Your Mac stuck on white screen and you desperately grab your phone to google solutions? As it mostly happens abruptly, you need to find the fast way to bring your Mac back to life. So, let’s get down to work right away!
Why my Mac stuck on white screen?
Macs are reliable computers, but on the rare occasions they may encounter trouble and won’t load. When this happens, you see a blank white screen, your Mac becomes pretty much unusable, and you keep asking yourself, “Why won’t my MacBook turn on?”
Usually, this happens after updating your operating system to a new version, when dealing with incompatible drivers, or if some applications fail to upgrade. This results in a blank screen on Mac until some steps are taken to bring your computer back to its normal state.
How to fix the MacBook white screen
Before you do anything to solve the Mac frozen screen, try an easy fix: check your peripherals. Try to disconnect all of them (printers, scanners, USB devices, etc.) with the exception of the keyboard and mouse. Then reboot your Mac. If it boots up now, one of those peripherals is the source of the plain white screen problem. However, if it fails and your MacBook won’t load, check out other possible ways to wake up your Mac.
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1. Boot into safe mode
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A safe boot feature in macOS and Mac OS X was designed for troubleshooting purposes. It allows to check the disk for all possible file system errors and if needed, a repair would be run. Starting your Mac in safe mode is the first thing you should do when your Mac won’t turn on.
To start up in safe mode:
- Press the power button, then immediately press and hold the Shift key.
- When you see the Apple logo, release the Shift key.
Once you boot using safe mode, the very first thing is deleting cache files. A cache is a place where data is stored temporarily to help things load faster. But eventually, files in a cache become outdated and start to pile up on your Mac, resulting in a white screen problem. Here’s a comprehensive guide “How to clear cache on a Mac.”
After you’ve deleted the cache files, you should also remove recently installed applications. But note that dragging them to the Trash is not the right way to remove apps as it leaves behind tons of associated files on your Mac. But don’t worry, there is a utility that will help you — CleanMyMac X. Its Uninstaller module is designed to uninstall apps completely, with no leftover parts and pieces behind.
Simply download the app (it’s free to try), launch it, choose Uninstaller and select the app you want to delete. Click Uninstall and the application will be removed completely. As simple as that!
As you’ve removed all the clutter, restart as normal without pressing any keys during startup. Probably you won’t see that MacBook white screen anymore.
2. Reset PRAM/NVRAM
PRAM/NVRAM is a small amount of memory that your Mac uses to store certain settings and access them quickly. These settings include sound volume, time zone, startup disk selection, and more. If you experience some issues related to these settings, resetting PRAM might fix your MacBook stuck on white screen.
Here’s how to reset PRAM/NVRAM:
- Shut down your Mac.
- Immediately press these four keys together: Command+Option+P+R.
- Hold down the keys until you hear the startup sound.
- Release the keys.
When your Mac finishes starting up, you should go to System Preferences and adjust some settings that were reset, such as time zone, display resolution, etc.
3. Use Disk Utility to verify or repair disks
Disk Utility can fix several disk problems, including the white screen on Mac. That’s why use it to your advantage if the above steps didn’t work.
- Restart your Mac holding the Command and R keys.
- Release the keys when you see the Apple logo.
- Click Disk Utility and then click Continue.
- Choose the disk you want to repair.
- Click the First Aid button.
If Disk Utility says the disk is about to fail, there’s nothing you can do — you have to replace it. If it reports that the disk has been repaired, you’re done. You can click Show Details to get more information about the repairs.
4. Reinstall macOS
If all the approaches are failing and you still see that white screen on your Mac, you may need to reinstall your operating system. Don’t worry, it won’t affect your files, apps, user setting, etc. Only a fresh version of the macOS will be installed on your Mac again. Here’s how to do that for macOS Sierra, macOS High Sierra, macOS Mojave and macOS Catalina.
Note that sometimes the standard reinstall methods won’t work due to the issues with the drive. In this case, you’ll need to use the internet recovery to reinstall the operating system.
Follow these steps to reinstall macOS from the internet:
- Turn on or restart your Mac.
- Hold down the Command+Option+R keys until you see the Apple logo or a spinning globe.
- When startup is complete, you’ll see the Utilities window.
- Choose Reinstall macOS and click Continue.
Follow the onscreen instruction to complete the process.
Once you’ve brought your Mac to life, make sure to do some maintenance to prevent such unpleasant issues in future. A utility we’ve mentioned above — CleanMyMac X — will help you keep your Mac in shape for years. Apart from cleaning your Mac from all the junk, it gives you access to all maintenance scripts that allow to quickly optimize the system performance and never worry about the health of your Mac.
With the solutions above, you’ll fix the white screen problem on Mac, so that it can function as a new one. Cheers!
These might also interest you:
You wanted to use your Mac, but instead, your Mac won’t startup? Does your Mac computer stuck on a white/gray screen (after a start-up chime)? Does your computer get stuck at the Apple logo? Sometimes an error or issue with your macOS operating system may cause your computer to stop functioning properly and display a white screen. There can be several reasons why a computer won’t boot and display a white screen. However, there are several tips you can try to fix it. This article explains how to fix this white screen issue so your Mac can work as normal.
This problem may affect various Mac devices: MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, MacBook, Mac Pro.
If your Mac keeps freezing, see this article.
Before doing anything, you may want to make sure that you have a copy of your information to use if your Mac becomes unusable. So you may want to try backing up now before doing anything. Backing up may be possible even if your Mac does not boot. If you have already backups, then you may skip this step. You may be able to use OS X Recovery to backup your Mac.
See also if you are not able to update your Mac.
How To Fix Mac White Screen Problem
Please check to see (by rebooting your Mac) if your issue is resolved after performing each step.
Disconnect everything
1-Shut down your Mac by holding down the power button. Disconnect all peripherals (printers, scanners, USB devices etc) that are plugged in to your Mac, except the mouse and keyboard. After disconnecting everything, try restarting your computer. If you Mac starts without any issue, this means that one of your accessories is causing this. Try to figure out the problematic peripheral(s) by reconnecting your accessories one at a time until your problem is fixed.
Safe Mode
2-If restarting your Mac with your peripherals disconnected does not work, try this step. Try Safe Mode (or safe boot) if you Mac does not turn on. Safe Mode is a diagnostic mode designed to fix macOS problems. Thus Safe Mode can be a useful troubleshooting method. Here is how you can start your computer in safe mode:
- Shut down your Mac and wait at least 10 seconds.
- Restart your Mac. And immediately, press and hold the Shift key as your computer restarts. You need to press the Shift key immediately after the startup sound/chime before the Apple logo appears.
- Release the key when you see the gray Apple logo or the login screen. Then log in, please note that you may have to log in a few times.
- Be patient because safe mode is slower. if you Mac starts up, restart your Mac normally without pressing any buttons. Do not press the Shift key when restarting.
Repair Disk
3-Try repairing your startup disk by opening Disk Utility from macOS Recovery. We are doing this because it is possible that the disk may be corrupted. Please follow these steps:
- Turn off your Mac.
- Restart your Mac and hold option+R keys immediately after the Apple startup chime. Keep holding the buttons until you see the Apple logo.
- When your computer starts up, you will see the “macOS Utilities” window.
- Select Disk Utility and click Continue.
- Select your startup disk (by default, it’s called Macintosh HD, unless you renamed it).
- Click The First Aid icon and then click the Run button. Disk Utility will now try to find and repair any problems.
- When you are done, then reboot your Mac.
Slow startup? see this article.
Reset PRAM or NVRAM
4-You may want to reset “non-volatile random-access memory” or NVRAM (this is also called PRAM). Follow these steps:
- Turn off your Mac.
- Wait at least 10 seconds.
- Turn on your Mac.
- Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys together immediately after the startup sound.
- Your computer will restart (keep holding the keys)
- Release the keys when you hear the second startup sound. This process will reset NVRAM.
Reser SMC
5-Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) may fix your problem. Here is how:
Follow these steps if you have a modern Mac notebook (like MacBook Air, MacBook Pro) without a removable battery:
- Turn off your computer.
- Connect the power adapter.
- Press the Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
- Then release all the keys at the same time.
- Reboot your computer.
Follow these steps if you have an older Mac notebook with removable battery:
- Turn off your computer.
- Disconnect the power cord.
- Remove the battery.
- Hold the Power Key for five (5) seconds, then release the power button.
- Reconnect your battery and power cord.
- Turn on your Mac.
Follow these steps if you have an Intel-based Mac Pro, iMac, and Mac min
- Turn off your computer.
- Disconnect the power cord, wait fifteen (15) seconds, and connect the power cord.
- Wait five (5) seconds and turn on your computer.
White Macbook Pro
Reinstall macOS
6–Reinstalling macOS may fix this and you may use macOS Recovery to do this. Here is how:
- Shut down your Mac. You will need to restart your Mac from macOS Recovery. There are a few options you may choose. Here are the startup options:
- Restart your Mac and immediately, press and hold the Command-R keys until you see a spinning globe: This option will reinstall the latest macOS that was on your Mac. We recommend this option. This will reinstall the macOS version that is stored on your Mac.
- Restart your Mac and immediately, press and hold the Option-Command-R keys until a spinning globe appears: This will upgrade to the latest macOS.
- Restart your Mac and immediately, press and hold the Shift-Option-Command-R keys until you see a spinning globe: This will reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac when it was bought.
- Select Reinstall macOS, then click Continue and then follow the onscreen instructions
See also:
White Macbook Charger
If nothing above helped you, you may have a hardware problem. Contact Apple.