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The spinning beach ball is macOS’s wait cursor. It means an app is temporarily not responding normally or is waiting; it does not identify the cause. If it persists, try closing and reopening the app, then use Force Quit if needed, keeping in mind that unsaved work may be lost.
What the spinning beach ball means
The spinning beach ball—sometimes called the spinning wait cursor—appears when macOS indicates that an app is not responding normally at that moment. The cursor is a symptom of delay or unresponsiveness, not a diagnosis of a particular fault. The cause could involve the app, a file, a peripheral, software compatibility, or a broader hardware issue; the cursor alone cannot distinguish among them.
Apple describes the related state as an app or process being “not responding.” In Activity Monitor, unresponsive processes are marked “(Not Responding).” Apple’s Activity Monitor instructions explain how to inspect and quit a process.
What to do when it appears
Close and reopen the app
Start with the app that shows the cursor: try closing it and opening it again. If the app remains frozen, you may need to force it to quit. Unsaved changes can be lost when an app is force-quit.
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Force Quit the app if it will not close
- Open the Apple menu and choose Force Quit.
- Select the unresponsive app.
- Choose Force Quit and confirm if prompted.
Use this when the app is not recovering and ordinary closing does not work. Apple’s guidance on apps that freeze or quit unexpectedly warns that force-quitting can discard unsaved changes.
Inspect a process in Activity Monitor
For a closer look at what is unresponsive, open Activity Monitor and find the process marked “(Not Responding).” Select it and use the Stop button. Quit gives a process a chance to exit when safe; Force Quit ends it immediately. Force-quitting a process can lose data or affect apps and processes that depend on it. Apple notes that Activity Monitor can be used to quit a process even when it is in a loop or not responding. See Quit an app or process in Activity Monitor.
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If the beach ball keeps returning
Use two practical questions to narrow the situation: does it happen in one app or several, and was it a brief episode or a persistent, repeated problem? Those comparisons help guide troubleshooting, but they do not establish a cause by themselves.
- Restart the Mac and check for available software updates.
- Check that the app is compatible with the macOS version installed on your Mac.
- Try a different file if the problem occurs while working with one particular file.
- Consider whether the issue began after connecting a peripheral or installing a third-party plug-in.
- If the problem continues, consult Apple’s guidance for an app that stops responding, closes unexpectedly, or will not open; Apple also points to hardware diagnosis where relevant.
What Activity Monitor can—and cannot—tell you
Activity Monitor can show CPU, memory, energy, disk, and network activity. These views help you observe system activity, but a high or low reading on its own does not prove why a particular beach ball episode occurred. Treat the cursor and Activity Monitor as clues for troubleshooting, not as a definitive diagnosis.
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