How to Exit Recovery Mode on Mac

Aug 4, 2022 - 5 Comments

How to Exit Recovery Mode on Mac

Recovery Mode is typically used for troubleshooting a Mac, for reinstalling system software, erasing disks, and performing similar tasks. Perhaps you’ve used recovery mode before to troubleshoot something, or perhaps you’ve even entered recovery mode accidentally on a Mac before. Rarely, a Mac just boots automatically into Recovery Mode constantly as well. Whatever the case, you may be wondering how to get out of and escape recovery mode on a Mac.

You will be relieved to know that exiting recovery mode on a Mac is incredibly simple.

Exiting Mac Recovery Mode by Restarting the Mac

All you need to do is restart the Mac to exit out of recovery mode.

You can initiate the restart from the  Apple menu and choosing “Restart”, or by holding down the Power button on the Mac to turn it off and back on again.

No matter what type of Mac it is, restarting the Mac will exit out of recovery mode.

This is obviously different from entering into recovery mode, which differs depending on the Mac chip architecture, requiring either holding the power button to boot into Recovery Mode on M1 Macs, or a keyboard sequence for booting into recovery mode on Intel Macs.

For exiting recovery mode, there’s no difference in either hardware or system software, it applies to all chip architectures and MacOS versions. Simply restart the Mac and let it boot up as normal. That’s about as easy as it gets.

Help, my Mac is automatically booting into recovery mode!

Rarely, a Mac will automatically boot into recovery mode. Even if you restart the Mac, it will boot back into recovery mode in this situation. There can be several reasons for this.

Automatically booting into recovery mode can happen because the Mac startup disk can’t be found, because the disk failed, or because there is no usable system software version present.

If the startup disk can’t be found, pull down the  Apple menu and choose “Startup Disk” and select the Macintosh HD boot volume or whatever your boot drive is named.

If the system software can’t be found, you’ll need to get the macOS system software again. You can reinstall MacOS on M1 Mac or reinstall macOS on Intel Mac.

If the drive has failed, the computer will need to be serviced, or have the disk replaced (assuming the disk is replaceable, which is not the case with most modern Macs that have soldered the SSD onto the logic board).

This can also happen because of nvram settings on Intel Macs, in which case resetting NVRAM typically resolves the problem right away.

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in Mac OS, Tips & Tricks, Troubleshooting

5 Comments

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  1. Lonnie says:

    Since yesterday 4/1 I can’t get out of recovery start up. The mouse and keyboard are frozen. I cannot use the Mac desktop. Need to start with normal screen

  2. Jason says:

    Hi, thanks for this article. My daughter got a great deal on a hand-me-down Macbook Air from a friend at school but the password and Apple ID she was given wasn’t correct.

    The Macbook is unable to get out of recovery mode and the start up disk menu doesn’t load either.

    I am beginning to believe this deal was too good to be true… Would appreciate any help y’all can provide. Thank you.

  3. Nabisha says:

    Did you find solution for this, I am facing the same problem. I have MacBook Pro 2017. It’s been more than 2 months that it’s not working. I have tried everything I saw on internet but none of them worked for me. Can you please help me with that.

    Thanks

  4. Me says:

    Try again without CAPS

  5. tom cramer says:

    I HAVE IMAC 2011MID 24″ THAT BOOTS ON BARGRAPH
    ONLY HALFWAY AND STOPS OR FREEZES,,,SOMETIMES IT STAYS THAT WAY AND SOMETIMES, IT RESTARTS SEVERAL TIMES, AND A FEW TIMES I HAVE HAD IT REBOOT INTO
    RECOVERY MODE,,,WITHOUT ME HOLDING DOWN ANY KEYS.
    I HAVE USED MOST OF APPLES SUGGESTED THINGS TO DO
    BUT NONE WORKED. FOUND TWO MORE TO TRY , SHIFT, CONTROL, OPTION THEN POWER BUTTON FOR TEN SECONDS. IMAC BOOTS IN SAFE MODE, NO PROBLEM.
    TRIED TO INSTALL IMAC SIERRA COMBO IN SAFE MODE BUT COULD NOT.
    DID BACKUP, AND DOWNLOADED NEW SIERRA ….BUT NOTHING SEEMS TO WORK….I KNOW YOU ARE BUSY BUT
    IF YOU HAVE ANY KNOWLEDGE OF THIS PROBLEM, I WOULD APPRECIATE IT. AM DAILY SUBSCRIBER TO YOUR NEWS LETTER…THANK YOU FOR ANY HELP,,,EVEN A COUPLE OF “TRY THIS”…tomcramer2000@hotmail.com
    imac has sierra 10.12.6 and I3 cpu 3.2 ghz

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