#How to force close mac application how to#
#How to force close mac application mac os#
#How to force close mac application windows#

Step 1: Open your Applications folder, scroll down to Utilities, and launch Terminal. Method 5: Use Terminalįor technically savvy users, this method is complicated, but it’s the last trick we have up our sleeve if nothing else has worked. There is one last method you can try if restarting your device is out of the question. If that still doesn’t do the trick, it might be a good idea to save all your open work and restart your iMac or MacBook, which will likely solve the problem. Step 2: From the task manager that displays everything running on your computer, find the misbehaving app, select it, and click the button that resembles a Stop Sign in the top-left corner. Step 1: Open the Activity Monitor by clicking on the Spotlight icon - i.e., the magnifying glass in the top-right corner of your screen - and typing Activity Monitor in the text box. There’s no need to panic if this doesn’t close down the app because there are other avenues to find a solution. Step 2: Then, press and hold the Option key, which turns the Quit selection to Force Quit in the list of options. Step 1: Just Right-Click or Ctrl-Click on the misbehaving app in your Dock.

You’re probably better off handling issues yourself by going in and choosing the specific apps you want to shut down. This program can be tricky and fickle, causing issues that might be hard to solve. Step 3: Just select the application that’s giving you trouble and click Force Quit.Īlso, if you’re looking for even more keyboard shortcuts to speed up your computing on MacOS, check out our handy guide. Step 2: Like other methods, this will bring up the Force Quit Applications window.

#How to force close mac application windows#

Step 1: Similar to Ctrl+Alt+Del on Windows 10, hit Opt + Cmd + Esc on your keyboard (on some Mac keyboards, Opt is labeled as Alt). If that doesn’t work, it’s time for keyboard shortcuts. Step 3: Just select the one that’s giving you trouble and click Force Quit at the bottom. Step 2: This should bring up the Force Quit Applications window that displays your open applications. Step 1: Click on the Apple icon in the top-left corner of your screen and select Force Quit from the list. Method 1: Use the Finderįirst up is Apple’s recommended course of action for when an app starts to wear out its welcome. These methods are compatible with MacOS Big Sur. Just a word of warning - using force quit should be a last resort. Once you hit force quit, it’s too late for all of that, and MacOS will immediately shut the app down without any prompts. Keep in mind that unlike the normal method for quitting an app, there aren’t going to be any prompts asking you to save your work or confirming your decision. Thankfully, you’ve got options, and there’s more than one way to force quit an unresponsive app in MacOS. Whether MacOS is giving you a spinning beach ball of death or a particular app is taking too long to close, sometimes you just need to immediately close an app and get back to work.

#How to force close mac application mac os#

This feature is around in basically all versions of Mac OS X, so it doesn’t matter what system software your Mac is running, you’ll be able to use it. You can also force quit apps with the task management utility Activity Monitor or by hitting Command+Option+Escape to bring up a Force Quit hovering menu with an app selector to choose what apps to terminate. This is not a well known trick, but it’s quite handy. Many users will find this Dock trick to be faster too, which is ok because it’s very easy, and the Dock is basically always open and available, making it a very reasonable place to quit and forcibly exit out of apps in OS X. This can be helpful if you need to quickly Force Quit a Mac app but the other force quit options aren’t available for whatever reason. The option key modifier turns the menu option into alternate choices, in this case “Force Quit” instead of “Quit”. Right-click on the Dock icon of the app to Forcibly Quit, then hold down the OPTION key.

To change the “Quit” option to “Force Quit” within the same Dock icon menu: Forcibly Quitting an App Using the Mac Dock Icon What if the app won’t quit because it’s frozen or unresponsive? Then you can turn the Quit option into Force Quit using a modifier key.

Right-Click (or two-finger tap with trackpad) on any running Mac app and choose “Quit”.

To simply quit out of an app from the Dock icon of any Mac application running in Mac OS:

#How to force close mac application how to#

How to Quit an Open Application from the Dock Icon on Mac Perhaps not well known, but the Dock of Mac OS can function as a task management tool of sorts by using a key modifier and icon trick, letting you quit and forcibly exit out of applications that are actively running.