{"id":29958,"date":"2005-10-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-10-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/?p=29958"},"modified":"2022-08-10T13:56:11","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T13:56:11","slug":"mouse-cursor-turned-spinning-color-wheel-go-away","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/articles\/mouse-cursor-turned-spinning-color-wheel-go-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Has My Mouse Cursor Turned Into a Spinning Color Wheel?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/media\/2005\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-28-at-2.33.39-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1727674 size-thumbnail\" title=\"Apple Spinning Color Wheel\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/media\/2005\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-28-at-2.33.39-PM-150x150.png\" alt=\"Apple Spinning Color Wheel\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>When your arrow turns into a colorful spinning &#8220;beach ball&#8221; or &#8220;color wheel&#8221;, your Mac is hard at work. In general, this is normal behavior. Your Mac may be rendering, calculating something, or even spinning up the hard drive after being awakened from sleep. Depending on what your Mac is working on and how many applications you currently have open, you\u00a0may occasionally see your\u00a0cursor turn into a&#8221;beach ball&#8221; or &#8220;color wheel&#8221; for a few second\u00a0 and then\u00a0return to normal after a few seconds but it can occasionally it can get stuck.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/media\/2005\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-26-at-2.33.13-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1727675 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/media\/2005\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-26-at-2.33.13-PM-300x274.png\" alt=\"Apple Force Quit Window\" width=\"300\" height=\"274\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/media\/2005\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-26-at-2.33.13-PM-300x274.png 300w, https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/media\/2005\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-26-at-2.33.13-PM.png 333w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If the spinning color wheel won&#8217;t go away for several minutes, you can make it stop by doing a <strong>Force Quit <\/strong>for any applications that are not responding.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Force Quit<\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Force Quit<\/strong> the application (or Finder window) that you&#8217;re stuck in by simultaneously pressing the <strong>Command<\/strong>, <strong>Option<\/strong>, and <strong>Escape<\/strong> (Esc) keys. Please note that you will lose any unsaved changes in the affected application.<\/li>\n<li>In the resulting <strong>Force Quit<\/strong> window, select the affected application and click <strong>Force Quit<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Restart your Mac<\/h2>\n<p>It might sound clich\u00e9 but it works. Sometimes an application or a process will get stuck and the best way to resolve it is a good &#8216;ol fashioned restart.\u00a0If the beach ball persists after a restart, you may need to make some space on your hard drive or\u00a0 repair hard disk with <strong>Disk Utility<\/strong>.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Repair the Disk<\/h2>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">Mac OS 10.7 \u2013 Current<\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/media\/2005\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-28-at-2.47.31-PM1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1727677 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/media\/2005\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-28-at-2.47.31-PM1-300x204.png\" alt=\"OS X Utilities window with arrows pointing at Disk Utility and the Continue button\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/media\/2005\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-28-at-2.47.31-PM1-300x204.png 300w, https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/media\/2005\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-28-at-2.47.31-PM1.png 585w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Hold down <strong>Command (\u2318)-R<\/strong> immediately after turning on or restarting your Mac until you see the screen to the right.<\/li>\n<li>Select <strong>Disk Utility<\/strong> and click continue.<\/li>\n<li>Select your computer&#8217;s hard disk volume from the left pane, then click the <strong>First Aid<\/strong> tab.<\/li>\n<li>Click <strong>Repair Disk<\/strong>. When the repair is finished, restart your Mac from the Apple menu.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">Mac OS 10.6 and earlier:<\/h4>\n<ol>\n<li>Insert the Software Install disc that came with your computer.<\/li>\n<li>When you see its icon appear on the Desktop, restart your computer (from the Apple menu, choose Restart), then press and hold down the C key on your keyboard to start up your computer from the disc.<\/li>\n<li>Continue holding the C key until your Mac finishes starting up. When you see the Installer screen, choose <strong>Open Disk Utility<\/strong> from the Installer menu.<\/li>\n<li>Select your computer&#8217;s hard disk volume from the left pane, then click the <strong>First Aid<\/strong> tab.<\/li>\n<li>Click <strong>Repair Disk<\/strong>. When the repair is finished, restart your Mac from the Apple menu.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Helpful Links<\/h3>\n<h6><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/articles\/how-to-zip-and-unzip-files\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How to Zip and Unzip Files<\/a><\/h6>\n<h6><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/articles\/how-to-take-a-screenshot-on-a-mac\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How to Take a Screenshot on a Mac<\/a><\/h6>\n<h6><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/articles\/mac-optimization-guide-macos-10-13-high-sierra\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mac Optimization Guide for macOS 10.13 High Sierra<\/a><\/h6>\n<h6><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/articles\/when-i-attempt-to-install-software-on-my-mac-i-get-a-warning-that-it-is-from-an-unidentified-developer-what-should-i-do\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">When I attempt to install software on my Mac, I get a warning that it is from an unidentified developer. What should I do?<\/a><\/h6>\n<h6><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/articles\/my-mac-wont-recognize-my-thunderbolt-device\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">My Mac won\u2019t recognize my Thunderbolt device.<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","categories":[],"tags":[115941,101642,101641,95929,34951,34259,34888,34886,87928,101640,34809],"storecat":[],"itemids":[41133,92224,117252,92239,85219],"manufacturers":[33184],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v17.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This article will show you how to Force Quit unresponsive applications to resolve the irritating spinning color wheel or beach ball on your Mac.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sweetwater.com\/sweetcare\/articles\/mouse-cursor-turned-spinning-color-wheel-go-away\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Has My Mouse Cursor Turned Into a Spinning Color Wheel? 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