To shut down your Mac, type the following command: sudo shutdown -h Replace with the specific time you want to shut down your Mac. If you want to do so immediately, type now. If you want it to shut down in an hour, type +60. Press enter and type your password when prompted. Your Mac will now shut down at the time you specified. Force Shutdown Mac You can shut down your Mac if you won’t use it for an extended period of time or even perform a forced shutdown, which forces all running programs to shut down immediately. You have three ways to shut down your Mac.

1. Sometimes you just need to reboot or shut down right away-and we mean right away, with no waiting. Thankfully, whether your Mac is frozen and non-responsive or you just want to shut down and go.
2. Force Shutdown Mac. If you are still unable to shut down your Mac normally, you may want to force the system to shut down your machine at any cost. There is actually a feature on your Mac that lets you do that, and the following should help you with it. Here's how to force shutdown MacBook Pro: Step 1.
3. The command you are after is shutdown.This informs all users that the machine is going to be shutdown and tells all apps to close files etc. The command takes a parameter -h, -r or -s to shut down, restart or sleep the Mac. The command has to be run as root so you.

Before we get our hands dirty, here’s a word of warning. If you’re wondering how to reboot a MacBook Pro, bear in mind it’s the last resort when all other methods to unfreeze your Mac had failed. Don’t try it too often as it may harm your system. No question, your Mac can handle rapid power losses and your hardware most likely won’t be hurt. What’s at risk though, is your data because each time you force reboot a Mac it affects the consistency of the file system. Now that you’ve been warned, let’s go.

Symptoms your frozen Mac needs a force restart

• Applications are not responding
• Pointer is not responsive
• Loud fan noise
• The screen goes black
• Mac unable to restart

Can you move the cursor? If yes, try this

Before you force restart a Mac, it’s always recommended to first try a software solution.

Go to the Apple menu
Choose Restart
Click Restart in the menu that appears

Two ways to force restart a Mac

The simplest method: hold down the Power button till your Mac shuts down. Press the button again to restart it.

If your Mac hangs for good and the pointer is inactive:
Hold down Control + Command while pressing the Power button.

This is an alternative key combination to force restart a Mac. By the way, if you are on an iMac, the Power button is found on the back of your Mac. Voila!

Is Shut Down any different from Restart?

The difference between Shut Down and Restart is quite self-explanatory. When you perform a restart, your Mac will turn on again loading its previously active apps. As for shut down, your Mac won’t start until you press the Power button again. Interestingly, all new Macs have an automatic reboot feature built-in. So even if you sit and do nothing, your frozen Mac would eventually reboot by itself, though it takes a bit of patience.

How to force shut down a frozen Mac

If you need to force shut down a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, all you need is again to press a Power button on your Mac’s keyboard.

Press and hold Power button for 2 seconds
Choose Restart, Sleep or Shut Down in the menu that appears

If you don’t want to reload the baggage of your previously opened apps, tick off “Reopen windows when logging back in”. We do recommend you to deselect this option when your Mac is slow in order to lighten the weight on your RAM.

If your Mac won’t shut down:

Press and hold Power button for about 6 seconds
Hold the button until the Mac shuts down.

Needless to say that when you force restart a Mac all your unsaved projects may be lost. It’s unfair, we know.

Why does my Mac keep freezing?

The obvious explanation is your Mac lacks memory. Or to put another way, there are too many active processes running on your Mac. First off, go to Activity Monitor to check your memory usage.

Go to Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor
Click the Memory tab

Now, look into how heavily your Memory is loaded. Quit apps that eat up too much memory for no reason. While this may work as a temporary solution, it doesn’t stop your Mac from freezing up again. You can either force reboot your Mac each time or opt for a radical solution. Below are a few more ideas you can try.

More ways to fix a frozen Mac

Restart your Mac in the Diagnostics mode

Force Shutdown Mac Terminal

Shut down your Mac and reboot while pressing D key. Within the menu that appears, launch the Apple Diagnostics tool. This will check your Mac’s drive for errors. From then, follow the prompts to finish the diagnostics.

Clean up your Mac

Remove old unused apps, system junk, and pervasive browser extensions. For this purpose, try running CleanMyMac application on your Mac.

It’s quite effective in removing all junk from your Mac and has a number of helpful utilities, like RAM free up or app uninstaller. Download it for free here .

Reinstall your macOS

Mac Force Shutdown Command

This is the most radical of all methods, that’s why it’s so effective.

Check out how to clean install macOS Sierra
Instructions for macOS High Sierra
How to clean install macOS Mojave

How to clean install macOS Catalina

Hope this guide has helped you. Before you force shut down this article, feel free to share it, using the social buttons below. Cheers!

How To Shut Off Macbook Pro

These might also interest you: