Need to Restart a Mac That Has Frozen? Here’s How

It’s extremely uncommon for a Mac to freeze or crash these days, but it can happen. What should you do if your Mac locks up and becomes completely unresponsive to the mouse and keyboard? The trick is to press and hold the power button until the Mac turns off. Wait 5 or 10 seconds, and press it again to turn the Mac back on. You will lose any unsaved changes if you do this, so use it only as a last resort when you can’t restart normally. Look for the power button on the back of a desktop Mac, and at the top right of the keyboard on most laptop Macs. For a recent MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar, press and hold the Touch ID button.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

More great mac troubleshooting tips…

• How to Ask for Tech Support So You Get Great Answers Fast
• Having Mac Troubles? Running Apple Diagnostics May Help Identify the Problem
• Consider USB Peripherals When Troubleshooting Mac Problems
• Troubles with Messages?

Use macOS’s Guest Account to Protect Your Privacy from Temporary Users

We’ve all had it happen. “Can I use your Mac for a minute to check my email?” The answer can be “Yes,” but to keep people from poking around on your Mac, have your visitor log in as Guest. To enable the Guest account, go to System Preferences > Users & Groups. If the lock at the bottom left is closed, click it and enter your admin credentials. Then click Guest User in the list, and select “Allow guests to log in to this computer.” To switch to the Guest account, go to the Apple menu and choose Log Out YourAccountName to access the login screen. Your guest can then click the Guest User icon, at which point they’ll have a clean account to work in. When they log out, the account—including any files they created or downloaded—will be deleted, thus protecting their privacy as well.

(Featured image by Apple)

More privacy tips…

More great tips from the archives…

• Two Secret Key Combos for Forward Delete on the Magic and MacBook Keyboards
• iCloud Photo Library Users: Do NOT Turn Off iCloud
• Ever Wondered Which Words to Capitalize in a Title? Use Capitalize My Title!
• Tips for Setting Up a Comfortable and Effective Home Work Space
• Tips for Better Videoconferencing
• Set Your Preferred Name and Photo for Messages on iOS
• The Fastest Way to Change Wi-Fi Networks in iOS
• What to Put at the End of Your Emails
• Apple Business Manager Is a Win for Apple-Driven Workplaces

• Find Wasted Space with Storage Management
• Forrester Research and IBM Studies Show Macs Are Cheaper than PCs
• Being an Apple User Means You’re Not the Product
• How to Ask for Tech Support So You Get Good Answers Quickly
• Apple Business Manager Is a Win for Apple-Driven Workplaces

• Spring Loaded: Apple Announces New M1-Based 24-inch iMac, iPad Pro, AirTag, Apple TV 4K, and More
• Customize What Appears in New Finder Windows with This Tip
• Here’s Why You Should Always Keep the Find My iPhone Feature Enabled
• Find Files in the Finder Better by Specifying a Search Scope
• Use This Trick to Find a Missing App Window

• The Hidden Dangers of Shadow IT on your business
• Need to Stay in Touch? Try One of These Videoconferencing Apps
• Never Send Someone a Password in Mail or Messages: Do This Instead!
• What Are All These New Privacy Request Dialogs in Mojave?
• The Importance of Productivity Tech for Your Road Warriors

Use Dropbox’s Selective Sync to Save Space on Small Drives

If you’re like many of our clients who use Dropbox intensively, you have a desktop Mac with a large drive and a MacBook with much less drive space. How do you prevent your large Dropbox account from overwhelming the laptop Mac’s available storage? The answer is Dropbox’s Selective Sync feature. On the MacBook, click the Dropbox icon in the menu bar, click your avatar in the upper-right corner, and choose Preferences. In the Preferences window, click Sync and then click the Choose Folders to Sync button. Deselect the folders you want to prevent from syncing to the MacBook and click Update. If you need to access any files in those folders from the MacBook, go to dropbox.com in your Web browser instead, or adjust your Sync preferences to bring in the needed folder.

(Featured image based on a photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash)

How about some other tips while you are here?

• Is Your Photos Library Too Big? Here’s How to Move It to an External Hard Drive
• Running Low on Space on Your Mac? Here’s How to Clear Unnecessary Data
• Six Tips for Writing Better Email
• What to Do If You Run Low on iCloud Storage Space