what does restarting mac do?

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Level 1

45 points

what does restarting mac do?

if i press restart on my macbook, what does it do? does it delete everything on mac computer? the reason i want to restart is because safari keeps crashing.

iPod touch (3rd generation), iOS 5.1

Posted on Sep 23, 2016 2:44 PM

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Answer 1

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Roger Wilmut1

Level 10

131,146 points

Sep 23, 2016 2:47 PM in response to orodsix

It doesn't wipe anything, but it empties the active memory (RAM) , which is a first step in trying to clear faults. Quite often a program will get itself confused and a restart will in effect start everything from scratch and clear the problem.

You can restart, which will shut the computer down and then reboot it, or you can do a shutdown and then start it up manually. This may give a slightly more effective reboot for clearing problems.

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Answer 2

Sep 24, 2016 9:21 AM in response to orodsix

'Pressing and holding the power button' does an emergency, uncontrolled power-off. It should never be routinely, only when you have no other options. It has been known to sometimes produce some directory corruption, because the latest updates to the directory are not copied back to the drive.

The correct way to do a Restart is to choose Restart off the  menu. You can also choose Shutdown, count to 10, then press the power button to start up again.

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