I have a very embarrassing admission to make: after 33 years of being a Mac user, I was completely stumped when I recently tried to force quit and restart my 2017 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. Fortunately, I was able to figure it out, so I thought I’d pass along this tip to readers of the Rocket Yard who might also run into this situation.
Update: March 2, 2021 – This tip also applies to 2018, 2019, 2020 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 MacBook Air With Touch ID models.
This all happened while I was upgrading the MacBook Pro to macOS 10.13 High Sierra beta 8. During the installation process, my MacBook Pro restarted several times, and at one point, I was asked to log in. I did so and then followed the prompt to log into iCloud. So far, so good.
The next time I looked at the MacBook Pro screen, it was black except for a progress bar that didn’t seem to be making any progress. I waited about a half-hour and finally decided it was time to force quit the laptop, reboot, and see if that solved the problem.
On just about every recent Mac I’ve ever owned, there’s a simple method of doing a force restart — just hold down the power button until the machine reboots. On old Macs, the power button was useful for a similar method — shutting off the Mac and then turning it back on. So I started searching for the power button on the MacBook Pro…
Do you see it in the picture above?
I didn’t. And believe it or not, in the months that I had owned the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, I had never needed to use a power button. The login screen was always there when I flipped the display up, and the MBP always went to sleep when I flipped the screen back down.
Force Restart
What I didn’t realize is that the Touch ID button at the far right end of the Touch Bar is actually a button – the power button. I had placed my finger on it plenty of times to log in but never actually pushed it. All it takes to force a restart of a frozen MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is to press down on the Touch ID button until the device reboots.
This is one case where I think Apple carried its simplistic design a little bit too far. Would it have been that much of a bother to just put a small power button graphic above the Touch ID button? The only clue that the Touch ID button is also a power button is at the very bottom of this Apple support page in a discussion on Touch Bar accessibility features:
*Sigh*
• Originally posted on July 12, 2018
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You’re a national treasure steve
I was really questioning my sanity there for a second. Thanks!!
Thank you so much!!! You save my day!!
Thank you so much!!! We need this and Apple is closed for the night.
OMG this was driving me crazy. So simple, when you know, lovely feeling to the press down
Thanks
You are so right about Apple taking the minimalizing too far. Thanks for this.
Very useful post. Like you, I have been using a Mac for over 3 decades and never had a problem finding the “on-off” button. Could not find it on the 2018 MacBook Pro when I needed it. Thanks!
OMG, I have been using macbook pro 2018 for months and though that it was just a fingerprint sensor (or camera)… Never occurred to me that it was a button that you one could actually press!
Bless you, I’m a engineer who’s been using Macs my whole life and couldn’t figure this out
Bless you, I’m a software engineer who’s been using Macs my whole life and couldn’t figure this out
Thank you!
OMG! Finding this blog saved me from a trip to the Genius Bar. Apple Help Line couldn’t solve the black screen problem this morning. Figuring out the location of the power button solves all. Many thanks!
Thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing!
I had a chuckle reading this post. I found out, in one of my struggles to reboot, because I had installed software that took over my machine, that all I had to do was to turn off and turn back on again using the power button. Needless to say, I was very relieved and pleasantly satisfied.
Holy crap thank you so much, I thought it was gone lol
Amazing! Thank you so much!
Thank you sooooo much!
Wow thank you for posting this I was going crazy !
This solved my problem! I did not realize it was a button either but when I pushed on it as you recommended it reset and all was well. Thanks for the insight.
Many thanks for this post. Was totally stumped until reading this & finding that ‘hidden’ power button.
Almost lost the plot… thank you!!
thanks for sharing this critical information.
My coworker was in complete distress and also did not realize that the touch bar was actually the power button, or button! Thank you!
A thousand thank-yous for this tip!
My Mac has frozen on me , I can log in but the task bar will not load all the way to a 100% ?
I can not reboot my Mac book pro , I sign in , then the task bar goes to 100% and stays they but does not complete it cycle , can you advise
Do you know what to do when that does not work? I have been pushing and holding the button down all morning. Track pad is dead and black screen staring at me.
I was seconds from making a Genius Bar appointment because I thought my Mac was dead. I had no idea that was the on button. Thank you SO much!!!!
Super helpful, thanks! Came up at the top of my search responses too not buried three pages down in some apple support log
Thanks a lot, this has been veeerryy helpful
thanks!
Great tip! Also had absolutely no idea that was a power button.
Thanks! Nice explanation.
OMG! You saved me from
pulling out all my hair! Same issue, sams status: have owned macs since the floppy disk days. Many thanks!!!
Had same problem! Thanks for explanation!
It’s weird Apple does it like this :(
Thanks alot man! I had the same issue and i didn’t know about power button! You saved me!
Thank you so much for the info! Really appreciate it.
Hallelujah… this saved me. I was on the verge of a panic because the same thing happened to me but I couldn’t find anything on the newest version of the MacBook Pro and was had just bought the device
So glad I found this post! Staring at black screen of death paralysed with the search for the power button
Thanks. That really helps
Steve, Went to Apple support page first to resolve the problem- not a word about the power “button” (typical for Apple). Your article saved my day. Well done! Thank you!
Thank you thank you!!!!!
Brilliant and the only thing that’s helped me!! Thank you, I also never knew it was an actual button!
Thank you so much!! I never knew either!
OMG! Thank you!!!!
Thank you!!!!
Thanks so much for posting this!
You helped me a lot!
You’re legend.
Thank you
thank you for not letting me take a dreadful trip to the genius bar at apple.