Lately my Mac has been stuck in full screen when watching videos. It happens in Safari and Firefox. I have to actually force quit to get out of it. I ran disk utility first aid but nothing has changed. Any ideas?

The keyboard shortcut for exiting full screen mode is to hit the ESC key.....did that not work for you?

The other method for exiting full screen mode is to push your cursor off the top of the screen to reveal (pop down) the normal red / amber / green pills, then click on the green pill to toggle out of full screen mode and return to standard window display.....did that method quit working for you?

Hi: Yes, I know about using the ECS button but it quit working for me.
I will try the second method when it happens again. The reason I never use the green button is because if puts things in full screen and takes away the menu bar which I always want to see. Let's see what happens. Thanks.

OK Rita,

Let us know if the green pill toggle will get you back to the standard display when the ESC key lets you down.....I'm a little surprised that the ESC key stopped working for you, as that is hard-wired pretty deeply into the Operating System as a standard. Do you have any third party utility applications running in the background? That's the only possibility that comes to mind for me.....to test for this, you can restart into SafeBoot mode (hold down the shift key during startup - it takes a while) to disable third party extensions. Then you can toggle into and out of Full Page display made to confirm what works and what doesn't.

I'm surprised it stopped working also. I looked online and others have had the same problem. As far as booting into SafeMode, I don't like it because I would have to be in it for some time to see if it happens again, and it looks a little like I'm under water in Safe Mode. If I restart in SafeMode that would undo the freeze anyway. I have third party extensions if that's what you mean by utilities, but they have never conflicted with videos before. Can't I just go into the Develop menu and disable extensions? That's easier. Thanks.

You don't even need the Development Menu. Just go to Safari > Preferences > Extensions and uncheck the extension you do not want active.

Right. But I usually disable them all at once to see if they are even the problem. If so, then I do one by one if necessary. Thanks, JoeMike.

I just checked and when my videos are in full screen mode, there is no way to pop down the red/amber/green buttons. I tried putting my cursor up to the top but nothing happened. I wasn't stuck in full screen mode I was just checking to see if I could see the buttons. Nope. Not while in full screen mode.

Rita, my apologies if you have already tried this, but typically with videos that have been expanded into full screen mode, placing the cursor near the bottom right of the image will reveal an icon that looks something like two diagonal arrows pointing at one another. Clicking on that takes the image out of full screen mode and returns control to the browser and OS

Oh wow, just the opposite corner of the escape button. I will try that next time it happens. Thanks so much.Of course, if it doesn't work you will hear about it.

I am counting on it! 😁

Hee hee. And wouldn't you know since I asked for help it hasn't happened again. I kind of hope it does so I can test it out.

Hi there: I'm back. Just FYI, a video on Safari locked up on me. When I went to the lower right hand corner for the "arrows, they weren't there. They are only there while the video isn't frozen. Instead of force quitting, I clicked on the Safari icon on the dock and it opened up! The video was gone but at least I didn't have to force quit and I was done with the video anyway which is usually the case. It doesn't freeze during play, only when trying to escape or use the arrows. So that's good enough for me.