Mac Troubleshooting

Since I got my first Mac in May 2023, I've been taking notes of every solution that's helped me fix issues.

Usually, it's just the matter of killing a process.
They kick back in by themselves, as needed.
No need to restart the whole system most of the time.

If you prefer, instead of running "killall" commands in Terminal,
you can find and select the process in Activity Monitor, and hit the Stop button.

• ⎋ = Escape key
• ⌃-click = right click or a two-finger click on your Trackpad

Table of Contents#

• App Isn't Responding
• App Store not showing updates
• Apple Music: Clean Cache
• Everything’s Frozen
• External drive won't show up in Disk Utility
• Find processes that are using an external drive
• Finder
  • iCloud Drive Sync Stuck
  • iPhone Sync Stuck
  • File Verification Stuck
  • Finder Won’t Find Multiple Keywords
  • Finder Won’t Remember Window Position and Size
  • Force App to Open Any File
• Fix Audio
• Fix Encoding of Accented Letters in Filenames
• Notes: Edited Links not Matching Their Titles
• Reset Dock to Default Size
• Restart macOS UI Elements
  • Restart Dock
  • Restart Menu Bar Icons
  • Restart Quick Look
  • Restart Spotlight
  • Stuck Alarm/Timer Sound
  • Other UI Elements
• Safari: iCloud Tabs Won’t Sync or Close
• Spotlight: List Excluded Folders
• Spotlight: Reindex
  • Option 1
  • Option 2
  • Option 3

App Isn't Responding#

• ⌥⌘⎋: Force Quit
• Select the app
• Click Force Quit

More details: How to force an app to quit on Mac - Apple Support

App Store not showing updates#

• Press ⌘R to reload

Apple Music: Clean Cache#

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iTunes/CommerceRequestCache/*

Everything’s Frozen#

• ⌥⌘⎋: Force Quit
• Run over SSH from another device:
• Sort processes by CPU usage:

  top -u
  

• Kill the most power-hungry process.
• If that doesn't help:

  killall WindowManager
  

• Alternatively:

  sudo killall -HUP WindowServer
  

• Press and hold the Power Button
• Press and hold ⌃⌘–Power Button

External drive won't show up in Disk Utility#

HDD, SSD, USB thumb drive

When the "Allow accessory to connect?" prompt flashes briefly,
not allowing you to press anything:

• Open Privacy & Security
  • Scroll down to Security
  • Click Accessories
  • Select "Automatically allow when unlocked"

⚠️ Warning:

• Make sure to revert this setting to its original value afterwards.
• Only allow devices you trust, such as your own drives.

Find processes that are using an external drive#

To find out which app or process is preventing you from ejecting a drive:

sudo lsof | grep /Volumes/HDD

Your drive is likely gonna have a path than mine, /Volumes/HDD.
To find out its path:

• Open Finder
• ⌃-click the drive in the sidebar
• Click Get Info

Finder#

iCloud Drive Sync Stuck#

sudo killall bird

iPhone Sync Stuck#

killall AMPDevicesAgent && killall MDCrashReportTool

File Verification Stuck#

killall CoreServicesUIAgent

Finder Won’t Find Multiple Keywords#

• Wrap with quotes

Finder Won’t Remember Window Position and Size#

• Position and resize the window
• ⌥⌘⎋: Force Quit
• Select Finder
• Click Relaunch

Force App to Open Any File#

• Hold ⌥⌘ while dragging the file

Fix Audio#

sudo killall coreaudiod

Fix Encoding of Accented Letters in Filenames#

Unicode, convert NFD to NFC

• Requires Homebrew
  • Follow their installation instructions
  • Don't overlook post-install instructions printed in Terminal.

    brew install convmv
    

  • convmv is also available on MacPorts if that's your thing.

To fix filenames of every file in the current directory, run:

convmv -r -f utf8 -t utf8 --nfc --notest .

Notes: Edited Links not Matching Their Titles#

• Font → Remove Style
• Select all
• ⌃-click, Substitutions, Add Links (not available in the Menu Bar)

Reset Dock to Default Size#

defaults write com.apple.dock "tilesize" -int "64" && killall Dock

Restart macOS UI Elements#

Restart Dock#

launchctl stop com.apple.Dock.agent && launchctl start com.apple.Dock.agent

Stuck Shortcuts Icon

killall ControlCenter

Restart Quick Look#

qlmanage -r

Restart Spotlight#

sudo killall -KILL Spotlight spotlightd mds

• ⌥⌘⎋: Force Quit
• Select Finder
• Click Relaunch

Stuck Alarm/Timer Sound#

Clock app, countdown, ringtone.

killall NotificationCenter

Other UI Elements#

killall -KILL SystemUIServer

• ⌥⌘⎋: Force Quit
• Select Finder
• Click Relaunch

Safari: iCloud Tabs Won’t Sync or Close#

Stuck ghost/zombie/phantom tabs from other devices.

• Quit Safari

rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Safari/CloudTabs.db*

Spotlight: List Excluded Folders#

The list under Spotlight Settings / Search Privacy only shows folder names.
That can be confusing with many arbitrary short names in a row.

To see full paths, you'd have to hover the mouse over each of them.
Cumbersome.

Instead, you can get a list of full paths with the following command:

sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print :Exclusions" /System/Volumes/Data/.Spotlight-V100/VolumeConfiguration.plist

Spotlight: Reindex#

Rebuild Indexes, indexing, mdfind

If certain files or items won't show up in Spotlight or Finder search results, simply restart your Mac.

No matter how many processes you kill or how hard you try,
Spotlight's just gonna sit there, refusing to reindex.

Option 1#

• Restart

Option 2#

• Open Spotlight Settings
• Scroll to the bottom
• Click Search Privacy…
• Add the location
• Remove the location
• Restart

Option 3#

sudo mdutil -a -i off
sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight*
sudo mdutil -a -i on
sudo mdutil -E /

• Restart
• To check progress:
• ⌘⎵: Open Spotlight
• Type "." or any random term into it.
• If it's reindexing, you should see a little progress bar right under the search field.

Published: 3 Dec 2025
Last updated: 21 Apr 2026
View history on GitHub