how to reset the SMC on the Mac

Have issues with your mac? Odd behaviour or poor battery life. It may be time to reset your System Management Controller (SMC).

We Show You When You Should And How To Reset Mac SMC

How to reset the SMC on the Mac

If you are experiencing issues with your Mac we show When You Should And How To Reset Mac SMC. If you are struggling with issues such as:

Battery & Power Management – Mac struggling to wake from sleep, poor battery life, random shutdowns or even battery refusing to charge.

Cooling & Fan Management – Fans running at constant high, poor cooling and strange behaviour.

Display and lighting issues – Keyboard backlight or display backlight failing or not working correctly.

Video & external display issues – Display brightness issues and difficulties working with external displays.

Other performance issues – Sluggish behaviour, devices not working correctly and issues with CPU or disk activity.

If you experience any of those issues then we do recommend that you reset your SMC recommended for any iMac, Macbook, Macbook Pro or Macbook Pro with Retina display.

To do so follow the instructions below:

Shutdown your MacBook Air / Macbook / MacBook Pro

Connect the power adapter to your Mac on the Mac keyboard, hold down the Shift+Control+Option keys and the Power button at the same time

Release all keys and the power button at the same time, the little light adapter may change colours briefly (if you have a light) to indicate the SMC has reset Boot your Mac as usual.

See screenshot below:

Reset SMC of the iMac, Mac Pro or iMac Mini

Resetting SMC is different for non-portable Macs. On any desktop Mac, here is how you reset the System Management Controller:

Shut down your Mac, disconnect the power cord press and hold Mac’s power button for 5 seconds release the button.

Re-attach the power cables and boot the Mac as normal.