Table of Contents
Check if there are high-occupancy processes
Clean up memory and disk space
Safe Mode Start and Repair Permissions
Update the system and drivers
Home Operation and Maintenance Mac OS How to fix a frozen or beachballing Mac?

How to fix a frozen or beachballing Mac?

Oct 07, 2025 am 12:33 AM
mac freeze

Most Mac stuck or circling can be solved by the following methods: 1. Check the high-occupancy process and use "Forced Exit Application" or "Activity Monitor" to end the abnormal program; 2. Clean up memory and disk space, close the startup items, delete redundant files, or use cleaning tools; 3. Enter safe mode to start to fix system permissions and caches; 4. Update the system and drivers to fix possible bugs. Daily maintenance of system optimization and regular maintenance can effectively reduce such problems.

It's really annoying to get stuck or circling your Mac (commonly known as "beachballing"), especially when you're halfway through. In fact, this situation is not a big problem most of the time, and restarting can solve a lot, but if you encounter it frequently, you still have to find the root cause. The following methods are more practical and help you get rid of frozen or frequently circling Macs.


Check if there are high-occupancy processes

Sometimes the mouse turns into color because a program occupies a large amount of CPU resources in the background, and the system's response slows down or even "fake death". At this time, you can press Command Option Esc to open the "Forced Exit Application" window to see if there are any unresponsive programs. If so, click "Force Exit" after selecting it.

To go deeper, you can use "Activity Monitor" to troubleshoot:

  • Open "Applications → Utilities → Activity Monitor"
  • Take a look at the "CPU" tab and find processes with particularly high occupancy rates
  • If you find that a program consumes 100% of the CPU for a long time, you can try to end it

Note: Do not end the system-related processes casually, as it may easily lead to system instability.


Clean up memory and disk space

Insufficient memory or the startup disk is almost full, it can also cause the system to become dull or even get stuck. Especially when using old Macs or machines without SSDs, this problem is more obvious.

You can try these operations:

  • Turn off unnecessary startup items (System Preferences > Users and Groups > Login items)
  • Delete unused software and files, keep the boot disk at least 10% of the remaining space
  • Clean caches and logs with tools like "CleanMyMac" or "OnyX"

If your Mac only has 8GB of memory and runs many browser tags and professional software, it is easy to explode the memory, and considering upgrading is a way.


Safe Mode Start and Repair Permissions

If the problem is stubborn, you can try to enter safe mode and let the system do some automatic repairs:

  1. After shutting down, restart the computer, press and hold Shift key until the login interface appears
  2. After logging in, the system will perform some disk checks and extended cache cleaning.
  3. Restart once and restore normal startup

Many functions are limited in safe mode and are not suitable for long-term use, but are suitable for troubleshooting problems. In addition, macOS now uses the APFS file system by default, but if you use the old format, you can also try the "first aid" function in "Disk Tools" to repair the disk.


Update the system and drivers

Some freezing problems are caused by system bugs, and Apple usually fixes these problems in updates. So it's important to make sure your system is the latest version:

  • Go to "System Preferences> Software Update" to check for updates
  • If it is a newer macOS version, remember to enable automatic update
  • At the same time, third-party drivers or software must be updated, such as peripherals, antivirus software, etc.

Sometimes, after just upgrading the system, some plug-ins or drivers have not been adapted, it may also cause beachball. In this case, you can temporarily uninstall the relevant software to see if there is any improvement.


Basically these common ways of dealing with it. When you encounter a Mac stutter, don’t rush to send it to repair it. Start with the simplest investigation, and you can do it yourself most of the time.

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