Written by
Vain RoweSummary: If your MacBook Air/Pro/iMac is stuck on the loading screen, try these 10 proven fixes to restore a frozen Mac. It also guides you in saving your files in macOS Recovery mode to avoid data loss with the assistance of iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
An Apple logo and progress bar appear on the screen when the Mac takes a startup or installs macOS updates. Normally, a full startup takes about 30 seconds, and it is in macOS installation, the progress bar may last much longer than usual.
However, if you've waited long enough (for hours) yet the progress bar remains on the screen still, then possibly the Mac is stuck on the loading screen. This issue most often happens after a recent macOS update, like the macOS Sequoia update or macOS reinstallation. Relax, however, you can fix the Mac boot loop with approaches below.
The priority should be given to data recovery since if a MacBook is stuck on the Apple logo with a loading bar, all the precious files and data on it are inaccessible. So, download iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to rescue the files before getting your machine to boot as usual!
Why is your Mac computer stuck on the loading screen?
Normally, a Mac would show the Apple logo at startup once it finds the local startup disk. Then, you will see the progress bar with or without the Apple logo as the startup or macOS installation continues. But if the Mac is stuck on the Apple logo after restart or reinstallation, hanging a loading bar, the possible culprits may lie in:
- Corrupted operating system.
- Hard drive failure.
- Damaged hardware.
- Unsuccessful system upgrade.
- Malfunctioned peripherals.
- RAM module failure.
Priority done before fixing the Mac stuck on the loading screen
When your MacBook won't turn on at all, and your MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini, iMac, Mac Pro, etc., freezes on the boot screen. All your documents, photos, videos, audio, numbers, words, documents, PDFs, presentations, and more are in danger of loss.
Having backed up your Mac to an external storage is just like catching at a straw. Yet if you have chosen the internal hard drive as the backup destination, or you have no habit of backup, everything goes unexpectedly. Any professional approach may involve all your files. Hence, before the troubleshooting, getting all files at hand is a must!
Luckily, there is one last way you can rely on to fetch the data on your frozen machine -- that is, using iBoysoft Data Recovery Software to scan for files in macOS Recovery Mode.
Please watch this video to learn how to rescue data when the Mac is stuck on the loading screen with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
If you are not a fan of a video tutorial, please click the following post to recover data from an unbootable Mac that is stuck on the loading screen.
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How to fix a Mac stuck on a loading screen?
Loads of users have complained about experiencing the issue on macOS Sequoia stuck on the loading screen online. This issue not only happens to macOS Sequoia, but to tell the truth, it also annoys users of macOS Sonoma, Ventura, Monterey, Big Sur, Catalina, and so on. It is a general trouble, instead of happening on a certain Mac model or Mac operating system.
This post gathers 10 helpful solutions to save the Mac from the boot failure, which are also suitable foe the scenarios like Mac stuck on login screen or your iMac won't boot past Apple logo. Let's see them in detail.
Note that the case may goes like that one way fails to get your machine back to the normal working state, just move to the next one directly please.
Solution 1: Disconnect the peripherals & Restart your Mac
As we concluded before, malfunctioned peripherals will trigger the Mac stuck on loading screen problems. So, you'd better disconnect all peripherals and restart it for a successful boot.
- Disconnect all peripheral devices from your Mac gently.
- Press and hold the power button for a few seconds to force shut down the Mac.
- Wait for a few seconds and press the button to restart the Mac.
If the Mac freezes on the loading screen still, try the next approaches directly.
Solution 2: Boot your Mac into Safe Mode
Software conflict or incompatibility with your machine can be blamed sometimes for resulting in the unboot. In this case, you can boot Mac into Safe Mode to isolate all involved reasons or components for a clean boot.
On top of that, this impressive feature also performs a basic check of the startup disk and troublrshoots some of the slow startup issues of your Mac.
To boot your Intel-based Mac into Safe Mode:
- Force your Mac to shut down.
- Press and hold the Shift key while tapping the power button to start your computer.
- Release the Shift key until you see the Apple logo and loading screen. Then it gets into Safe Mode.
To boot your Apple Silicon devices into Safe Mode:
- Shut down your Mac and wait for a few seconds.
- Press and hold the power button until the startup disks and Options appear on the screen.
- Press and hold the Shift key, then click Continue in Safe Mode.
If your Mac boots the loading bar and enters Safe Mode successfully, you'll see "Safe Boot" on the right top of the screen. A successfully safe boot indicates it is the software conflict causing trouble.
Pin the third-party software you've installed and uninstall it completely from your machine to prevent any boot failure in the future. If your MacBook Safe Mode is not working in fixing the stuck loading screen issue, go deep to the following solutions.
Solution 3: Reset NVRAM/PRAM
PRAM or NVRAM is a non-volatile random access memory to store system settings on a Mac, including startup disk selection and recent kernel panic information. So, when the MacBook is stuck on the Apple logo with a loading bar, resetting NVRAM/PRAM might make everything normal.
To reset NVRAM/PRAM, you can simply restart your Mac and simultaneously press Command + Option+ P + R keys. If you have an M1 Mac, you don't need to reset NVRAM since it will automatically run a test and reset on startup if something goes wrong.
Solution 4: Reset the SMC
SMC (System Management Controller) is used to control several Mac core functions, including the sudden motion sensor and thermal management. Typically, when a MacBook is stuck on the Apple logo with a loading bar, SMC reset helps to resolve such unresponsive issues related to power and hardware.
To reset the SMC on a Mac computer stops loading halfway, follow the steps below. Note that there is no SMC on the M1 Mac.
Reset SMC on MacBook Air and MacBook Pro
- Force shut down the Mac that is frozen on the loading screen.
- Press Shift + Control + Option on your keyboard and press the power button at the same time.
- Hold these keys for 10 seconds and then release them.
- Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.
Reset SMC on Mac Mini, Mac Pro, and iMac
- Shut down your Mac and then unplug the power cord.
- Wait 15 seconds. Then, plug the power cord in.
- Wait several seconds and turn on your computer by pressing the power button.
Solution 5: Reselect the startup disk
Sometimes, the Mac stuck on the loading bar results from your last booting from an external hard drive or another internal hard drive (if you have two). In this scenario, you need to reselect the startup disk.
- Boot into macOS Recovery mode.
- 2. Select the Apple icon > Startup Disk.
- 3. Choose the startup disk you want to use.
- 4. Type your password to unlock the startup disk if it's encrypted.
By booting from another disk, the issue of the Mac stuck on the loading screen progress bar will disappear as expected.
Solution 6: Repair the startup disk
The boot disk that is corrupted may cause the Mac stuck on the progress bar. Fortunately, you can use First Aid, a built-in disk repair tool on your Mac, to fix the errors on the startup disk in macOS Recovery Mode.
- Firstly, boot your Mac into macOS Recovery mode.
- Choose Disk Utility.
- Select the startup disk and click First Aid in the Disk Utility window.
- Wait for it to check and repair the disk.
If First Aid successfully finds the errors and repairs them, you can restart your Mac computer quickly without a slow startup. Disk Utility helps your Mac boot up, and your Mac desktop or MacBook won't be frozen on the startup screen this time.
Solution 7: Boot Mac into Single User Mode
Single User Mode is another boot mode on Mac used to troubleshoot Mac problems and perform administrative tasks. You will access a Unix prompt, where you need to use commands such as fsck to perform basic repairs to the startup drive. It may work to fix the Mac stuck on the Apple logo when loading.
- Start or restart your Mac, and hold down the Command + S keys together.
- Keep holding down the Command + S keys until you see white text on a black background, indicating that the Mac Single User Mode is loading.
- Enter the admin password to gain access to the Mac computer if it asks for it.
Solution 8: Reinstall macOS
Perhaps, it is the error with the Mac operating system that causes the Mac stuck on the loading screen problem. The current macOS may be outdated or corrupted, then you can reinstall macOS in macOS Recovery mode.
Besides, you may encounter a Mac update stuck on the Apple logo, such as a Big Sur update stuck on the Apple logo on your device, you also need to reinstall Mac OS. However, if the Mac is stuck on the loading screen after updating macOS, then you can downgrade macOS to an earlier version.
Just boot in to macOS Recovery Mode > Utilites > Reinstall macOS > follow up with the onscreen wizard to complete the whole reinstalltion. Once the macOS is reinstalled, try to boot your machine normally to see if this way helps.
Solution 9: Restore Mac to a previous point
If you have backed up the Mac with Time Machine, you can use the backup drive to restore Mac from Time Machine to an earlier date when the stuck loading screen problem doesn't exist. Here's how:
- Boot your Mac into macOS Recovery mode.
- Choose Restore from Time Machine from the Utilities window and click Continue.
- Choose the Time Machine backup disk, then click Continue.
- Select a backup by date, then click Continue.
- Select the Mac hard disk to receive the backup content and click Restore.
- Restart your Mac.
Solution 10: Reformat the corrupted startup disk
If the startup disk can't be fixed by First Aid and is still unmounted in Disk Utility, it may be critically corrupted. In this case, you need to erase the disk and then reinstall Mac OS in macOS Recovery mode to fix the Mac stuck loading screen problem.
However, disk erasure will wipe all your files off the drive. So, if you have important files on this Mac, scroll up to the Priority section to rescue all of your files first.
After data recovery, you can proceed with reformatting the Mac hard drive.
- Restart your Mac into macOS Recovery mode.
- Select Disk Utility from the macOS Utilities menu and click Continue.
- Select the startup disk(often named Macintosh HD) from the left sidebar.
- After clicking Erase on the top, you need to name it Macintosh HD, and then give it a scheme and format.
- Click Erase to confirm this operation, and then wait for it to complete.
Go back to the macOS Utilities window and click Reinstall macOS. And then, follow the instructions to reinstall the Mac operating system.
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Conclusion
It's terrible if your Mac is stuck on the loading screen at startup. For the Mac computer that freezes on startup, you should first check if you have a backup of your data to avoid permanent data loss.
If not, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac will be a good helper to recover lost data when the Mac is stuck on the loading screen. Then, you can try out the solutions above one by one till your Mac boots up rather than hangs on slow startup.