How to Check and Clean Your Hosts File (Mac)

This guide is for mac computers. If you’re on Windows, use this guide. Linux users should use this guide.

A few different Minecraft issues can be caused by your computers hosts file:

• “Authentication servers are down for maintenance” when signing in with a Microsoft account.
• “Switch to Mojang mode” when trying to join servers from a Microsoft account.
• Unable to login to minecraft.net or the launcher, on one device, but can on others.
• Problems purchasing Minecraft.

To fix these issues, follow the steps below to check and clean your hosts file:

• Open a finder window.
• Select Applications
• Double click Utilities
• Double click Terminal
• In the Terminal window: type sudo nano /etc/hosts and then press return.
• Type your administrator password and then press return.
• You should see a window similar to this:

• Remove any lines that contain Mojang
• Hold Control + O to save the file.
• Hold Control + X to exit window.
• Head to minecraft.net and change your password.

You can now restart the launcher and login to your account as normal.

Still need some help?

If you still need help, make a post on r/MinecraftHelp and one of us will guide you through the steps.