How to Stop the Spinning Wheel on Your Mac

To stop the spinning wheel on Mac, Force Quit the application that's causing it or force restart your computer.
You can also stop the spinning wheel by closing background apps you're not using.
If all else fails, you might need to contact Apple support for a fix.

It has many names, from the "Spinning Wheel of Death," to the "Spinning Pizza of Death," to the "Spinning Wait Cursor." But no matter what you call it, there's one thing we can all agree on: no one wants to see a spinning wheel while they're working on a Mac.

When the spinning wheel appears, it means there's an issue with your Mac or one of its applications. The spinning wheel will usually only last for a few seconds before your system works out the issue, but if it keeps appearing and won't go away, there's a deeper problem.

Here's how to stop the spinning wheel in its tracks, and help your Mac run smoothly again.

What is the Mac spinning wheel?

This rainbow-colored spinning wheel appears whenever an app on your Mac needs more time to perform a particular task and becomes unresponsive while doing it.

Each app on your Mac has what's known as a window server, a system process that helps an app communicate with your screen.

When an application enters a non-responsive state, which takes approximately 4 seconds after it comes across a task it can't complete right away, its window server will show you the rainbow spinning wheel.

How to stop the spinning wheel on your Mac

The best way to stop the spinning wheel is to just wait it out, but if it lingers or keeps reappearing, there are a couple of ways you can stop it.

Close all background apps

If the wheel appeared and quickly left, it means your Mac was just briefly overloaded. In these cases, you can usually keep working like normal. But if you're worried, close all the tabs, windows, and apps that you're running but not using.

Force quit the non-responsive application

If the wheel has been spinning for a while and doesn't show any signs of stopping, first determine if the problem is with a specific program, or with your Mac as a whole. Try to use other apps and, if they're working fine, Force Quit out of the app that's freezing.

1. Click the Apple icon in the top left corner of the screen.

2. Click Force Quit in the dropdown menu.

Quick tip: You can also press Command + Alt + Escape to open the Force Quit menu.

3. Select the program you want to Force Quit and click Force Quit.

Select the frozen app and click "Force Quit." Steven John/Insider

Quick tip: You can also Force Quit the non-responsive application by right-clicking it and selecting Force Quit.

Force shutdown your Mac

If your entire Mac is frozen up, you can force it to shut down.

You can force a shut down by holding down the power button for about 10 seconds, or by simultaneously pressing Control + Option + Command + Power, or Control + Option + Command + Eject.

Depending on whether your keyboard has a power key or eject key, this command will change. Steven John/Insider

Note: If you Force Quit or shut down your Mac, you'll lose any work you haven't saved.

Contact Apple support

If your Mac keeps freezing up and showing you the spinning wheel, even after a restart, there might be something deeper going on that you won't be able to fix yourself. Consider contacting Apple customer support.

Steven John

Freelance Writer

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o8HSoqWeq6Oeu7S1w56pZ5ufonyowcidnKxnpJqwqXvHqK5mrJ9iwLW7z2aqqaGeo7avs4ywn56dnGK8r3nMmpo%3D

Tamela Phillippe

Update: 2024-06-18

RiffDash