Quick Tip: Escaping a stuck screensaver on the Mac
This afternoon I set my iMac to update to macOS 11.3, walked away, and when I came back, was greeted with the soothing sight of jellyfish on my screensaver. But when I tried to wake my Mac by tapping the trackpad or the keyboard, nothing happened.
Weird.
I tried plugging in the wireless keyboard and trackpad in turns, no dice. I tried screen sharing in from my iPhone and got to see the same jellyfish, just smaller.
Normally at this point, I’d probably end up going for the hard reboot by holding down the power button, but as I’d told it to start running an update, I was reluctant to go for the nuclear option.
What to do?
A search turned up one keyboard shortcut that didn’t help (control-shift-Eject), and then one that did:
What eventually worked for me, I didn’t find elsewhere:
Ctrl+Cmd+Q
Esc
login
And voila, so it did! So the next time you get locked out at your Mac’s screensaver, try this before reaching for that power button. It might save you some time.
