Imagine this: you’re working happily on your Mac when the dreaded beach ball of death appears. A program stops responding or worse, the macOS (or OS X) itself refuses to do anything but stare at you, blankly. You have a frozen Mac app or an OS X freeze. Mac OS not responding can lead to lost productivity or even lost work. Let's go over why it happens, what to do when your Mac freezes or when an Mac OS app stops responding, as well as some tips for preventative maintenance.
We’ll go over frozen apps first, so if your whole Mac freezes, you can jump to the part about fixing a frozen Mac. Antivirus software app mac.
Fixing a frozen app: Why Mac OS apps freeze
There can be a few reasons why apps freeze on Mac. First, sometimes an app freezes on its own, and sometimes it takes down the whole Mac with it. Here's what could be happening:
- Apps freeze in the background.
This could mean there are some apps running that you didn't open, they opened themselves. Probably, they're featured in your startup items, so they automatically launch when you start your Mac. If this happens repeatedly, you need to check what apps are running in the background and launch with the startup. - Processes freeze in the background.
This one is different from apps. One app may be running multiple processes, also system processes can be running on their own. - Too many apps and processes running.
Same logic as with the previous issue. But the question here is how many is too many? There is no definite answer to this, it very much depends on the hardware capacity of your Mac. You can read how to check it and fix it below. - Mac system is too cluttered with junk to run even simple tasks.
This is fixable, you can get a Mac optimizing app like CleanMyMac X for the job. Run a scan to find and remove the stuff you don't need, and there's a high change your apps will stop freezing after that.
- To swipe between full-screen apps on your Mac, place four fingers on your trackpad or two on your Magic Mouse. Swipe them left or right to move between full-screen apps. Apps will need to be in full-screen view for the gesture to work.
- The Dock is the area the bottom of your screen on the Mac where you can find shortcuts to apps, along with folders and minimised windows of programs you have open.
What to do if an app freezes on your Mac
Install from the Mac App Store. Click on the price located beneath the app's star rating. If an app is free, the button will read Get. Click on the green Install App button that appears. Telestream ScreenFlow® is award-winning screen recording and video editing software designed exclusively for macOS. With high-quality screen, video, audio, and iOS capture, exceptionally powerful editing features as well as a new Stock Media Library option., ScreenFlow helps you create incredible looking videos, animated GIFs, and APNGs with unprecedented ease. With the introduction of new macOS, 10.14 Mojave, Apple started building iOS-like apps for Macs. Aside from the adaption to the big screen, the apps look and work exactly the way they do on your iPhone or iPad. As of this writing, there are four iOS apps you can use on an updated Mac: Home; News; Voice Memos; Stocks.
A frozen app becomes unresponsive and brings your work to a halt. In the worst case scenario, it can lead to lost work or a corrupted file. Fortunately, there are several options to try, and most are quite simple. Here’s what you can do when a program freezes on your Mac. First, you need to quit it. Then, if the app keeps freezing when you launch it, try the next options.
How to quit a frozen or unresponsive program
Quitting and then re-starting an app is a good way for Mac OS to handle a crash. You can do this from the OS X Dock or from the Force Quit window. To force-quit an app from the OS Dock, follow these simple steps:
- Click anywhere outside of the program
- Right-click (or Control-click) on the frozen app’s icon in the Dock. A menu appears.
- Hold down the Option key on your keyboard so that Quit in that menu changes to Force Quit.
- Select Force Quit.
That’s it. The app is instantly closed. Re-launch it and try again. If you prefer to work with the Dock hidden — or if the Dock itself is unresponsive — you can simply bring up the Force Quit dialog box to perform the same task.
Here’s how:
Here’s how:
- On your Mac’s keyboard, hit the Option, Command and Escape keys simultaneously (alt + ? + esc).
- The Force Quit dialog box appears with a list of running programs.
- Select the frozen app and then click Force Quit.
- The software will stop running and you’re free to re-launch it at this point.
If you’re using a maintenance utility like CleanMyMac X, it has freezes covered. When CleanMyMac spots an unresponsive app, a notification window with a Quit button pops up, so you could force-quit the app without rummaging around in its menu.
CleanMyMac keeps an eye on other performance issues, too, so if you'd like to get alerts like this one when anything goes wrong, download CleanMyMac X for free and give it a try.
How to fix Mac apps that keep freezing
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First, check what apps are running in the background and launch with the startup.
To do it go to Settings > Users and Groups > Login items.
Uncheck anything you think might be causing trouble. In fact, just to be sure, uncheck every app and restart your Mac.
To do it go to Settings > Users and Groups > Login items.
Uncheck anything you think might be causing trouble. In fact, just to be sure, uncheck every app and restart your Mac.
Now, find out which process or program is causing the problem. How to see what programs are running on Mac in general? You need launch Activity monitor.
How to find Activity Monitor on Mac: You can do it via the Spotlight Search or just open Launchpad and type it in.
How to open Activity Monitor in Finder: launch it from Applications > Utilities folder > Activity Monitor.
How to find Activity Monitor on Mac: You can do it via the Spotlight Search or just open Launchpad and type it in.
How to open Activity Monitor in Finder: launch it from Applications > Utilities folder > Activity Monitor.
When it opens, you'll probably see hundreds of processes in each tab, but the ones you need now are CPU and Memory tabs. Click on the % CPU sign to sort processes by their influence on your Mac's work. The heaviest ones will show up on the top. They could be your main issue, but don’t rush to deal with them. Some, like kernel, are important system processes and you shouldn’t mess with them.
How to kill a process on Mac OS
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However, sometimes your problem does lie within a specific process, you can force quit it (Apple doesn't call it 'to kill a process on Mac', they make it sound fancy). But we're not at Apple HQ, so here's how to kill a Mac OS process:
- Open Activity Monitor.
- You see a list of processes. You can sort them by clicking on %CPU or % Memory in relevant tabs.
- Find the process you want to kill and choose it.
- Click on the octagon with an X sign.
- Done.
Occasionally the problem isn’t with the Mac app, but with the Mac OS itself. If you’re experiencing troubles regularly, it’s time to ask why your Mac keeps freezing. There are several possible reasons, so let’s start with the simplest potential solution.
First, the file you were working with at the time of the freeze may be the issue. To help determine if this is true, try opening a different file with that app and work with it for a while. If it behaves normally, quit and then go back to the file you were working with at the time of the crash. If the errant behavior persists, you may have found your problem. Salvage what you can into a new file.
Make sure that your software and OS X are up-to-date. This is easy to do with software purchased from the Mac App Store. The same goes for OS X. Launch the Mac App Store on your Mac, and you’ll see the list of pending updates, including any for the OS X itself. For third-party software purchased outside of the App Store, visit the manufacturer’s website.
What to do if Mac OS X freezes
If you cannot force-quit a program, or if the Mac OS is completely unresponsive, it’s time for the most obvious action — a reboot.
You can bring up the Restart/Sleep/Shutdown dialog box instantly by hitting Control plus the Power button. Option four, Shut Down, is selected by default.
Alternatively, you can press and hold the Power button for 1.5-2 seconds to bring up the same dialog box. If things aren’t hopelessly messed up, you’ll get a chance to save your work before your Mac shuts down. If that still doesn’t work, a more drastic option is available.
You can bring up the Restart/Sleep/Shutdown dialog box instantly by hitting Control plus the Power button. Option four, Shut Down, is selected by default.
Alternatively, you can press and hold the Power button for 1.5-2 seconds to bring up the same dialog box. If things aren’t hopelessly messed up, you’ll get a chance to save your work before your Mac shuts down. If that still doesn’t work, a more drastic option is available.
How to force reboot a frozen Mac
Press Command ?, Control and Power (on earlier MacBook models, use the Media Eject key instead of the Power button) to restart your Mac immediately. Note that you won’t have the option of saving anything in this scenario, but it will definitely reboot your icy Mac.
Once your Mac has restarted, you might find that the hard restart has corrupted the file you were working on. Salvage what you can from it and create a new file.
How to fix a frozen Mac
After the reboot, ensure that your Mac has enough free hard drive space for the OS X, and enough free RAM to do what you want. CleanMyMac X can help you here, too. Essential macos apps. It removes all the useless files that take up space on your hard drive: app leftovers, mail attachments, cache files, and so on. That way, you can free up additional disk space for the OS X without deleting any of your own files. Plus, CleanMyMac X keeps tabs on how much RAM you’re using and lets you free some up with a tap.
How to convert a folder to an app mac pro. Finally, if system cleanup also fails to fix the problem, you can try to run a clean install of your Mac OS. Just follow the instructions: How to clean install macOS Sierra 10.12
Note: If you don’t know which system your Mac runs, click the apple icon in the top left corner and choose About this Mac. You’ll see the name on the popup window.
That’s it, we hope this guide has helped you fix a frozen Mac. Remember, with day-to-day maintenance, your Mac can offer years of reliable work. On the rare occasion of a frozen program or even frozen OS X, these tips will help get you working and productive again. And software like CleanMyMac X can do some of the monitoring and maintenance for you, so you can focus on what needs to be done.
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Comparing to text tutorials on blogs and websites, video tutorials are more effective and very effective. Record Screens, Audio Podcasts, Video Podcasts, Create Stunning Video Tutorials and add high quality audio to make a final Full HD 1080p video. Before seeing the list of best screen recording apps for mac lets see a quick introduction about where it will be used mostly.
Youtube has become worlds second most visited website and no 1 video streaming website. You can use Youtube as Search Engine to search and find video tutorials. Even though the process you are explaining is very complex, you can make people understand easily with a video tutorial. Today on YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion and other video sharing sites, there are plenty of video tutorials available for different platforms. This concept of tutorials through video has emerged a new concept in blogging called as Video Blogging. Many video bloggers have their channel on YouTube and posting video tutorials on various domains.
One of the important tools for creating video tutorials is screen recording apps. The quality of your video tutorial also depends on which recording software you use. For Mac OS X, we have plenty of screen recording applications available on the Internet. Even though there are few good screen recording apps for mac available for free, you can’t expect the quality and options available in the premium ones.
Best Screen Recording Apps for Mac OS
If you want to create basic tutorials with less actions, controls and options, free apps are just fine, but if you want to prepare some good tutorials for Mac, you need a premium one.
So today I came with a list of best screen recording apps for Mac OS. Let’s have a look at some of those applications and its features below.
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ScreenFlow is one of the best screen recording application for Mac. The application is really simple and it has plenty of options to edit your video tutorials. Using ScreenFlow you can record videos from your desktop and camera simultaneously. It supports both the inbuilt and external microphones to add voice to your videos. Screenflow 5 allows you to record iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch screens in HD Video, when you connect it with USB, which is excellent for preparing Video Tutorials, App Tutorials and Training.
Also you can add multiple Audio files, Texts and Images to your videos easily. Once you finish editing, you can export the video to local hard disk or you can upload to YouTube or Vimeo right from the application. Screenflow 5 Editor is the best in class and allows you to easily edit any recorded videos using your Digital Camera, Smartphone Camera or PC Camera easily.
Do a lot with its Timeline view and create video tutorials, short films and screen recordings easily.
Download:
Camtasia is a famous screen recorder for Windows platform and one of the widely used applications for video tutorials. The application is really simple and you have an inbuilt guide to use Camtasia effectively. It is really an unique screen recording software which has plenty of options to prepare video tutorials with professional quality. You have options like recording particular area of your desktop, using inbuilt and external microphones at the same time, adding backgrounds, texts, images, multiple audio files to your videos and much more features you can play with. It is a complete professional screen recorder for Mac OS.
Download:
Screen Record is yet another app for Mac to prepare video tutorials. It captures the videos as a QuickTime movie and gives plenty of options to edit them. It is a very simple application for Mac and the interface is really easy to understand. So you don’t need any training or guide to use this application. Also the price of this application is very less as compared to the other two mentioned above.
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iShowU is a complete professional screen recording application for Mac. It has an option called instant recording where you can email or upload the video instantly once you finish recording. Using iShow you can record your own keyboard and mouse, that is you can show what are the keys you were using to perform that particular action. You can capture a particular area of the desktop, export the video to final cut easily, upload to YouTube or Blip.tv instantly and much more.
Download: iShowU for Mac OS
Screen Mimic is exclusively designed for creating flash and Quicktime movies from your screen recordings. You can easily import your screen recordings as flash videos (.flv) and quick time movies (.mov) using this application. It has all the basic screen recording and editing options also the interface is very simple to understand and work with. This application is bit costlier as compared to other screen recorders but if you need your tutorial videos to be in flash or Shockwave flash format you can go for this.
Download:
These are the five different Screen Recording Apps for Mac OS. Try the favorite screen recorder on your Mac and share your experience with us in the comment box. Do let us know if we have missed any of your favorite screen recorder applications for Mac. Thanks for reading. Have a great day.