Rather than closing the window, you have to actually quit the app, otherwise is stays running on your Mac even though the window has been closed. Most Mac users are aware of how to quit an app on their Mac, but in this piece, we’ll be sharing six ways you can quit apps on your Mac so you can experiment with various app-quitting methods. Quit current app. You can use Command + Option + Shift + Escape to force the currently active app to quit, just hold the sequence down for a few seconds. Control-Option-click (Ctrl-Alt-Click) an app icon on the Dock and you should see the Force Quit option appear, tap it to Force Quit the app. How to Force Quit a Frozen App in Mac Using Keyboard Shortcuts To Force Quit a App. The best way to force quit the apps on Mac is to use the keyboard shortcuts. Apple has offered the keyboard shortcuts for almost all the functions. To force quit the apps, press Command (⌘)+ Option (⌥)+ Escape button on your keyboard. You must press these. Now you have to select the Force Quit option at the bottom of the drop-down list and It will force quit on Mac. Option Key You can manually close down the application by right-clicking at the misbehaving app in the Dock(You can also Ctrl-Click instead of Right-Click).
We’ve all seen the spinning beachball appear on our Mac’s screen and grown in frustration as we wait for the application that has hung to respond. Sometimes it doesn’t and we have to resort to force quit to shut it down and start again. But what happens when force quit is not working? We’ll answer that question and show you exactly what to do.
A quick replacement for Force Quit is found in CleanMyMac X. This program by MacPaw has a tool that switches off your hanging apps (and checks if they take up too much memory). We’ll show you how to use it later in the article.
Download the free version of CleanMyMac X here (app is notarized by Apple)
Why force quit?
Force quitting an application is a pretty drastic course of action. It tells the app to stop what it’s doing immediately and not to display any of the dialogs it might usually show you before it closes. However, it can be useful, despite the risk of losing data, if the app in question hangs and fails to respond for several minutes, and especially if it causes the rest of your Mac to hang or even just slow down.
How do you force quit?
There are several different ways to force quit an application.
- Press Command-Option-Escape, select the app from the box that opens, and press Force Quit.
- If you can access the Apple menu, click on it, choose Force Quit, select the app and press Force Quit.
- Right-click or Control-click on the app’s icon in the Dock and choose Force Quit.
Try to force quit it from the Dock
If you hold down Option and click on an app in the Dock, you will see an extra option for Force Quit. See if that one works. Flash media server 4.5 download.
What to do when an application won’t force quit
Sometimes none of the options above works and the app carries on hanging. Hands on the wheel mp3 download. Don’t worry, there are other things you can try.
Use Activity Monitor
Activity Monitor is designed to allow you to monitor the performance of processes on your Mac. However, it can also quit those processes and so force quit the apps running them.
- Go to Applications > Utilities and double-click Activity Monitor to launch it.
- Click the CPU column header to order processes according to the CPU cycles they are using.
- The process causing the application to hang will probably be at or near the top. Select it then press Quit Process.
- The app should now force quit.
Use CleanMyMac X’s Optimization module
- If you don’t already have CleanMyMac X installed on your Mac, download it here and install it.
- Choose Optimization in the sidebar. Then click View all Items.
- Select Hung Applications, then the app you want to quit and press Quit at the bottom of the window.
Disable Launch Agents
Many processes displayed by Force Quit performed by a class of applications called Launch Agents. It could be an automatic app updater that works invisibly in the background. The same tool we’ve just described has a sub-menu called Launch Agents (see the screenshot above). It will force quit the unwanted launch agents — when the regular Force Quit doesn’t work.
Use Terminal
If, for some reason, Activity Monitor doesn’t do the job, or you can’t launch it, try using Terminal instead.
- Go to Applications > Utilities and double-click Terminal to launch it.
- Type: ps -ax
- Press Return.
You will now see a list of running apps and processes in the Terminal window. Locate the application you want to force quit. (Its row will start /Applications/). Now, the quitting part:
- Note the number on the far left of the row, that’s the PID.
- Type: kill [PID] (replace [PID] with the number you noted down in step 6).
- Press Return.
Restart your Mac
If none of the methods we described above works and the application just won’t quit, you may need to restart your Mac. Normally, we’d tell you to click on the Apple menu and choose Restart. But if a misbehaving app won’t force quit, the chances are that it has grabbed most of the resources on your Mac and caused it to beachball, meaning you can’t click on the Apple menu. So here’s what to do.
- Press and hold the power button (if you have a MacBook with a Touch Bar, it’s the Touch ID button).
- Wait until you see the Apple logo on the screen.
- Release the power button and wait for your Mac to restart.
Check for an update to the misbehaving app
The first thing you should do after you restart is try and figure out why the application was misbehaving. And the first step in that process is to check to see if you’re running the latest version.
If the app was downloaded from the App Store, you can check it there. If not, clicking on the [APP NAME] menu will normally display an option to check for updates.
However, there is an even easier way. CleanMyMac X (the app is available for a free download here) allows you, with a couple of clicks, to check multiple apps for updates at the same time, then with another click, update them.
- Choose Updater in the sidebar.
- Check the box next to the apps you want to update.
- Press Update.
It can be very frustrating when an application stops responding or starts beach balling. It’s even worse if the app brings your whole Mac to a standstill. However, force quitting the app usually solves the problem. There are a number of different ways to force quit apps, all of them described above. If you think your Mac’s force quit isn’t working, try a different method. Use the Optimize and Updater modules in CleanMyMac X regularly and you may never need to force quit an app again, and if you do, the methods we’ve described can help identify the culprit and quit it for you.
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If an application freezes on your Mac computer, here we cover 4 ways to help you force quit the app on Mac. To recover lost data or mistakenly deleted files on a Mac computer, MiniTool software provides a professional Mac data recovery program.
When a program is not responding on your Mac computer, you can force quit the app to close it on Mac. How to do it? In this tutorial, we introduces 4 ways to help you force quit Mac.
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How to Force Quit an App on Mac – 4 Ways
How To Force Quit An App In Mac Os X
Normally you can shut down an application on Mac by clicking Quit from the app menu bar, or you can press Command + Q key on the keyboard at the same time to close the app.
If you can’t close the app in the normal way, you can try the 4 ways below force an app to quit on Mac.
Method 1. Force Quit Mac Keyboard Shortcut
Is there a Ctrl + Alt + Delete Mac function to help force quit applications on Mac?
Unlike Windows, Mac computer doesn’t use the typical Ctrl + Alt + Delete keyboard shortcut to force close a program. The equivalent keyboard shortcut keys to open the Force Quit window on Mac is Command + Option + Esc.
Step 1. You can press Command + Option + Esc keys simultaneously on Mac to open Force Quit Applications dialog.
Step 2. Choose the app that doesn’t respond in Force Quit Applications window, and click Force Quit button to force quit the app on Mac.
Method 2. How to Force Quit on Mac from Apple Menu
Step 1. You can also click Apple icon at the top-left corner of Mac screen and select Force Quit from the Apple menu to access Force Quit Applications window.
Step 2. You can see the list of all running applications in Force Quit window. Find the frozen application and click it. Then hit Force Quit button to close it on Mac.
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Method 3. How to Force Quit on a Mac with Activity Monitor
We know that the Ctrl + Alt + Delete shortcut is used to open the Task Manager window. There is a similar alternative on Mac to monitor and end unresponsive process in task manager Mac. This alternative to Windows Task Manger is called Activity Monitor.
You can force kill an app on Mac using Activity Monitor.
Step 1. Open Activity Monitor on Mac. You can press Command + Space key at the same time to open Activity Monitor. You can also click the Spotlight icon at the upper-right corner of Mac screen, and type activity monitor to open it. How to download pagemaker for mac.
Step 2. Click the app you want to close, and click the X icon at the top-left corner to force a process to quit on Mac.
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How To Force Quit An App In Mac Os
Method 4. Mac Force Quit with Dock
You can find the app icon in the Dock at the bottom of the screen. Press the Option key on the keyboard and right-click the app icon in the Dock. The Quit option in the list would turn to Force Quit. Click Force Quit to force the application to shut down on Mac.
At last, if Force Quit Mac is not working, you can force restart Mac computer.
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How To Force Quit An App In Mac
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