It’s awful to discover that your Mac keeps restarting. It threatens to render your computer worthless and resets all of your work back to square one. What should you do if your Mac keeps rebooting, then? Don’t worry; we have 10 suggestions to help you solve the problem.
10 Pro Tips to Fix a Mac That Keeps Restarting (2022)
Let’s look into the potential reasons for the unexpected restart first. After that, we’ll try the different strategies for solving the issue.
What Causes the Mac to Reboot Again and Again?
When your Mac reboots often, there are a lot of things you should check. Your macOS device may need to restart if the storage is filled up because of the overcrowding. Additionally, there is a significant likelihood that the out-of-date software is acting up if your Mac hasn’t received an update in a while.
Along with these two frequent suspects, you should also never rule out the chance of a drained battery, defective peripherals, or out-of-date software. Since a Mac can restart without warning for a variety of causes, we’ll test out a number of viable fixes. Let’s hope one of them works for you.
Force Quit All Open Apps and Hard Reset Your Mac
Sometimes a simple hard restart of the Mac will solve a random problem. Given how dependable this straightforward yet efficient method is, it would be worthwhile to test.
- Click the Apple menu at the top left corner of the screen and choose Force Restart.
- After that, select all the open apps and hit Force Restart. Then, press and hold the Power button for a few seconds to shut down your Mac.
- Next, wait for a few seconds and then hold down the power button again to turn on your Mac.
Use your Mac after it has restarted to see if the issue has been resolved.
Note:
- In some rare cases, your Mac might face a hardware/software issue that requires it to restart. When it happens, an alert will appear on the screen saying something like Your computer was restarted because of a problem.
- You can click Report in the popup to check more detailed information and also send a report to Apple.
Check Peripheral Devices
Checking peripheral devices like printers, USB hubs, and hard drives is another thing you should do to stop your Mac from restarting itself constantly.
- Turn off your Mac and then disconnect all peripheral devices. If you are using a desktop Mac, keep only display, keyboard, and mouse, or trackpad connected.
- Now, turn on your Mac and then wait for some time to check if the unexpected restart occurs. If your Mac doesn t restart, turn it off and then connect one peripheral device at a time.
You can identify which Mac accessory is causing the restart by reconnecting each peripheral one at a time.
Update Apps
Update all apps if your Mac still restarts erratically. If you haven’t updated your Mac’s programmes in a while, it could be the root of the issue.
- Open App Store on your Mac and then click the Updates tab. After that, update all apps at one go or do it one by one.
Immediately Delete the Problematic Apps
You can receive an alert message that reads, X app may have caused the device to restart, whenever your Mac believes that an app is to blame. Would you like to delete the application?
In this situation, select “Move to Trashin” to remove the troublesome apps from your device. Especially if the app has only ever caused the problem once and it’s a really critical app for you, you don’t necessarily have to do this. However, you should think about deleting the software as soon as possible if it keeps forcing your Mac to restart.
Reset PRAM/NVRAM (Intel Macs)
There is still no answer? No need to worry; we still have a few workable fixes available to stop your macOS device from rebooting randomly. We will now restart your Mac’s PRAM and NVRAM. There is no need to be concerned about losing anything because it doesn’t damage any media or data.
- Turn off your MacBook (Intel-based MacBook) and then turn it on.
- Then, hold down the Command, Option, P, R keys simultaneously after the startup sound.
- Keep holding these keys until your Mac reboots and you hear the startup sound again.
Please take note that the Macs that ship with Apple silicon do not have a reset option for the NVRAM, PRAM, or SMC. There is no command to reset NVRAM, however you can see and configure the parameter memory.
Check RAM and Third-Party Hardware
Some Mac models, like the Mac Pro, allow for RAM upgrades. Make sure the RAM or hard drive (or SSD) you recently installed on your macOS device is totally compatible and installed properly.
Use Safe Mode to Isolate the Cause of the Issue
A tried-and-true method for resolving software-related problems is safe mode. Its ability to stop your macOS device from loading specific software at startup, such as unused system extensions, uninstalled fonts, and login items, is what makes it so useful. In addition to running a simple starting disc check, Safe Mode clears away some system caches like the kernel cache and font caches.
Use Safe Mode on Mac with Apple Silicon
- First off, turn down your Mac. After that, press and hold the power button until you see the startup options window.
- Now, select your startup disk and then hold down the Shift key while clicking Continue in Safe Mode . Then, log in to your Mac.
Use Safe Mode on Mac with Intel Processor
- To get going, turn on or restart your Mac. Then, immediately hold down the Shift key as your Mac starts up. Make sure to release the key when the login window appears. After that, log in to your Mac.
- On the first or second login window, the text Safe Boot will appear in the top right corner of the window.
Update Your Mac
Generally speaking, it is advised to maintain your Mac updated to the most recent version of macOS that is compatible with your machine (except for in certain special circumstances). Make sure you’re running the most recent stable version of macOS if your Mac is restarting frequently and you haven’t updated in a while.
- Navigate to the System Preferences -> Software Update. After that, download and install the latest version of macOS on your device.
Keep a Tab on the Battery Service Warning
Your MacBook’s battery will lose its peak performance as it ages, which will cause unanticipated sluggishness. Additionally, it causes the MacBook to start draining much more quickly in between charges and even has a tendency to trigger unexpected restarts. The good news is that your notebook will let you know when the battery can no longer handle the load and has to be replaced.
- Click the battery icon at the top right corner to bring up the drop-down. Now, the TL;DR version of your battery s current condition will appear at the top of the menu.
- If the battery is worn-out, you should see Replace Soon, Replace Now, or Service Battery .
Declutter Your Mac
Numerous serious concerns, such as hot MacBooks, swift Mac battery loss, unforeseen sluggishness, and rebooting, are caused by clogged storage. Therefore, if you haven’t thoroughly cleaned your Mac in a while, you should do so as soon as possible.
- Click the Apple logo -> About This Mac -> Storage tab -> Manage Storage.
- Now, check out how the storage has been consumed on your device. Make sure to check the total storage consumed by System Data (formerly Other data). After that, clean up everything that s no longer needed.
Tips to Prevent Mac from Restarting Unexpectedly
So those are some of the several methods you can try to resolve the Mac restarts problem. Hopefully, one of the methods suggested above helped you stop your Mac from rebooting a lot. If nothing resolves the issue, get in touch with Apple support and request that they examine your iPhone. Please let us know in the comments if there are any additional troubleshooting steps that we should have included.
