MacBook not opening apps

applicationsmacbook pro

I am having a problem with my computer. It starts up totally fine, but as soon as I get to my desktop and try to open any app (Google chrome, Calendar, Messenger etc) the cursor just spins and the whole computer slows down. No apps will open.

So far I tried to fix the problem by resetting the PRAM. The weird thing is that the computer didn't make the restart sound while I was holding down the keys (alt/optcmdPR). Is this normal? It brought me to the OS X Utilities screen where I tried repairing my disk using Disk Utilities. But this didn't work.

Any suggestions as to what I can do to fix this? I'm new to
fixing computers but I'd really like to try fixing this myself!

Best Answer

Even before trying to fix permissions - I would make a new user account and then see if you can open these three apps:

  1. Calculator - check if self-contained apps work
  2. Safari - check if networking works
  3. Calendar - check something that can connect to cloud data - substitute contacts if you don't sync calendars. Mail is usually a huge amount to download - so that's generally a bad test app.

If your new account works, the system and online and network are fine and it's just your settings in your user account that are amiss (or third party apps). If you can't make a new user work - then consider wiping the Mac and restoring from your backup once you have a clean install.

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