

In this instance, the update starts to install once the PC reboots. There are two preferred methods to reboot your MacBook Pro; let us show you how to do this.

What Should You Do Before Restarting Your MacBook Pro?

Eject External Storage

How to Restart MacBook Pro – Eject External Storage

Forcing your MacBook Pro to shut down doesn’t give it a chance to securely external drives. Whether you utilize these drives for Time Machine backup or external storage, ejecting them unsafely might cause irreparable damage to their information.

To remove your external storage securely, head to your Desktop and drag the external drive to ‘Trash Icon’ in the dock. Alternatively, launch ‘Finder’ and click on the ‘Eject’ button.

Quit All Apps

If your MacBook won’t turn off normally, it’s probably because one of the applications has frozen and can’t be closed. Again, you can sort this out by manually closing each app.

Doing this might unfreeze your MacBook Pro, so you don’t need to force it to restart

Press CMD + Q to quit your recent app, or click on the app name in the menu and click on ‘Quit.’ Scroll between the open apps using CMD + Tab to figure out which apps are open.

If any apps don’t quit, click on ‘Option + CMD + Escape’ to launch the ‘Force Quit Window. Then, click on the unresponsive app in this window and click on ‘Force Quit to close it down.

After closing all apps, try and shut down your MacBook normally using the menu. If you still encounter issues or can’t close all apps, find out how to restart your Mac below.

Save Open Files

Save Open Files

Your MacBook Pro is most likely to hang when you’re working on a massive project. If this is the case, you don’t want to lose any unsaved work by forcing your MacBook to shut down quickly.

Try to save all your open files by clicking on CMD + S or clicking on ‘File’ and then ‘Save’ from the menu bar if your MacBook Pro is frozen.

You can’t save anything; take a picture of your work-in-progress on your phone so that you can recreate it later. Of course, this isn’t ideal, but it’s better than losing your work forever.

The MacBook Pro Restart Process: Apple Menu

Perhaps the simplest way to restart a MacBook Pro is to press a couple of menus available on pretty much every screen on a MacBook. So here is what to do.

Click on the Apple logo in the upper left corner of your screen.
Next, click on ‘Restart.’

Click on ‘Restart.’

If you want all your applications and documents to open after the restart. check the box next to ‘Reopen Windows’ when logging back in.

Reopen Windows

Next, click on ‘Restart’ or allow the timer countdown to finish the restart.

Restart

The MacBook Pro Restart Process: Keyboard

If you prefer to use the keyboard or your MacBook Pro isn’t responding to mouse prompts, you can also reboot it using the keyboard. So here’s what you can do:

Press and hold the Control + Command + Power/Touch ID keys simultaneously until the screen dims and then restart the sound plays. Release the buttons after you hear the sound and allow your MacBook to boot up again. This method works on all MacBooks.

You can also press and hold the ‘Control + Eject ‘keys for the shutdown dialog box to appear on your screen on some models. Then, from that dialog, click on ‘Restart.’
If neither of those options functions tries to force restart your MacBook by pressing and holding Control + Option + Command + the Power/ Touch ID button.

How to Restart MacBook Pro

Final Thought

All in all, you shouldn’t have to force restart your MacBook Pro frequently because it can cause you to lose your work.

However, if your MacBook is locking up regularly, Google how to fix common MacOS problems or maybe get in touch with Apple support.