Tag Archives: Safe Mode

Tackle your Mac booting to a gray screen

FinderIconYosemiteXGiven the efficiency and convenience of sleep mode on Mac systems, it is often a rarity that we end up restarting our Macs. When we do, we expect it to boot to normal operation; however, sometimes a snafu may result in your Mac booting to a gray screen, and no further. Often such behavior happens because of a specific problem, such as a power outage, or the installation of a new software package, but regardless, if it happens there are essentially only a few things that you can do. Continue reading →

Fix OS X Yosemite always booting into Safe Mode

YosemiteInstallerIconXAfter upgrading to OS X Yosemite, you might encounter a problem where your Mac appears to always boot in Safe Mode, a maintenance boot environment where OS X only loads minimal and essential system services, in addition to running a few system checking routines. In general this mode is invoked purposefully by holding the Shift key down at boot; however, there are times when the system will automatically be triggered into Safe Mode. Continue reading →

Tackle OS X only booting in Safe Mode

FinderIconXSafe Mode in OS X is a limited boot environment where only essential system services are active. It is a great option to have when troubleshooting software problems on your system, and when you invoke it by holding the Shift key at startup, your Mac should show a gray progress bar and then an indication in the menu bar that you are in Safe mode. This mode should only be active when you specify it by holding the Shift key at bootup; however, Continue reading →

How to boot into Safe Mode in OS X

TerminalIconXWhen troubleshooting non-specific problems with your Mac, one of the first steps to take is to boot the system into Safe Mode, which loads the OS in a minimized “bare-bones” environment, avoiding third-party extensions, unnecessary extensions (even from Apple), and other add-ons that could be contributing to the problem.

In addition to a minimum environment, Safe Mode will run some basic cleaning routines and check the hard drive for errors, which can help iron out problems. Continue reading →