In this tutorial, we go over four ways to force quit apps on Mac so you can close an app that is misbehaving, is frozen or unresponsive, or has monopolized system resources and is slowing down your computer.
From time to time, you are going to run into issues when a misbehaving app like Safari eats up system resources while refusing to quit the normal way.
As it turns out, you can force-quit a Mac app just as easily as you can on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Vision Pro. So take a minute to check out easy-to-remember shortcuts for force-quitting apps. They’ll come in handy when an app starts to slow your system to a crawl or gets wacky to the point when force-quitting is the only remaining option.
Force-quitting an app removes it from memory, and macOS will try to purge any claimed resources, if possible. As a result, your Mac and apps will perform and multitask more smoothly.
Important: Unlike the normal Quit option, Force Quit won’t offer you a chance to save your unsaved work. So, wait for the app to become responsive if it has unsaved projects.
With that said, here are four ways to force quit apps on Mac.
1. From Finder
- Click the Apple icon from the top left corner and hit Force Quit.
- Select the unresponsive app in the Force Quit window and click the Force Quit button.
- Note that you can also press Command + A to select all apps and then hit the Force Quit button.
2. From the Dock
- Locate the unresponsive app in the Dock and right-click on its icon.
- A contextual menu will open. Hold the Option key, and the word Quit will change to Force Quit. Choose Force Quit to close the app.
3. Using keyboard shortcut
- Press Option + Command + Esc on the keyboard to bring up the Force Quit window. This is similar to pressing Control + Alt + Delete on a PC.
- Select the offending app in the Force Quit window and click the blue Force Quit button to end the process.
4. Force Quit an app directly
To bypass the Force Quit window and force quit the currently active app, make sure the app in question is selected. When it is, you will see this app’s name next to the Apple icon in the top left corner. After that, press the Option + Command + Shift + Esc keys to Force Quit the app.
You can’t force quit some apps
Not all apps appear in the Force Quit window. For instance, several menu bar apps don’t show in the Force Quit window, and thus, you can’t close them using this method.
If such an app is misbehaving, try using the normal Quit option. If that doesn’t work, restart your Mac. But before you do that, make sure the app in question is not set to open automatically on startup. Furthermore, don’t check the “Reopen windows when logging back in” box in the Restart window.
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