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How do I launch Sketch in Safe Mode?

Sometimes an incompatible plugin may be causing Sketch to work unexpectedly or crash. You can use Safe Mode to run Sketch without plugins and see if that’s the case.

How to use Safe Mode

To disable your plugins temporarily, quit Sketch and then launch it again while holding down Shift. This opens it in Safe mode and if everything works as expected, a plugin may have been causing the crash.

To find out which plugin(s) are the cause of your problem, close Sketch and launch without holding Shift to enable plugins again. Choose Sketch › Preferences › Plugins and disable or uninstall all of them. Then add them back one by one until you find which plugin is causing you issues.

Please note: Some plugins, like Craft, will still be loaded even when you disable them, so uninstalling is the only way to make sure they’re not interfering with Sketch.

How to manually disable plugins

If a plugin is crashing Sketch on launch, you can uninstall all of them by moving the Plugins folder to your Desktop:

  • Quit Sketch
  • Open Finder
  • Select Go › Go to Folder… (Cmd + Shift + G)
  • Enter the following path in the dialog that appears: ~/Library/Application Support/com.bohemiancoding.sketch3 and click Go
  • Drag the Plugins folder to your Desktop and relaunch Sketch

Now you can proceed to install your plugins one by one, until you find the one that’s causing the crash.

What can I do about plugin issues?

Plugins are created by third-party developers, so you’d need to get in touch with them for further support and assistance. But before you do, try checking to see if there’s an update available for the plugin that’s causing you issues. That can often solve things.

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