How often should you restart your Mac?

For most people, restarting a Mac about once a week is plenty. Modern Macs are built to sleep overnight rather than shut down, and macOS is good at managing memory on its own, so you don't need a daily restart. A weekly one still helps: it clears out apps and background processes that have slowly gone wrong, and it gives waiting updates a chance to install.

Restart sooner when the Mac tells you something is off: the spinning wait cursor keeps appearing, an app refuses to quit, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi start misbehaving, or an update is waiting for a restart. This post explains why the weekly habit helps, the signs it's time, and when to restart, shut down or simply close the lid.

Why modern Macs rarely need it

A decade or two ago, restarting a computer often was common advice. Memory filled up, things slowed down, and a fresh start was the only cure. Macs today handle much of that themselves.

• Memory is managed for you. macOS compresses memory that apps aren't using and moves some of it to the startup disk when it runs short, so the Mac can carry on for a long time between restarts.
• Sleep is the normal state. A MacBook with its lid closed, or a desktop Mac left to sleep, uses very little power and wakes in a moment. That is how Apple expects you to use it day to day.
• Most updates don't need one. App updates install without a restart. Updates to macOS itself usually do, but they don't arrive every day.

So a Mac that has been on for a few days is nothing to worry about. If you are curious, you can check how long your Mac has been on with one Terminal command.

Why a weekly restart still helps

Even a well-behaved Mac collects small problems the longer it runs.

• Apps that leak memory. Some apps slowly hold on to more memory than they need, especially web browsers with many tabs open for days. Quitting helps, and a restart clears everything at once.
• Stuck background processes. macOS runs a lot of quiet services: syncing, indexing, connecting to devices. Now and then one gets stuck, uses too much processor time or stops responding. A restart starts them all again from scratch.
• Updates that are waiting. Many updates to macOS, and some to apps, only finish installing during a restart. Leaving the Mac on for weeks can mean leaving security fixes sitting there. See whether to install macOS updates right away for when to take the big ones.
• Hardware connections. Bluetooth headphones that won't pair, an external display that stays black, a USB drive that won't show up: a restart fixes a surprising number of these.

Once a week is a rhythm that catches these before they become annoying, without restarting so often that it gets in the way of work.

Signs it's time to restart now

You don't have to wait for the end of the week. Restart today if you notice:

• the spinning wait cursor showing up often, in more than one app;
• apps taking much longer than usual to open or switch;
• an app that won't quit, even with Force Quit (Option Command Esc);
• fans running loudly when nothing demanding is open, on Macs that have fans;
• Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or AirDrop acting up when nothing else has changed;
• menu bar items or Finder windows that stop responding;
• a message in System Settings > General > Software Update that an update is ready and needs a restart.

To see whether memory is the problem, open Activity Monitor and click the Memory tab. At the bottom is a Memory Pressure graph. Green is fine. If it sits in yellow or red for a long time, the Mac is short of memory, and quitting apps or restarting will help.

Restart, shut down or sleep

The three do different jobs.

For clearing out problems, restart and shut down do the same job. Restart is just quicker, because you don't have to press the power button afterward. Shut down is the better choice when you want the Mac to use no power at all, for example a MacBook that will sit in a bag or a drawer for a while.

How to restart without losing anything

1. Save your work in every open app. Most Mac apps save as you go, but not all.
2. Choose Apple menu > Restart.
3. Decide whether to tick Reopen windows when logging back in. Leave it on if you want your apps back where they were. Turn it off if an app has been misbehaving, so it starts clean.
4. Click Restart. If you walk away, the Mac counts down and restarts on its own.

If one app is blocking the restart, quit it, or use Force Quit from the Apple menu. If the whole Mac is frozen and nothing responds, press and hold the power button until it turns off, wait a few seconds and turn it on again. Treat that as a last resort, since anything unsaved is lost.

A weekly nudge from the notch

The hard part of a weekly restart is remembering it. A Mac that sleeps every night never gives you a natural moment to restart, and a week turns into a month without anyone noticing.

The Tech care characters in Notchpals take care of the noticing. When your Mac has gone a week without a restart, the one in your crew, Gumdrop the gumball robot or Juice the dramatic battery, peeks out of the notch at a sensible hour (never before 9 AM or after 6 PM) with a suggestion.

GumdropRestart when it's handy. Fresh start, fresh flavor. I'll wait!

Notchpals never restarts the Mac for you. For this reminder the only thing it looks at is how long the Mac has been running, and the timing stays yours. Press Done once you have restarted. If you are mid-task, press Later: it tries again 20 minutes on, and a second Later ends it there. And if you already restart every week, you may never see this visit at all, because the count starts again every time the Mac starts up.

When a restart doesn't fix it

If the Mac is still slow or strange after a fresh restart, the cause is probably something a restart can't reach. A few places to look:

• Storage. A nearly full startup disk slows everything down. Check System Settings > General > Storage, and see what to do when the startup disk is almost full.
• One heavy app. In Activity Monitor, click the CPU tab and sort by the CPU column to see if one app is working much harder than it should. Quitting or updating it often helps.
• Out-of-date software. Install pending updates for macOS and for the app that is giving you trouble.
• Login items. Apps that open at login and run in the background add up. In System Settings > General, open Login Items & Extensions (plain Login Items in older versions) and switch off what you don't need.

If problems keep coming back after all of that, contact Apple Support or visit an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider, and make sure you have a recent backup before you do.