Mac Tip: Running iTunes In Safe Mode

This Mac tip is provided by Mark Greentree and was originally posted on Mark’s blog – Everyday Mac Support. For more of Mark’s tips visit his site, follow him on Twitter, or browse his archive of posts here.


How To: Running iTunes In Safe Mode

Are you experiencing problems with iTunes?

Perhaps when syncing an iPod you get the ‘spinning wait wheel’ and iTunes becomes unresponsive resulting in you having to ‘force quit’ the program.

The way to address some of these issues is to hold down the Command + Option keys when launching iTunes.

This will load iTunes in ‘safe mode’ allowing you to have a poke around and see what the possible problems is.

Please note the ‘safe mode’ function will not fix a problem you may be experiencing.

It will just allow the program to go back to bare operating basics so you can for example turn off sync functions which are a common cause of iTunes problems.

Mark Greentree

Mark Greentree is the principle blogger and podcast creator of Everyday Mac Support. His aim is to inform users at all levels of experience how to get the most out of the Apple hardware and associated software. He is the lead host of Not Another Mac Podcast, an Apple based round table discussion with Mac users and experts from all over world.