2020 27-inch iMac continuously shuts down and restarts

I have a 27-inch 2020 iMac, and the MacOS is Sequoia 15.5. It is currently using 217.68 GB of 499.96 GB on the hard drive. 115.68 GB of that is "system data." 282.25 GB is available space. I have 40 GB of memory, the extra 32 GB of which was installed in 2020 at the time of purchase, purchased as recommended by the folks at Apple at the time. My iMac had a few issues shutting down a few years ago, but tech support helped mostly resolve those issues.


The usual native Apple apps are installed along with the usual apps for saving and reading documents (Adobe pdf reader, Instapaper, MS Office Suite (installed long ago), Kindle, but nothing weird or more niche. Applications take up 26.47 GB of the hard drive space.


Now, recently (within the last few months), my Mac has been randomly shutting down, sometimes restarting, in the middle of a project. I am a lawyer and I create lots of Word documents for work. I frequently have a legal research site open and I cut and paste text from the research site to my Word document or to an email message in Outlook. I have stopped using my iMac for this because of the frequent shutdowns--it is a total pain to lose work and have to re-do things, I try to save often, but invariably I lose some amount of work. I do most of my work on a work-assigned laptop, but for intensive reading I use my iMac because the large screen size makes it so much easier to read dense legal texts and to draft documents. Other than that, my usage is not intensive: attending or creating Zoom meetings, email, social media, photos, reading magazine articles, watching presentations and interviews on YouTube, etc. Most of my documents are stored on an external hard drive.


As a result, I have recently run Malwarebytes and CleanMyMac for both cleanup and virus scanning. Neither finds any issues and both have eliminated some unnecessary junk, but the shutdown/re-start continues to happen. I have also moved any remaining documents from my Macintosh HD to my external hard drive. I have restarted, cleaned, restarted, shut down, restarted, but the random shutdowns continue, sometimes in fairly rapid succession as I am trying to restart. I have reported all error messages to Apple when that prompt pops up.


I have read other similar threads, all more than two years old, and have found nothing more recent that discusses my issue. I am really hoping I don't need to replace my Mac. Except for this random-shutdown issue, it has served me well.


I would appreciate any advice.


LKH


iMac 27″, macOS 15.5

Posted on Jun 17, 2025 08:10 AM

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35 replies

Jun 17, 2025 11:05 AM in response to lkh916

To add to KiltedTim's recommendations I offer this:


Unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's, school's or bank's servers, they provide false security from a privacy standpoint.  Read these articles:  Pubic VPN's are anything but private and Security Risks: The Dangers of Using Free VPNs (eccu.edu).    


Additionally a new study ("Apple Offers Apps With Ties to Chinese Military”) is specifically about VPN apps in Apple’s App Store.


Also Tim's absolutely correct in the comment about CleanMyMac. After removing it and bitdefender according to the developers' instructions you can check to see if you've removed all of the supporting files by downloading and running the shareware app Find Any File to search for any files with the application's or the developer's name in the file name.  For aforementioned software you'd do the following search(es): 


1 - Name contains cleanmymac

2 - Name contains macpaw

3 - Name contains bitdefender


Any files that are found can be dragged from the search results window to the Desktop or Trash bin in the Dock for deletion.


FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.  


If you get warnings that the file can't be deleted because it is in use or used by another app boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and delete from there.


Note:  if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode.  This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will assure a successful boot into Safe Mode.


Also Malwarebytes is the only "anti" app I use. It was developed by a long time contributor here and a respected member of the internet security community.

Jun 17, 2025 09:41 AM in response to lkh916

EtreCheck will not show heating issues but will show apps and processes known to raise internal temps through workload. Usually the processor will clock back if internal sensors detect too much heat. However, a thermal shutdown remains the ultimate safety action.


If you are not running any useless anti-virus or one of those client-side VPNs that get hyped in TV adverts, the usual cause of overheating in that class of iMacs is workstation arrangement. You iMac must be able to take in cool air and expel hot air.


Cool air intake:


The entire bottom edge of you case has air intakes:



That roughly three inches (75mm) of clearance between the lower edge of the display and the workstation surface must be respected. We had another iMac thermal shutdown complaint and the person posted a picture worth a thousand words:



As the guy on TV says, "Well, THERE"S the problem!"


That area must be fully uncluttered.


Hot air exhaust:


Heated air is expelled through a small exhaust vent inconveniently located behind the top of the iMac 27 stand:



Note that the vent is about the same width as the stand.


I never thought of this as an issue. Then I worked an iMac 27 heat complaint here where the poster eventually revealed that the iMac was mounted ABOVE eye level with the screen tipped fully forward. I tested that positioning on my iMac and found that, in the fully-tipped position, the stand almost completely blocked the exhaust and raised internal temps rapidly.


Has I not been able to reproduce heating on my own iMac, I'd never belived tha to be an issue.


So check that workstation as well.

Jun 28, 2025 03:55 PM in response to lkh916

A final (I hope) update. After erasing the hard disk and installing Mac OS, the whole next day the random restarts continued. I had backed up and I had moved all documents etc to my external hard drive--so there was nothing installed other than the OS. I was getting ready to contact tech support again, but decided to sleep on it. I shut down my iMac and left it off until the next day (most days I don't shut it down--I close all apps and let it sleep). The next day I turned it on and it immediately restarted. Once. I shut it down and turned it back on. Since then, I believe it has only restarted once, maybe twice. I cleaned out the Safari reading list and deleted lots of bookmarks (items I no longer needed). I slowly added a couple essential apps (Pages and Numbers, since I had removed MS Office, and Notion). I did not reinstall Protonmail and am instead relying for now on the web portal to access my email and the Proton app on my phone works fine for more immediate access.


This setup won't work for me long term because we use MS Office for work, but I'm resorting to Office 365 for now, without downloading any of the apps. At least for now, it is working without more restarts. Fingers crossed.

Jun 18, 2025 11:05 PM in response to rkaufmann87

One more updated report. I ran Find Any File again, first in regular mode and also in safe mode. There were still files that I could not remove--the pop-up said I do not have access to remove numerous items. This was in both regular and safe mode. I was ultimately able to remove the previously listed (on previous report) problematic files related to Proton VPN. I was unable to remove numerous other files that included VPN in the name.


It appears that I was able to successfully remove the cleanmymac, macpaw, and bitdefender files.


FYI, for the unsigned files, anything that includes the name LaCie is related to my external hard drive.


For the kernel panics and crashes, although I was able to uninstall/delete several items, I was not able to delete all. The restarts and crashes continue, and at least for today, I had to reboot 3-5 times in a row before the computer would stay on without restarting immediately. So, the issue is not yet resolved, but it seems there has been a small bit of improvement.


Thanks!


Jun 19, 2025 09:54 AM in response to lkh916

If you're using the LaCie drive as a normal external drive formatted either APFS or OS X Extended (journaled) then the LaCie software is unneeded and can adversely affect the systems managing of the drives.


If the above is correct then you should uninstall the LaCie software according to the developer's instructions and confirm complete removal with Find Any File.


Jun 17, 2025 08:34 AM in response to lkh916

Download and run etrecheck and post the report it generates here.


https://etrecheck.com/en/index.html


It is a diagnostic tool written by one of the senior members here. It will provide invaluable information as to what's going on with your Mac. There is not personally identifiable information in the report.


That will give us a good start on figuring out what's wrong.

Jun 17, 2025 09:39 AM in response to lkh916

Get rid of bitdefender. It is also garbage on a Mac.

There are no known viruses in the wild that can infect macOS.

Malwarebytes isn't harmful, but it serves very little purpose if you have not disabled Apple's build in protections.


Get rid of the VPNs. They serve absolutely no legitimate purpose. They do nothing to protect your privacy or secure your data.

Exactly the opposite.





Jun 17, 2025 10:38 AM in response to KiltedTim

OK, will do. Bitdefender and some of the VPNs came as a package with other programs. I think bitdefender and malwarebytes were both related to either my AT&T account that includes these things or my Orbi mesh wifi system, which includes Active Armour or something similar, part of which filters out spam calls to my iPhone. The Proton VPN is part of the paid email family plan. I don't use them, and I don't knowingly use them at home--they are just there for the most part. In case it matters, none of these were newly installed (although every new OS update makes everything appear newly installed--I get alerts that I'm signing in to various things from a new computer. It's not new, its just had its OS updated).


I'll try to uninstall the items that can be separately uninstalled.


Bitdefender does not appear in my apps list.


Proton VPN is part of the proton suite.


I uninstalled malwarebytes.


Need to find all the other items.


Thanks!

Jun 18, 2025 02:51 PM in response to lkh916

Sending from my phone.


I haven’t yet posted a new report. I’ve been fighting with my computer all morning. Keeps shutting down during the login process. As soon as I am able to login and run a new report I will post it. This is very frustrating. I was able to look back at old apple emails and see this was exactly the same issue I had a couple years ago. An online tech reset everything and it has mostly worked since then, until relatively recently.

Jun 19, 2025 07:32 AM in response to lkh916

+1 to Kilted Tim's advice to backup and then do an erase and install of Mac OS. Then restore your data files and manually install all third party apps. Your system likely has been made a mess of due to the third party security (Antivirus, Cleaning, VPN, Security, Maintenance) apps that you installed to the point that the ONLY way the computer will be stable again is to erase and start over again. Yes this is a lot of work however the lesson that should have been learned is NEVER EVER install any of those types of third party apps.


All that Mac OS requires to remain stable, fast and secure is simply keep it up-to-date and restart the computer about 1x per week. Other than that please leave Mac OS alone!

Jun 20, 2025 01:05 PM in response to lkh916

I spent all day yesterday online with Apple tech support. After many tries, we were ultimately able to erase the hard disk, run all the first aid functions, and reinstall the Mac OS. Took several tries to get Catalina installed (numerous restarts in the middle among other issues), and then took several tries to get Sequoia installed (again restarts). I did not restore it from a backup--I am adding only necessary things manually. I am still experiencing restarts, but not with the same frequency as before. After an initial restart when I first logged on for the day today, it has not done it again. Yet.


I appreciate all your input, although the tone of a couple messages was somewhat off-putting.


I will say I think it would be good if Apple would tell people right up front when purchasing a computer not to install any of the kinds of programs that you all agree were the likely problems here. I have bought several Apple computers over the years, and have never received this information before posting here. If I had, I would not have allowed any of these products to be installed in the first place. The mainstream news ecosystem warns the general public that they need to take precautions for viruses, security, and privacy, and the media don't distinguish between Apple products and others. The opinions you all shared here don't make their way to the general population as far as I can see. Based on the number of threads here just like mine, asking for help with the same problem, most people are unaware of this information. I read many of these threads before deciding to post here.


Anyway, thanks.

Aug 14, 2025 09:21 AM in response to lkh916

Here’s what I found out after trial and error. I had exactly the same problem and found out that the chips on this thing run hotter than ****! What you need to do is download an extension to control the fan (there are a few available) set the fan speed to around 80% of full and on all the time, then forget that you ever had a problem! My Mac was crashing 7 times a day and now it hardly ever crashes. Good luck!

2020 27-inch iMac continuously shuts down and restarts

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