Can a MacBook be booted in Safe Mode using the Mojave OS?

It should. Does it boot normally?

Give it longer. Safe Mode took maybe 10 minutes to fully boot for me. Boot in Safe Mode and go grocery shopping, hit a café, read a book, binge Netflix, whatever. Eventually you should see your login window.

Hello WGibson.

I aggree,with, WarrenO! Be,patient,with the Safe Boot,on you Macbook Pro?

With my old Macbook Pro 2013,its take 5-6 minuts,to open in Safe Boot?

Wait for it,and be patient!

Regards Claus.

Most welcome.

If you'd like to do something other than stare at an Apple logo and wonder what the machine is doing, you could try giving Verbose Boot mode a try. This displays a rolling list of text messages on the monitor while the Mac boots, and can (1) provide more reactive feedback to show the machine actually still is working; and (2) offer some clue what it's actually doing (you'll see a text notification that Safe Mode is active, for instance).

It might also help diagnose problems with both startup and shutdown, if you're into googling up arcane error messages.

Plus, it looks very UNIX-y computer-hacker-y to see all that text go by.

You can activate Verbose Boot by entering this in your Terminal, to add a flag to your system's NVRAM (parameter RAM):

sudo nvram boot-args="-v"

You'll need to enter your password to confirm.

You can deactivate verbose mode by entering this in Terminal:

sudo nvram boot-args=

That clears the "v" flag.

I got used to those console messages years ago after I installed Linux Slackware from a stack of floppies onto a 486. I still like seeing them. I find them more useful and diagnostic than a logo and progress bar.

You're Welcome!

Regards Claus.

Is over 25 min too long? It is stuck at the end of the thermometer for 10 min.

I concur with WGibson, Robert. 25 minutes seems excessive. However, some factors might affect how long it takes to boot in safe mode. If your drive is pretty full, for instance, it might take longer for its pre-boot self-checking to complete.

I'd recommend activating verbose mode, yes, to see if there's any indication, anywhere in the flow of console text, regarding where it's getting hung up. The system can verbose boot and safe-boot at the same time; verbose mode doesn't affect any other boot flags you might set. So after you've switched it to verbose in the Terminal, try a safe boot and see what happens, and what the system-load text is reporting.