How long does it take Mac to start up in safe mode
How long should it take to sign in mac using safe mode? See Apple with white line full but nothing else happening
iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.14
Depending on the startup drive it can take up to 10 minutes. Remember to hold the Shift key down when you see the Apple symbol appear on the display and to continue holding it until the computer starts in Safe Mode. If the computer will not start in Safe Mode, this points the finger at a damaged drive.
At that point you can attempt to restart in the Recovery Partition (Command + R on startup), then open Disk Utility and run First Aid on the drive. If the drive reports any errors, chances are high it needs to be replaced.