How to Remove Malware from a Mac

Mac computers can also be infected with viruses and malware, which is contrary to what some people think. If your Apple computer is infected with a virus, you may notice it is running slower than usual. Mac malware can also cause system instability or other unpredictable behavior, including web browser issues.

If your Mac is infected, how do you remove malware and ensure your system is healthy? This guide will explore some of the most practical Mac malware detection and cleaning measures you can take.

Continue reading to learn how to remove malware from your Mac.

How to determine if your Mac is infected with the virus

Sometimes, malware tries to hide itself. Other times, it will be more obvious, which may be intentional by malware designers or side effects that virus writers never expected. Either way, there may be some warning signs that can help you remove viruses on your trusted Macintosh.

Signs of Mac malware

Whether you are using an iMac, MacBook, or Mac mini, malware can cause the following symptoms:

• Mac is extremely slow, especially when it suddenly slows down
• Mac freezes or restarts unexpectedly
• Your web browser changes its homepage and/or search engine
• Files and folders cannot be opened
• Error messages frequently pop up on Mac
• One or more processes occupy all RAM and/or CPU resources
• Disk space mysteriously disappeared.

These symptoms may be caused by legal factors, such as background downloads or software conflicts. If you want to clear viruses on your Mac, you need a reliable way to check for the causes of bad behavior.

How to clear viruses on your Mac

Now that you have learned how to detect viruses on your Mac, it's time to discuss the best steps to remove malware. Here is how to remove viruses on your Mac:

1. Disconnect the Internet

Malware is often designed to connect to the internet—send stolen information to criminals, use your machine to spam, or just spread itself further. If you are trying to clear potential threats detected on your Mac, it is best to disable your internet connection.

Here's how to disable Wi-Fi on your Mac:

1. In System settings, click Network
2. Select Wi-Fi
3. Click the switch to turn off Wi-Fi.

How to disable Ethernet on Mac:

1. In System settings, click Network > Ethernet
2. Click Set to invalid .

To make sure you are not connected to the internet, you can unplug the Ethernet cable.

2. Restart in safe mode

Sometimes, malware is hard to remove because it loads immediately upon macOS startup. However, if you boot in safe mode, you might be able to delete this malware, as it is designed to load only the files and applications needed to run by macOS. Safe Mode also removes some system caches so that they can be rebuilt automatically.

How to boot in safe mode on Intel Mac:

1. Hold down Shift key immediately after Mac boots or restarts
2. When you see the login window, release the Shift key
3. Login with your common details
4. You should see Safe Boot in the upper right corner of the login screen.

How to boot in safe mode on Apple Silicon Mac:

1. Close your Mac. Press and hold the power button for 10 seconds
2. Release it when you see the launch options window
3. Select your boot disk and hold down the Shift key
4. When prompt appears, click to continue in safe mode and release Shift key
Login and you should find your Mac in safe mode.

If your Mac is running normally now, it is either that there is malware on it that is not loaded in safe mode, or that you have some other type of software-related issues. If you know what you are looking for, you can try to delete suspicious files, extensions, and more. Restart your Mac normally and see if your problem is resolved.

3. Find suspicious processes in Activity Monitor

If you suspect malware exists on your Mac, check the Activity Monitor first. This built-in macOS tool shows you what is running on your Mac, including what is running in the background. If anything takes up a lot of CPU cycles or RAM, it can be malware, and the Activity Monitor can help you find it.

Here is how to check macOS malware with Activity Monitor:

Open
1. Activity Monitor from App > Utility. Click the CPU tab, and then click the % CPU column to sort the processes by CPU usage. Find processes you don't know and are using a lot of processing power
Write bytes to
2. MemoryColumn in MemoryTab, DiskTab, Number of bytes to , The number of sent bytes in the Network tab performs the same operation. Note down anything that looks suspicious and search for it using Google. If it is malware or something else you don't want, double-click it in Activity Monitor and click to exit
. Then click
3. to force exit to terminate the process.

Stopping the process will not eliminate it. It may start again immediately, or when you restart your Mac.

4. Delete malicious programs

If an app causes suspicious activity on your Mac, you should delete it by uninstalling the app. This may not completely remove malware from your Mac, but it is an important step. If you suspect an application is not safe, check out our guide on how to remove the Trojan Horse Virus.

This is the general way to uninstall applications on your Mac:

1. In the Finder, navigate to your application folder. If you see anything suspicious, right-click it and select Move to Trash.
Now right-click on your Trash and select
2. Empty Trash.

Warning to manually delete malware

Be very careful when manually removing malware from your Mac – you may delete the wrong content and make the Mac worse.

If you have questions, you may need to contact Apple Support. You can also get support from

MacKeeper's premium service—as an alternative to quickly resolve user issues.

5. Remove Mac malware from login

Malware is usually designed to start when the computer starts. On a Mac, you may find these listed in the

Logins section of the system settings. Please follow the steps below to check:

Open
1. System settings and select General > Login
See if there is any suspicious content in the list. Select the content you want to delete and click the
2. minus button
Restart your Mac and check if the suspicious login item has not been reinstalled on its own.

Unfortunately, the standard login tool does not display everything launched with macOS. To find and stop these hidden projects, use the

MacKeeper login tool to find more types of startup processes. 6. Run the antivirus application

A good antivirus application can quickly scan your entire Mac and compare each file with a huge database of threat and suspicious behavior. MacKeeper Antivirus is such an app that makes it easy to find and remove Mac malware.

Here is how to run antivirus scans on your Mac using MacKeeper:

1. Select Antivirus software
from the sidebar
2. Click to start scanning, and then wait for the virus scanning to complete
3. Check the results to prevent false positives. Then click Delete >Delete .

How to automatically clear viruses on your Mac

While malware can be identified and removed manually on Mac, this is not the best way to deal with this problem. This is time-consuming and laborious, and you may delete what you need. With the right tools, you can automatically find and delete malware in minutes.

7. Verify the browser's homepage

One of the favorite tricks for malware creators is to take over people’s web browser homepage. Doing so, they can serve you ads or notifications that they get paid—or, in worse cases, direct you to other sites that may have more malware installed.

With Safari, you can do the following to check if your homepage is not affected:

1. Click on the address bar to display the full URL and make sure it is accurate
2. In the menu bar, select Safari > Settings
3. In the General tab, check the content next to Homepage . If it is wrong, change it.

Check your homepage with Chrome like:

1. Double-click on the address bar to display the full URL and verify it
2. Select Chrome > Settings
from the menu bar
3. Click Appearance, and then under the Show Home Page button, check the URL.

In case of severe infection, your homepage may still be redirected and it will not be fixed until you delete the virus from your Mac.

8. Clear cache

You have various caches in your cache. Each application and web browser has its own cache, but there are also system caches. Clearing these temporary files can help you remove all traces of malware from your desktop or laptop Mac.

Please follow the steps below to manually clear the cache on your Mac:

1. In the Filestor, select from the menu bar to go > Go to folder
2. Enter ~/Library/Caches/ and press Enter
3. You can now see cached files for many applications on your Mac
4. Delete the contents of the folder to clear the cache.

While manually deleting cached files may work, it is not always clear what you are trying to delete, so you may be at risk of messing up some of the content. Avoid this risk with MacKeeper's secure cleaning - find and delete cached data in just a few clicks.

9. Delete suspicious browser extensions

If you have problems with web browsers, they may be caused by rogue extensions. Remove any recently installed extensions and any extensions that are not from reputable sources. Here we will introduce how to remove extensions from Safari and Chrome, but other browsers (such as Firefox) have similar processes.

How to remove extensions in Safari:

1. In Safari, click Safari from the top menu and select Settings . In the Extensions tab, select an extension and click the Uninstall button
2. Click Show in the finder
3. Delete the extension like you would delete any other file.

How to remove extensions from Chrome:

1. In Chrome, select Window > Task Manager
2. Sort the CPU columns to see if any extensions are using a lot of processing power. Perform the same operation on the memoryoccupation and network columns
3. Now select Window > Extension
from the menu bar
4. View the installed extensions and click the Delete button on any suspicious extensions.

MacKeeper's Smart Uninstaller Not only can you delete applications, but you can also delete extensions, including extensions installed by malware.

10. Get rid of pop-up ads on your Mac

Another symptom of malware infection is the increase in pop-up ads, which may affect browser performance. Thankfully, there are some steps you can take to eliminate these annoyances.

To block popups in Safari:

1. In Safari, select Safari > Settings from the menu bar and go to the Website tab. In the sidebar, click pop-up window
2. Use the drop-down menu to block pop-ups.

Please follow these steps to block popups in Chrome:

1. In the menu bar, go to Chrome > Settings and then go to Privacy and Security > Website Settings
2. Scroll down and select Popt and Redirect
3. View the list under Allow sending pop-ups and using redirects. Click the three dots next to the entry and select Block .

MacKeeper's adware cleaner makes it easier to remove malware that causes unwanted popups. In just a few minutes, this adware removal program will get your Mac out of unwanted applications.

11. Reset the system and restore from backup

When you try to remove viruses from your Mac, you may need to restore from your backup. Using the Time Machine feature built in macOS, you can restore the machine to a previously saved snapshot that was taken before you infect the malware.

Suppose you have activated Time Machine, here is how to restore from backup:

1. Go to System Settings > General > Transfer or reset
2. Tap Erase all content and settings and follow the on-screen instructions to erase all user data
3. After resetting and restarting macOS, open Application > Utilities > Migration Assistant. Click to continue and enter your system password.
4. Select Backup or boot disk from Mac, Time Machine and click Continue
5. Select your Time Machine backup and click Continue
6. Select the backup you want to restore from, and click Continue . Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the recovery.

12. Erase your Mac and reinstall macOS

If all other methods fail, you can erase your Mac and reinstall macOS. Of course, if you can't start macOS at all, this might be the only solution for you to remove viruses from your Mac. To reinstall the operating system, you need to enter macOS recovery mode.

Enter recovery mode on Apple silicon Mac like this:

1. Close your Mac
2. Press and hold the power button until you see Loading boot options
3. Select the option > Continue and follow the instructions.

Enter recovery mode on Intel Mac using the following steps:

1. Press Cmd R
immediately after the machine starts
2. In the Restore application, select Reinstall your macOS version and select Continue
3. Follow the instructions to reinstall macOS.

Please check out our guide on factory resetting of your Mac for more information.

How to protect your Mac from malware

Of course, prevention is better than treatment. If you take the right precautions, you may never have to remove the virus from your Mac.

Here are some ways to protect your Mac from viruses and other malware:

• Don't open email attachments from people you don't know
• Don't visit websites you don't trust
• Avoid piracy of websites and services
• Use a unique and powerful password
• Purchase apps from the App Store whenever possible
• Use Mac antivirus software with real-time malware protection
• Use an ad blocker to prevent your web browser from downloading dangerous files
• Regularly backup your important files just in case.

The best way to remove malware from your Mac

The best way to remove malware is without a doubt be to use an automated checker like MacKeeper's antivirus software . Manually deleting viruses is slow and you need to know what to look for.

With MacKeeper, you can quickly and securely scan the entire Mac and remove malware while keeping the rest of your data unaffected. Thanks to the real-time protection feature, our tools can also help you prevent malware from entering your Mac from the very beginning.

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