Mac Spinning Wheel Microsoft Word

Users can stop the spinning wheel of their Mac. I will share a method to bypass this spinning wheel and fix MacBook freeze. Sometimes our Mac gets freeze whe. Hi there,The spinning wait cursor, or pinwheel as you stated, is an indication that the program isn't responding to system commands or events. This usually means the program has frozen and is likely not to return. You will need to force it to quit. Easiest way to do this is to hold down the control key and click the Word icon in the dock.

You can force quit applications on a Mac to avoid freezing and the dreaded rainbow wheel.
  • The force quit feature on Mac is an easy way to shut down troublesome applications in just a few steps.
  • Applications on your Mac will occasionally stop responding and lock up if your computer is overburdened.
  • There are a few quick steps to force quit an application without waiting for the rainbow wheel to stop or for your screen to unfreeze.

Microsoft Word Mac Spinning Wheel Save Document

Mac users will tell you there are few things more frustrating than the spinning rainbow wheel - also known as the wait cursor, which signifies your computer is struggling to handle its current tasks.

When an application isn't responding how it normally would, you could wait until your screen unfreezes. Sometimes, though, you don't know how long that will take. The simplest thing to do when faced with the spinning wheel is to force quit the frozen application.

Force quit is a feature that effectively shuts down the unresponsive application. However, when using the force quit feature it is important to know that if your work isn't saved, you may lose it when force quitting a frozen application like Microsoft Word or any web browser.

How to force quit on Mac from the Apple menu

  1. First, identify the app that is unresponsive. If you have multiple apps open, the simplest way to indicate the unresponsive app is to look at the cursor. If the cursor looks normal, the app is still responsive. If the cursor resembles the rainbow spinning wheel, the app is unresponsive.
  2. Once you've identified the unresponsive app, locate the taskbar at the top of your screen. In the far left, select the Apple logo to access the dropdown menu.
  3. In the dropdown menu, select 'Force Quit...'

    Click on 'Force Quit....'

  4. A new window will pop up with all the applications you have open on your Mac. Select the application you wish to force quit. If you want to force quit more than one application, use the Command to select multiple.

    Force quit the application that is unresponsive.

  5. Next, select Force Quit. A pop-up will remind you that any unsaved changes won't be saved.

    Select 'Force Quit.'

How to force quit on Mac with a keyboard shortcut

If you have trouble accessing the Apple icon in the taskbar, use the keyboard shortcut Option + Command + Esc and then follow the steps above.

How to force quit on Mac using Activity Monitor

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A Mac's Activity Monitor is an easy way to locate troublesome applications, see how much energy or CPU power they are using, and force them to quit.

  1. First, launch Activity Monitor. You can do this by using the Spotlight feature (Command + Space) or by going to Finder > Applications > Activity Monitor.
  2. Once Activity Monitor is open, find and select the app you want to force quit.
  3. After you've selected the app, select the stop icon (resembling an octagon with an 'X' in the middle).

    Click on the 'X' icon.

  4. A pop-up window will ask if you are sure you want to quit this process. Select 'Force Quit' from the list of options. The app will then close.

    Click on 'Force Quit.'

What to do if force quit isn't working on a Mac

The force quit feature is the simplest way to shut down faulty applications, but sometimes you can't even do that. If force quit isn't an option and your screen is completely frozen, restart your Mac.

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Few things give Mac users that sinking feeling more than the sight of a spinning color wheel, rainbow wheel, spinning beach ball of death or SBBOD as it's also commonly known. It’s official name is the Spinning Wait Cursor, and it’s a system indicator. signifies that macOS cannot handle all the tasks given to it at this moment.

Why does it happen? It's a sign that an application is trying to deal with more processes than it can handle at any given time. Sometimes it will last only a few seconds and disappear, when processing cycles are freed up and the application is able to process all the tasks it needs to. Other times, the application will become persistently unresponsive and 'hang'. When that happens, the only solution is to force quit the app.

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Quick ways to stop spinning wheel

To fix an application stuck with a spinning cursor:

  1. If and get rid of a spinning ballyou know which app is hanging, press Cmd-alt-escape and you'll see the Force Quit dialog box. The problematic app will be shown as 'not responding.'
  2. Select the app and press Force Quit. The app should now quit and the rainbow wheel will disappear.
  3. If the app refuses to force quit, or force quitting doesn't fix the problem, the next step is to restart your Mac.

How to stop the rainbow wheel issue

Getting rid of a spinning beachball is only part of the solution. As we said above, it's a symptom, not a cause of problems. Fortunately, there are a number of things you can do to prevent it. The first is to identify which applications are putting the greatest strain on your Mac.

iStatMenus, available in Setapp, is a powerful performance monitoring tools for your Mac. It sits in your Mac's Finder menu bar and allows you to easily check which apps are hogging processor cycles or RAM. And helps you see how well or badly your Mac is running. If you need more detailed information, or need to quit specific processes (rather than applications), you can launch Activity Monitor from within iStatMenus.

The combination of iStatMenus and Activity Monitor will lead you to the apps that are overloading your Mac. The next step is to uninstall them completely and reinstall them, making sure you remove all the temporary and preference files associated with it.

The easiest way to do that is to use CleanMyMac, also available in Setapp. Here's what you should do.

Uninstall apps and extensions

  1. Launch Setapp and search for CleanMyMac. Click install and wait for it to install and launch.
  2. Look in the sidebar for the Application section and click Uninstaller. The window on the right will fill up with all the apps you have installed on your Mac. Find the one you want to uninstall and click on the checkbox next to it. Click Uninstall at the bottom of the main window.

It's a good idea to remove any apps you don't use. You'll free up disk space and could prevent conflicts with other apps.

Re-index Spotlight

Spotlight is an incredibly useful tool for searching for files on your Mac, among many other things. In order to search your Mac, Spotlight needs to build and maintain an index. Occasionally that index can become corrupt and when that happens, the dreaded spinning color wheel is likely to appear. Here's how to fix it.

  1. In CleanMyMac, click on the Maintenance in the left sidebar.
  2. Click the checkbox next to Reindex Spotlight.
  3. Click Run.
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Free up disk space

macOS uses your startup disk to host virtual RAM and then regularly reads and writes files to it. If you don't have enough free space (at least 10% of the disk's total capacity), your Mac will struggle noticeably and you'll see the spinning beachball more often.

To free up disk space, you can either manually trawl through your startup disk backing up important files and then deleting them, or use Get Backup Pro or ChronoSync Express to back up the disk and then use CleanMyMac to free up disk space. It's a good idea to use Disk Drill to analyse the disk and identify which files are taking up the most space. Disk Drill and ChronoSync Express are available in Setapp.

  1. In CleanMyMac, click on Smart Scan and then click Scan.
  2. Wait for it to finish, then click on each section in turn and click Review Details.

The results can be enlightening. For example, we found that cache files for the Photos app were taking up 8GB space on our Mac. Uncheck and items you don't want to remove and then click Clean. Repeat for the other categories.

For more information on how to free up space on your Mac, we prepare these quick tips.

Install more RAM

If none of the above, there is one final thing you can try. As we mentioned above, the spinning beachball can appear when your Mac is using virtual memory and storage space is limited. The more physical RAM you have, the less your Mac will need to resort to virtual memory.

Mac Spinning Wheel Microsoft Word


So, installing more RAM will mean you see the spinning color wheel less often. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it used to be to add more RAM to your Mac. You'll probably need to visit an Apple Store or an authorized service center and ask them to install it for you.

To prevent that from happening in the future, it's worth installing as much RAM as your Mac can take, or as much as you can afford when you first buy it. Money spent on RAM is never wasted and usually means your Mac will perform better for longer before you eventually need to replace it.

The good news is that replacing RAM is very much a last resort and that the other steps described above will, in many cases, solve the problem completely.

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