Few things are as frustrating as trying to start your Mac and ending up with the dreaded Mac folder with a question mark. You’ve probably tried using keyboard shortcuts like CTRL+R, CTRL+Option+R, or Shift+CTRL+Option+R, but you still get the flashing folder icon on startup.

While this may strike fear into your heart as a Mac user, there are known causes for it, and tried and tested solutions that will help you get your Mac back to normalcy.

The safe mode takes longer to start up, please be patient; If your Mac starts up, you need to re-start your Mac without touching any other buttons; Follow these steps in order to repair the startup disk by opening “Disk Utility” in “OS X Recovery”: Shut Down your Mac, then wait about ten seconds; Re-start your Mac.

Follow along to find out why you’re getting the folder with the question mark in the middle of the screen, and how you can resolve the problem. While this is issue is more prevalent among older Macs, we shall try to address the same for new Mac models as well.

If your Mac is using a firmware password, the lock icon appears when you try to start up from another disk or volume, such as an external drive or macOS Recovery.Enter the firmware password to continue. Method 4: Start system from MAC OS X Installation Disc. Insert your MAC OS X installation disc. Shutdown your system. If you are unable to shut down your MAC the normal way, then hold down your system’s power button for a few seconds until it shuts down. What OS (or rather which version and update of Mac OS X) did your old MacBook Pro have? And which one does your newer Mac have? Did you have any apps installed that would have added kernel extensions or that would need to be manually installed? On a modern MacBook without a removable battery, press the Power button and hold it down for ten seconds. If your Mac is running, this will forcibly cut the power to it and force it to restart. On a Mac with a removable battery, shut it down, unplug it, remove the battery, wait ten seconds, and then reinsert it.

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Causes of Flashing Mac Folder with Question Mark

There are several reasons why the folder with a question mark appears on your Mac’s screen:

  • Your Mac can’t find a bootable volume. That means it can’t find its startup disk, so it can’t boot or start up. Probably you previously started up your Mac from an external disk and later unplugged it, or its hard drive just failed terribly, so it’s having trouble locating its system folder or boot directory.
  • Corrupt macOS.
  • Corrupt system files.
  • Hard disk drive has failed catastrophically.
  • The external disk you boot from may be off or disconnected.
  • The ribbon cable connecting the drive to the motherboard may be damaged. This cable sits between the bottom case and optical drive, and if the case has indentations in the same area, the cable may be the problem.
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Boot Your Mac From an Install DVD (For Older Macs)

This process forces your Mac to boot from the install DVD placed in the optical drive. For that, you must follow these steps:

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Step 1: Place the install DVD that came with your Mac in the optical drive and reboot. You can use that disc, or if you have a later macOS version, use a newer disc for the same purpose.

Step 2: Once you hear the boot chime, hold down C key on your keyboard or the Option key until you see the Install Disk or Apple logo show up.

Note: Boot from the recovery partition if you’re on 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion or 10.9 Mavericks, and then repair the OS 10.7 or 10.8 partition using Disk Utility.

Step 3: When your Mac starts up, choose the language you’ll use, press Return on your keyboard, and an Installation window will open. Ignore this window and click Utilities and then click Disk Utility.

Step 4: If you see your hard disk on the list, click your macOS partition for the hard drive, and then select First Aid tab.

Step 5: Next, run Repair Disk. To enable this button, click on your hard drive’s macOS partition. If this fixes any issues, run it all over again until you see the green OK, and then run Repair Permissions.

Step 6: Finally, use the Startup Disk to select your hard drive to restart your Mac from the hard drive. If it’s not recognized under Disk Utility, it’s probably dead.

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Put Your Mac in Recovery Mode

If you’re trying to boot from your Mac’s internal drive, you need to shut down the computer and then start it up while holding down Command+R keys until the globe or Apple logo appears. That will put your Mac in Recovery Mode, and then you can change the startup disk by selecting the option from the Apple Menu.

Recovery Mode comes handy when your Mac won’t boot normally because the startup disk is damaged or corrupted.

That could be caused by corrupt files or mild power surges you’re not aware of, but it fixes the issue without you having to go to extreme lengths, such as performing a reinstall of your macOS.

Note: You can boot using an external Mac startup disk or bootable installer if macOS Recovery doesn’t work.

Replace the Disk

If the Mac folder with a question mark appears because of your disk has failed, the only thing you can do is to replace the disk and use the time capsule or another backup device you’ve been using to recover your data to the new disk.

Backup Data and Reinstall macOS

If Disk Utility can’t repair your startup disk, you may have to reformat it. Before doing that, take a backup of any important data from the disk before erasing everything stored on it. You can take the steps below to take a backup of your data to an external drive if you don’t have a recent data backup for your startup disk:

Step 1: Connect an external drive that’s similar in size or larger than your startup disk. Erase the external drive using macOS Recovery and then install macOS to it. Select the external disk that you want to erase, not your startup disk.

Step 2: Once macOS is installed, your Mac will restart automatically from the external drive. When you see the Setup Assistant, choose the option you want to use to move data from another disk, and select the startup disk on your Mac as the source from which to migrate data.

Step 3: After migration, follow the setup assistant instructions to the end, and when you see your desktop, confirm that all your data is present on the external drive.

Step 4: Erase your startup disk using macOS Recovery and reinstall macOS (don’t select your external drive). After erasing the disk and installing macOS, your Mac will restart automatically, and the setup assistant will appear. Copy your data to your startup disk by selecting the option to migrate data from a Time Machine backup or another disk, in this case your external drive.

Note: If you can’t erase the startup disk or reinstall macOS, take your Mac for repair to an Apple Genius or authorized service provider.

Get Your Mac Back

We hope you now know what to do when you find the flashing Mac folder with a question mark on your screen. Try the fixes above and let us know what worked for you.

Next up:Want to reduce boot time for your Windows PC? Our next article shows you how to do that using Quick Startup.


The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.

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What are startup items?

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Startup items, or login items, are services and applications that launch every time you start your Mac. These are applications that sneak into startup items without notice, never asking if you need or want them there. This way you may end up with a dozen apps launching as soon as you turn on your Mac, weighing heavily on its processor and memory capacities and slowing it down. Such items can increase your Mac’s startup time and decrease its performance.

Plus, sometimes when you remove an application or a service, it leaves a login item with a broken link. These broken login items are completely useless, cause unwanted messages, and waste your Mac's resources (because they look for non-existent applications). Whether you're running macOS Catalina or El Capitan, or earlier — it's all the same, so just read on.

So, let's go over how to take control of login items, and how to get rid of unwanted, broken or hidden startup items.

How to disable startup programs?

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Do you want to stop programs from running at startup? There’s an easy way to remove programs from startup and get your Mac to load faster on launch. The fastest way to turn off startup items on Mac is an app like CleanMyMac X.

  1. Download CleanMyMac for free.
  2. Launch the app.
  3. Open Optimization tab.
  4. Click on Login items.
  5. From the list of apps, disable the ones you don’t need on startup.
  6. Done!

How to change startup programs manually?

Disabling Mac startup programs is possible manually. Therefore, if you have some time and would like to do it yourself, follow the steps below.

Your login items are listed in settings. One of the easiest ways to control startup items is inside System Preferences > Users & Groups.

  1. Open System Preferences.
  2. Go to Users & Groups.
  3. Choose your nickname on the left.
  4. Choose Login items tab.
  5. Check startup programs you want to remove.
  6. Press the “–” sign below.
  7. You’re done.
  8. If you need to add an item back, press “+” and choose the app you’d like add.
  9. Then restart your Mac to see the changes.

How to fix broken startup items?

Broken Mac startup files are left there because some part of apps are left on your Mac long after you’ve moved the app to the Trash. To get rid of these parts and to fix your startup, you’re going to need CleanMyMac again. First, you need to check if they’re among startup items and disable them if so. You can do it following the instructions above. Then you need to remove app leftovers. CleanMyMac works fine on macOS Big Sur and earlier OS.

  1. Launch CleanMyMac.
  2. Choose Uninstaller tab.
  3. Scroll through the list of apps.
  4. If you spot any app that you’ve deleted, check them.
  5. Delete the app leftovers you’ve chosen.

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You can also find and remove broken login items with the help of System Junk module:

  1. Choose System Junk tab.
  2. Click Scan.
  3. Review details and click Clean.

Finally, you need to clean your macOS startup items through launch services:

  1. Open Maintenance tab.
  2. Choose Rebuild Launch Services.
  3. Hit Run.
  4. Done.
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Once you do it, all broken app data on your Mac will be fixed.

Remove daemons and agents from startup process

If speaking of files, first go to the system folder /Library/StartUpItems. Here you’ll find all the startup files that are being launched with the system. You can delete the login item you think is necessary if you’re totally sure what you are doing.

Also, the /Library/LaunchDaemons folder contains a bunch of preference files that define how the application that is being launched along with the system should work. You might want to delete some of these files as well if you know you don’t need them and removing them is safe.

The /Library/LaunchAgents contains preference files responsible for the apps that launch during the login process (not the startup).

The above-mentioned folders contain app-related files. However, you can also check system folders to review whether you need some of the system applications to be running on startup:

  1. /System/Library/LaunchDaemons - note that besides preference files this folder contains other important system items that are recommended to keep untouched.
  2. /System/Library/LaunchAgents - most probably, you won’t also find anything worth removing in this folder, however, keeping this location in mind might help you find files related to a problematic app that causes troubles on Mac startup. If you have a problematic application that messes about on login, you can try to trace it back from this folder.

But, if you’re looking for simple ways to remove login items, we suggest using a professional Mac utility. Download CleanMyMac X for free and make unwanted and broken login items a thing of the past.