Mac won’t shut down

So, you’ve tried to shut down your Mac but nothing is happening. The first thing you should do is give it time, as OS X has to sort through all its open files and close all programs before it can safely shut down. If, after around five minutes, you’re still staring at the same screen, something hasn’t gone to plan and its time to take action. Take a look at the Dock, and make sure there are no bouncing app alerts or open apps that could interrupt the shut down process. It may be a word processing app that’s stopping the shut down before you save your documents.

It’s also worth checking to see if there are any frozen applications open, as frozen apps can stop a Mac from shutting down, and manually closing them may speed up the shut down process. Identify any open or frozen apps in the Dock and either Quit or Force Quit them before trying to shut your computer down again.

As a last resort, you can force your Mac to shut down, but doing so may cause issues with file corruption, as mentioned earlier. To manually shut your Mac down, press and hold the power button on the back of the Mac until your screen goes black and the system shuts down. It’s worth noting that this should be done once in a blue moon, and if you find yourself doing this regularly, it may be worth reinstalling OS X