HOW TO USE SAFE MODE TO START UP AND FIND PROBLEMS
IF I REINSTALL MACOS,
WILL I LOSE ALL THE
WORK ON MY MAC?IS THERE ANYTHING
ELSE THAT I CAN DO
WHILE IN RECOVERY?WHEN SHOULD I START IN SAFE
MODE, AND WHAT DOES IT DO?
1
Start up in safe mode
To start your Mac in safe mode,
restart or turn it on and immediately
hold the Up Arrow key until the Apple
logo appears, then a login window. (Try a
wired keyboard if necessary.) Release the
Up Arrow key and log in to the Finder.
2
Check and restart
You can run Disk Utility from here,
or check your kexts in Terminal (see
above). Restart normally. If you still
get the problem, restart in safe mode
and go to your user account in System
Preferences > Users & Groups.3
Exclude Login Items
On the Login Items tab, make
a note of the items, then select each
and click — to remove it. Restart. If it’s
fixed, you can add back login items one
at a time by clicking + and selecting the
associated app, after updating it.Normally, no. This Recovery option
replaces macOS (the same version,
or, with Internet Recovery, the one
original to your Mac) without
affecting your files. If you want
to start afresh, or your startup
drive has problems, use Disk Utility
to erase it first (see bit.ly/apple-
remacosrec).IF YOUR MAC won‘t start or
persistently acts up, safe mode helps
narrow down the cause. It loads only
essential bit extensions (additions to
macOS), disables extra fonts in case
any are corrupt, deletes temporary
files, and prevents any items from
auto–loading.
After starting up in safe mode, you
can carry out a number of checks to
identify the issue: see “How to use
safe mode to start up and find
problems”, below. Read more about
safe mode at bit.ly/safemodemac.
If a process of elimination suggests
a kernel extension (kext) could be the
culprit, check for third–party kexts: run
Terminal (via Cmd+Space Bar) and
type: kextstat | grep -v com.apple.
Wading through the code, most kexts
show the name of their app (kexts
called “tun” or “tap” will be for a VPN
product). Google any that remain
mysterious. Use the uninstaller
provided with that app to remove it,
along with its kexts.Unlike safe mode,
Recovery doesn’t get
you into the Finder,
but it does have a menu
bar with three options. Firmware
Password Utility lets you create a
startup password for extra security,
or disable it (see bit.ly/apple-
firmpass). The Network Utility and
Terminal apps work as normal.Image rights from: Apple.
Genius Handbook
maclife.com MAR 2020 23