What does the colored circle mean on a Mac?

What is the Mac spinning wheel? This rainbow-colored spinning wheel appears whenever an app on your Mac needs more time to perform a particular task and becomes unresponsive while doing it. Each app on your Mac has what’s known as a window server, a system process that helps an app communicate with your screen.

Why do I keep getting the spinning beach ball on my Mac?

The spinning wait cursor or spinning disc pointer — where your mouse pointer becomes the rotating color wheel or “spinning beach ball” seen above — generally indicates that your Mac® is engaged in a processor-intensive activity.

What does the colored spinning wheel mean?

The spinning rainbow wheel is a common macOS wait cursor. This wheel comes up when an application that you’re running doesn’t respond for a few moments.

What causes spinning rainbow circle mean Mac?

What Is the Spinning Wheel of Death on a Mac? That rainbow spinning wheel (whatever you might call it) is a common macOS wait cursor. It’s triggered when an application doesn’t respond for a few seconds and signals that you should wait before giving the app more instructions.

What does the spinning circle on my computer mean?

A spinning cursor means the system is busy. Since the operating system is made up of hundreds or thousands of independent modules (programs), you may see the spinning blue circle appear often, especially if you power on or reboot the system.

What is the spinning beach ball of death?

Your Mac may be slow due to an outdated macOS or an overloaded cache. Malware can also infect your Mac and slow it down by hogging system resources. If your Mac is old, it might struggle to run modern software, and you may need to replace it.

How do you restart a frozen Mac?

How to Force Restart Your Mac. Press and hold down the Command (⌘) and Control (Ctrl) keys along with the power button (or the ‌Touch ID‌ / Eject button, depending on the Mac model) until the screen goes blank and the machine restarts.

How do you Ctrl Alt Delete on a Mac?

What is ‘control alt delete’ on a Mac keyboard? The Mac equivalent of ‘control alt delete’ is ‘Command+Option+Escape’, which opens up the Force Quit menu so you can close down any apps that aren’t responding.

What is the colorful circle on my Iphone?

Hey, That colourful orb you’re seeing is Siri, iOS’ virtual assistant! It’s activated when you hold down the home button. To go home from an app, you do not need to hold it down — simply click it and you’ll see the Home Screen.

What happens when force quit doesn’t work on Mac?

What to Do If Force Quit Isn’t Working? If all the applications stop responding and you can’t quit them using one of the methods described above, you can force your Mac to restart. To do so, press and hold the Control+Command+Power buttons.

Why does the little blue circle keeps spinning?

The main reason why this spinning blue circle appears next to your mouse pointer is because of a task that seems to be constantly running in the background and not letting the user to conduct their task smoothly.

What is the spinning circle called?

A throbber, also known as a loading icon, is an animated graphical control element used to show that a computer program is performing an action in the background (such as downloading content, conducting intensive calculations or communicating with an external device).

Why do I keep getting the Wheel of Death on my Mac?

The spinning wheel of death can appear when your Mac is using virtual memory and the storage space is limited. The more physical RAM you have, the less your Mac will need to resort to virtual memory. So installing more RAM can fix the spinning color wheel problem.

How do I upgrade my Mac?

To download macOS software updates, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Software Update . Tip: You can also click the Apple menu—the number of available updates, if any, is shown next to System Preferences.

How do I reset my Mac?

From the Apple menu  in the corner of your screen, choose System Preferences. From the System Preferences menu in the menu bar, choose Erase All Content and Settings.

What do you do if your Mac is not responding?

Click on the Apple menu at the top left of the screen, then select Restart and click Restart. If you cannot interact with the Apple menu (perhaps your mouse is unresponsive) try pressing Command-Control-Eject on a very old Mac or Control-Option-Command-Power button on a newer Mac.

How do I force a Mac to start?

Press and hold the power button (Every Mac has a power button. On laptop computers that have Touch ID, press and hold Touch ID.) Then press and release the power button normally.

How do I force an unresponsive Mac to restart?

To force restart a frozen Mac, hold down the Control key while pressing the Power button. In the dialog box that appears, select Restart and hit Return. Alternatively, you can press the Command + Control + Power buttons until your Mac’s screen turns black, and your system reboots.

How long does it take for a Mac to restart?

Typically, you Mac should take about 30 seconds to fully startup.

What does 🚫 mean on Mac?

A prohibitory symbol, which looks like a circle with a line or slash through it, means that your startup disk contains a Mac operating system, but it’s not a version or build of macOS that your Mac can use.

What do you do if your Mac is not responding?

Choose Restart from the Apple menu, or. On some computers, you may press the Power button on the keyboard, then click Restart in the dialog box that appears. If your computer has an Apple Pro Keyboard, press Control-Eject, then click Restart in the dialog box that appears.