A program says not responding
My program freezes and says not responding. Do I have to lose my work?
Written by The CommonFixes team · fact checked by CommonFixes review desk
Last updated
Short answer
The program is busy with one task and cannot answer the screen. Very often it recovers on its own if you wait. The quickest thing to try first: wait two full minutes before anything else — Do not keep clicking. Every extra click adds to the queue the program must work through. Many frozen windows come back to life within a minute. Most people are done in about 5 minutes.
Full walkthrough below: 5 steps for Windows and Mac, rated easy.
Sounds like this
- •Grey window
- •Spinning circle
- •Title bar says not responding
Why it happens
The program is busy with one task and cannot answer the screen. Very often it recovers on its own if you wait.
Work through these in order
0% done- 1
Wait two full minutes before anything else
Do not keep clicking. Every extra click adds to the queue the program must work through. Many frozen windows come back to life within a minute.
- 2
Look for a hidden dialog box
Press Alt and Tab to cycle windows. A small print or save box waiting for an answer behind the main window freezes everything until you respond to it.
- 3
Close only that program
Press Control, Shift and Escape, select the program, and click End task. On a Mac press Command, Option and Escape and choose Force Quit.
- 4
Reopen and take the recovered file
Office apps offer a Document Recovery pane on the next start. Choose the most recent version and save it under a new name straight away.
- 5
Turn on autosave for next time
In Word or Excel open File, Options, Save, and set the autosave interval to two minutes so a freeze can never cost you much again.
If none of that worked
If the same program freezes daily, repair it from Settings, Apps, then Modify and Repair, before reinstalling.
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Who wrote this and how we checked it
The CommonFixes team
Writer and researcher
We are a small group of people who spend our days repairing laptops and desktops for family, friends and small offices. Every guide here starts with a problem someone actually brought to us, and we only write down the steps that put the machine right.
- Everyday repairs
- Windows and Mac
- Plain language
CommonFixes review desk
Technical editor
Before a guide goes live, a second person walks through it on a real machine and checks each instruction against the maker's own support pages. Anything we cannot confirm is removed rather than guessed at.
- Fact checking
- Safety warnings
- Source links
This guide was last updated on 10 August 2026. If a step no longer matches what you see on screen, tell us on the contact page and we will test it again.
A gentle reminder: back up anything you cannot afford to lose before major repairs. If a step ever feels risky, stop and ask a technician. There is no shame in that.