MacBook Pink Screen of Death: 7 Ways to Fix It

A pink screen of death on a Mac is not a good sign. And I found it the hard way.

A few days back, I was working on an important time-bound presentation for a client for which I pulled an all-nighter. Suddenly, out of nowhere, my Mac crashed, and the screen turned pink.

I am using a 2020 M1-powered MacBook Air with 24 GB RAM. With so much computing muscle under its skin, I never expected my Mac to run into issues. But it did.

I probed the problem online and found that the pink screen of death is a typical macOS bug. I checked for any available macOS updates and found one. I installed it and thankfully, doing this helped me fix the issue quite easily and get my presentation back.

But, it left me with a question.

What Causes a Pink Screen of Death on a Mac?

While searching for a fix in the online forums, I found several reasons behind the pink screen of death on Mac.

• Kernel panic
• Damaged display or display cables
• Malfunctioning USB accessory
• Software incompatibility or bugs
• Running resource-intensive applications simultaneously
• Corrupted GPU drivers
• Conflicting applications
• Power issues
• Overheating

How to Fix to MacBook Pink Screen of Death?

During my research, I found that many users with M1 Mac systems get frequent pink screens of death. User speculations suggest that it could be a graphics glitch or a buggy macOS update. But, in general, this screen indicates a possible hardware or software issue.

Read below as you will find various step-by-step methods that could help you fix the pink screen of death.

Before we jump to more complicated solutions, let’s try some quick fixes:

1. Restart your Mac: Disconnect any recently connected peripherals, shut down, and reboot your Mac.
2. Connect to an external display: This way, you can check if the Pink screen issue on your Mac is due to a faulty display.

If the above fixes didn’t help you fix the pink screen of death on your MacBook, troubleshoot the issue using the solutions explained below.

Method 1. Restart Mac in Safe Mode

Restarting your Mac in safe mode can help you diagnose and fix the pink screen on your Mac system. While running in safe mode, your Mac starts with essential system files and processes.

If you see the pink screen of death while in safe mode, it could likely be a hardware issue. If you don’t see the pink screen, the issue could be due to any other reason, such as conflicting software, buggy update, corrupted GPU driver, etc.

Follow the steps below to safely boot your Mac in safe mode.

For Apple Silicon Mac systems:

• Shut down your Mac.
• Press and hold the power button until you see the Loading startup options screen.
• Next, select a volume from the list.
• Press and hold the Shift key and click on Continue in Safe Mode.

The Mac will restart automatically in the Safe Mode. You will see Safe Boot mentioned in the menu bar.

For Intel-based Mac systems:

• Restart your Mac and immediately press and hold the Shift key until the login window appears on the screen.
• Log in to Mac. You may be prompted to log in again.
• You will see the Safe Boot mentioned in the menu bar on either the first or the second login window.

You can also refer to this guide to verify if your Mac has booted up in safe mode.

Method 2. Update macOS

Another reason behind encountering a pink screen of death on your Mac is installing a buggy or outdated system update. You can try to fix the issue by installing the latest macOS updates. Here’s what to do:

• Click on the Apple Logo in the top-left corner and then click on System Settings.
• In the Settings window, click on General in the left panel.
• Then, click on Software Update.
• Install any available update/s.

Method 3. Fix Problematic Applications

Sometimes, problematic or outdated applications could cause incompatibility issues with macOS, resulting in kernel panic and the pink screen of death. Some cases of kernel panic and subsequent pink screen of death on a Mac arose while users were using photo, video, or audio editing applications. If you are getting the pink screen on your Mac while using a specific application, do the following:

• Update the problematic application
• Uninstall and reinstall the application

You can update the application by checking for any updates in the App Store. This should help you fix the issue at hand.

But, if installing the updates didn’t help, delete it and remove all associated files from your Mac. Once you have done this, reinstall the application from scratch.

Method 4. Reset the GPU

GPU, or Graphics Processing Unit, is an essential part of your Mac that helps the system process graphical data, such as animations, transitions, images, and more. Resetting it is another solution to fix Mac booting to a pink screen.

Many pre-Apple Silicon era Mac systems have an integrated and a dedicated GPU for handling different tasks. You can test if either of them is malfunctioning and causing the pink screen of death on your Mac. To do this:

• Click on the Apple logo in the top-left corner and click on System Settings.
• Next, click on Battery.
• It will show all the details of your battery.
• Uncheck the Automatic Graphics Switching option.

Method 5. Reset SMC

The System Management Controller (SMC) is responsible for power control, video mode switching, LED, hibernation, etc. Resetting it may be the key to fixing the MacBook pink screen crash problem.

Note: This method only works on Intel-based Mac systems. Newer Macs running on Apple Silicon don’t have an SMC.

Here’s how to reset SMC on MacBooks:

• Disconnect the power cord > shut down your MacBook.
• Hold the Shift + Option + Control keys and then press and hold down the power button.
• Wait for 10 seconds to elapse, and then release the keys.
• Reconnect the power cable with your Mac system and power it ON.

Method 6. Reset NVRAM

Non-volatile RAM or NVRAM is a dedicated memory section that stores data even when the Mac is Powered OFF. It stores information, such as volume settings, screen resolution, brightness, startup disk selection, and more.

If there are any conflicts with these parameters or display settings, your Mac will display the pink screen of death.

Note: The following instructions will work only on Intel-powered Mac systems. Apple Silicon Mac computers automatically test NVRAM on startup and reset it, if required.

• Power OFF your Mac.
• Press the Power button to switch ON the Mac.
• Next, press and hold the Option + Command + P + R keys once your Mac reboots.
• Release the keys once you hear the second startup chime.

Note: If you have a T2-chip enabled Mac, release the above keys after the Apple logo appears and disappears for the second time.

Method 7. Reinstall macOS

If you get the pink screen of death on your Mac after employing the above methods, try  reinstalling macOS. This is a last resort before you take it to an Apple Store or Genius Bar.

Here’s what to do:

• Make sure your Mac is connected to the internet.
• Restart your Mac.
• Once the system starts rebooting, press and hold the Command + R keys. This will boot your Mac into the Recovery Mode.
• Once you see the recovery tools menu on the screen, choose the Reinstall macOS option.
• Follow the on-screen instructions to reinstall macOS on your problematic Mac.

Recover Data from a Mac Showing the Pink Screen of Death

Reinstalling macOS is not destructive. It is always recommended to reinstall macOS on the current installation via the Recovery partition. Yet, there is a chance that certain files may get lost during the process.

If you haven’t set up Time Machine on your Mac or don’t create regular data backups, you can restore missing or lost files safely on your Mac using Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac.

It is a powerful data recovery software for Mac designed to help you recover files lost due to accidental deletion, formatting, emptied Trash, and more. It can even recover data from a crashing or unbootable Mac.

This software can recover all kinds of data, such as media files, documents, archives, emails, and more, from various storage devices like HDDs, SSDs, external drives, flash drives, and SD cards.

Use this software before reinstalling macOS to minimize the chances of data loss. However, you can still use it to recover data after reinstalling macOS.

You can follow this guide to recover data from an unbootable Mac system.

Wrapping Up

While Macs are known for their reliability and efficiency, sometimes, users encounter errors like the pink screen of death and lose access to their data. The methods mentioned above should help you eliminate the root cause behind this problem. If you take your crashing Mac to an Apple store, make sure to safely backup its data beforehand.

Read More

Signs of Logic Board Failure on a MacBook

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About The Author

Keshav Katyal

A passionate writer driven by his interest in everything tech, Keshav Katyal has always been captivated by the latest gadgets since childhood. His interest in technology grew when he got his first gaming console, the Nintendo Game Boy Advanced. Hours and days of tinkering with old & new gadgets made his inner geek passionate about technology.