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