Safari is not working as expected? In this article, I’ll explain exactly what you can do if Safari doesn’t respond, and keeps freezing or crashing on your Mac. You may also see the rotating color wheel or “spinning beach ball”. A couple of users have also stated that Safari crashes when they open the Preferences pane.
Safari is a great and solid browser. However, performance-related problems (freezing or crashing) may occur every now and then.
Sometimes, you may see “Safari quit unexpectedly” error messages.
An unresponsive Safari may cause your Mac to freeze as well If you are experiencing this problem, please try the following steps. Launch Safari between step to see if your problem is fixed.
1. Update
Ensure that your Mac is running the latest versions of the macOS software. Safari is within macOS. That means, updating your Mac also includes updates to Safari. Here is how to update macOS:
- If your Mac is running macOS Mojave or higher: head over to System Preferences and Software Update. Otherwise, you can click the Apple menu > About This Mac > Overview and then Software Update. And if you see an update, hit the Update Now button then follow the onscreen prompts.
- If your Mac is running macOS High Sierra or older: Launch the App Store on your Mac and click Updates.
2. Empty Cache in Safari
Emptying all Safari caches may resolve your issue. It is recommended to do this in Safe Mode because Safe Mode clears your Mac’s system cache and may fix glitches. This is also a good thing because if your experience Safari crashes when you want to open Safari Preferences. Here’s how:
- Power off your Mac.
- Power on your Mac and immediately press and hold the Shift key.
- Keep holding the key until the login screen appears. Then release the Shift key and log in.
- Your Mac is now in Safe Mode. Your MacBook may be a bit slower in Safe Mode. Don’t worry, this is normal.
- Next, head over to the Finder.
- From the menu bar, hit Go and head over to Folder (or press Command, Shift, G keys together).
- Type in the command below and hit Go:
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/ - Erase files by dragging them to the Trash.
- Next, exit Safe Mode by restarting your Mac normally. Don’t press the Shift key this time.
- When your Mac turns on, try to open Safari to see if it now crashes or freezes.
3. Safari Extensions
You may be experiencing this problem because of third party extensions you may have. There are two troubleshooting steps you should take:
- First off, ensure that if your issue caused by an extension.
- If an extension is the problem, then we will need to pinpoint the problematic extensions. Here is how:
Please follow the steps below to turn off extensions to figure out whether they are causing the problems:
- On your Mac, launch Safari and in Safari, click Safari and Preferences.
- Go to the Extensions tab. Then uncheck all of the extension’s checkboxes to disable them.
- Now exit Preferences and check if Safari is working. If your problem is not fixed, you can now reenable the extensions as they are not the culprit. If your problem is resolved, it means that your problem is triggered by one of your extensions. Simply re-enable the extensions one after another until you identify the problematic extension. When you find it, you can simply hit the uninstall button to remove it, update, or
contact its developer
for more help.