In this episode, Tyler demonstrates how to start your Mac in safe mode and explains in what situations this may be useful.
Safe mode is a feature of macOS that disables login items, third-party drivers, and legacy system extensions at startup, useful if an incompatible item in one of these groups is causing a problem with your Mac. In addition, system caches are cleared, and a light check of your startup disk is performed when starting up in safe mode, which can identify possible issues that could be causing slower than expected performance.
To start up in safe mode, start up the Mac while holding down the Power button, and interact with your startup disk (usually called Macintosh HD) in the grid that appears. Focus on the Continue button and route the mouse pointer to it by pressing VO-Command-F5, (or VO-Command-Globe-5 if you’re using a Mac with a Touch Bar) hold down the Shift key, and click the mouse. Maintenance tasks are completed once the Mac has finished starting; restart your Mac to exit this mode.
If you’re trying to isolate a particular issue, attempt to reproduce it when in safe mode, and again once you leave this mode. If the issue no longer occurs, it was likely resolved by the maintenance tasks that macOS performed. If it doesn’t occur when in safe mode but returns once you leave this mode, you may want to remove login items for third-party apps, update, remove, or reinstall any third-party drivers or legacy system extensions, or contact their developers for assistance. For more information, check out the Apple Support article “Use safe mode on your Mac”
Note: VoiceOver only works in safe mode on Macs with Apple Silicon.
transcription:
Disclaimer: This transcript is generated by AIKO, an automated transcription service. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.
Hey AppleVisers, Tyler here, with a quick tip for how and when to start your Mac in safe mode.
Safe mode is a feature of macOS that prevents certain software components like login items, third-party drivers, and legacy system extensions from loading at startup.
If you're having trouble starting your Mac or have some other issue that's tough to pin down, an incompatible item in one of these groups may be the culprit, and thus starting up in safe mode can help you rule that either in or out.
In addition, when starting in safe mode, a light check of your startup disk is performed, similar to what happens when running first aid in Disk Utility, and your system caches are cleared, which can potentially improve the performance and responsiveness of your Mac if such files have become corrupted over time.
Safe mode is a feature that's existed in macOS for a long time.
The problem for voiceover users prior to Apple Silicon was that, as part of this mode, the audio driver was disabled, and thus the Mac could not provide any audible feedback, making voiceover effectively useless.
However, with Apple Silicon, audio is supported, and thus voiceover users can use macOS in safe mode as if they were using it in any other boot screen.
If you have enough usable vision to see the screen and want to start an Intel Mac in safe mode, you can do so by restarting it or turning it on while holding down the shift key.
For a Mac with Apple Silicon, you'd shut it down, hold down the power button until the grid of startup disks appears, interact with your startup disk, focus on continue, route the mouse pointer to it, hold down the shift key, and click the mouse to start in safe mode, which I'll demonstrate momentarily.
If you're not sure what kind of Mac you have, when in macOS, choose about this Mac from the Apple menu.
If you see something like processor, X gigahertz, Intel Core something, you have an Intel-based Mac.
And if you see something like chip, Apple something, you have a Mac with Apple Silicon.
So I have an M2 MacBook Air that's shut down, so to demonstrate, I'll hold down the power button.
Okay, so now here I am in the select disk grid, I'll interact, yeah right, Macintosh HD, that's the name of my default startup disk, it should be the same for yours unless you've changed any settings, so I'll interact with Macintosh HD, yeah right, continue, and this is the point where literature intended for sighted users would instruct you to hold down the shift key and click the button.
So I'm going to route the mouse pointer to it with VO command F5, that's VO command globe 5 if you're using a Mac with a touch bar, okay, I'm going to hold down the shift key, and click the mouse, and let go of the shift key, give it a sec, okay, enter my password, okay, and for some reason when starting in safe mode it makes you log in twice, so I'm going to do that now, okay, so here I am, I've started my Mac in safe mode, now what you do at this point depends on why you started your Mac in safe mode in the first place.
If you restarted to complete maintenance tasks by the time your Mac starts up, those tasks have completed, so at this point you can just restart your Mac to get back into the normal boot mode.
If you're trying to isolate an issue, you can try reproducing it when in safe mode, and if it doesn't occur, it's likely the fault of an incompatible login item, third-party driver, or legacy system extension.
At this point you might want to go into system settings, general, login items, and delete any login items you have, particularly if they're from third-party apps.
In addition, you may want to update, remove, or reinstall third-party drivers or legacy system extensions.
Then when restarting into macOS in its normal boot mode, then you'll know that something in one of those groups was causing the problem.
The next step after that would probably be best to re-add each login item, third-party driver, or legacy system extension until you identify the one that's causing the problem, and then contact the developer of that item to let them know of the problem, and specifically mention that it does or doesn't occur in safe mode, which can help them narrow down their troubleshooting process.
So as you use your Mac in safe mode, it should work similarly to how it always works, because the things that are disabled with safe mode on Macs with Apple Silicon are most of them pertain to either legacy components or third-party software.
So to see if your Mac is booted in safe mode, you go into System Information, and boot mode is listed under Software Overview.
I'm going to demonstrate that now.
Hit Command-Shift-U for Utilities, SY for System Information, Open, Hardware, and this section as Expanded, I'm going to collapse it with the left arrow, go down, collapse that, go down again, Software, I'll V-O-J to get into the text, and press down arrow a couple times, boot mode safe.
If I was booted up in macOS as normal, the boot mode would be listed as normal.
So to get out of safe mode, I'll just restart my Mac.
Okay, I'll log in.
Okay, so now I've booted up, and it should be in its normal boot mode.
To check, I'm going to go into System Information, this is how it should be, so if you're in safe mode and you restart, it will revert to its normal state.
So that's how to start your Mac in safe mode.
It's not something you'll need to use often, but after many, many years, I'm glad that Apple has finally made this so that voiceover users can use it with the default system audio drivers and no need for an external sound card, because it can be useful in troubleshooting certain types of issues or performing macOS maintenance tasks, and thus I hope you found it helpful if you need it, peace.