What does a spinning color wheel mean on Mac?

When you see the spinning colored beach ball, it means the Mac is slowing down due to low resources, such as memory, hard drive or processing power. It’s telling you to wait while the computer chugs through its work.

Why do I get the wheel of death on my Mac?

It appears when an app exceeds the Mac’s processing capability. The application could need to be updated or removed and reinstalled. When the Spinning Wheel of Death frequently appears with more than one app, the available storage space and RAM become suspects.

What is the spinning beach ball of death?

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.

Your Mac may be slow due to an outdated macOS or an overloaded cache.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 I unfreeze Microsoft Word without losing work?

Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. Right-click an empty area of the taskbar, and then click Task Manager. Click on the processes tab> look for Winword.exe > click on it and click on end process.

How do I recover an unsaved Word document on a Mac?

Click on the File option in the Menu bar then search for Autorecover. If you use Word often then there might be a few different Autorecover files, so check the date to see which one matches your missing item. Once you’ve found the document just click on it to open it up, then remember to save it again under a new name.

How do I stop the spinning beachball on my imac?

Force Quit The App That Has Frozen If only one App is having a problem, go to the Apple Menu in the top left-hand corner and choose Force Quit… Select the App that’s causing problems and click ‘Force Quit’. The good news is that you can now safely save any work you have open.

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 wheel icon 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 is my Mac so slow and unresponsive?

If you find your Mac is running slowly, there are a number of potential causes that you can check. Your computer’s startup disk may not have enough free disk space. To make disk space available, you can move files to another disk or an external storage device, then delete files you no longer need on the startup disk.

How do I unfreeze my Mac without losing my work?

Step 1. Press the combination Cmd+Option+Esc, and a window will pop up. Step 2. After pressing the above keyboard combination, the Force Quit Applications should appear, select Microsoft Word and then click on the “Force Quit” button.

Can I recover a Word document I didn’t save?

Recovering Unsaved Word Documents 1. In MS Word, click the File Tab in the upper left. 2. Click Manage Document and select Recover Unsaved Documents from the drop-down list.

Why is my desktop stuck on the startup screen?

Software glitches, faulty hardware or removable media connected to your computer can sometimes cause the computer to hang and become unresponsive during the startup process.

How do I fix the beachball on my Mac?

Close the tab/program with the Spinning Beach Ball showing. You can force quit any program by clicking the Apple logo in the top left of the screen and then force quit. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut: Option, Command and Esc (Escape).

What causes beach ball on 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 do you do if your Mac isn’t responding?

Reboot your Mac How to reboot a Mac that is not responding: Hold down the power button for several seconds. If that doesn’t work, Press the Control-Command keys down, then press the Power button.

Why is my Mac buffering so much?

This is often due to Internet congestion that slows down the overall performance of your connection. While your Internet connection is a major factor in the quality of the stream, your display and alternate applications also play a role in how your connection runs.

How long do MacBook Pros last?

Most want to know how long a MacBook Pro will last before the need to upgrade to a new laptop. So, how long does a MacBook pro last? According to experts, a well-cared for MacBook Pro should last 7.2 years on average. However, many get rid of their MacBook Pro after 5 years for a new one.

Does a factory reset make your computer faster?

The truth is that yes, a factory reset will undoubtedly make your laptop run faster, and it’s not a bad idea to do one. Bear in mind that this will also delete everything on your laptop, which is one of the reasons it makes your laptop faster.

Should I restore my Mac to factory settings?

Before you spend big on a new Mac, though, try a factory reset, which wipes your computer and reinstalls a clean version of macOS. A factory reset is also the best way to prepare your old computer for a new owner to make sure no leftover data falls into the wrong hands.

Does clearing cache delete passwords?

If you saved passwords in your browser so you could automatically log in to certain sites, clearing your cache can clear your passwords as well.