How to Rebuild the macOS Font Cache via Terminal to Fix Garbled Text

Diagnosing Garbled Text and Missing Icons

macOS relies on a complex, system-wide font cache to rapidly render text across applications like Safari, Pages, and the Finder. Over time, particularly after a major macOS update or after installing a massive bundle of third-party fonts (like Adobe Typekit), this cache can become corrupted.

Symptoms of a corrupted font cache include:

• Text appearing as bizarre symbols, question marks, or entirely blank spaces.
• Specific applications (like Microsoft Word) crashing immediately upon launch.
• System icons in the menu bar turning into generic rectangles.

Because the font caching engine runs deep within the macOS core, you cannot fix this by simply restarting the computer. You must drop down to the Terminal and forcefully purge the database using the atsutil (Apple Type Services Utility) command.

Step 1: Terminating the Font Server

Before you can delete the corrupted databases, you must shut down the background daemon that is actively using them. This daemon is known as the Apple Type Services (ATS) server.

1. Close all running applications, particularly design apps like Photoshop or InDesign.
2. Open the Terminal application (found in Applications > Utilities).
3. Run the following command to shut down the font server:

sudo atsutil databases -remove

Because you are manipulating a core system service, you must use sudo. Press Enter, type your administrator password, and press Enter again. The terminal will delete the system font cache, the user font cache, and the font registry.

Step 2: Restarting the Font Server

Now that the corrupted files have been deleted, you must instruct the ATS daemon to restart. When it restarts, it will detect that the cache is missing and will automatically begin scanning your hard drive to rebuild a fresh, clean database from scratch.

Run the following command in the terminal:

atsutil server -ping

The -ping flag acts as a wake-up call to the font daemon, forcing it to immediately spin back up and begin processing fonts.

Step 3: The Mandatory Reboot

While the ATS server is now running with a clean database, the window manager and various background applications have likely already loaded the old, corrupted fonts into their active RAM.

To ensure the fix is applied globally across the entire operating system, you must immediately restart your Mac.

You can do this from the Apple menu, or simply type sudo shutdown -r now into the terminal.

When the Mac boots back up, the garbled text will be gone, and applications should launch smoothly.