Learn how to force-quit apps on your Apple Watch to fix unresponsive apps and improve performance with these simple steps.
The option to force quit apps is available on all major Apple platforms, such as iPhone and iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Vision Pro, and Apple Watch.
While Apple does not recommend force closing apps to save battery, it becomes essential to force quit an app when it’s not responding or working correctly.
Force quit apps on Apple Watch
1) Make sure the app you want to quit is on the watch screen.
2) Long-press the side button until you see the power off screen.
3) Long-press the Digital Crown until the power off screen disappears. You have successfully force closed the app on your Apple Watch.
While the app may remain in your Dock (accessed by double pressing the Digital Crown or pressing the side button on older versions of watchOS), rest assured that it’s killed and flushed from the memory. If you relaunch the app, it should go through the first-time loading process.
Force quit apps on watchOS 3 and before
To force quit on watchOS 3 and earlier, you have to hold the side button until the power options appear; then, let it go and hold the side button again until the app disappears.
Starting with watchOS 4, this old process no longer works because holding the side button on the power menu initiates the Emergency SOS feature.
Should you force quit apps on Apple Watch?
Like iPhone and iPad, force-quitting apps in the hope of prolonging battery life or improving performance is a bad idea that has the exact opposite effect on your Apple Watch battery.
watchOS is better than any human at allocating system resources sparingly to apps that need them. Therefore, refrain from force-quitting apps unless absolutely necessary.
There are some exceptions to this rule — troublesome apps may easily monopolize system resources and put an additional strain on Apple Watch’s limited system resources.
If you’ve determined that an app is a battery hog, force-quitting it will save battery power. If an app behaves wacky or stops responding completely, force-quitting is your only option.
Just don’t overuse it, and you’ll be fine.
Remove an app from the Apple Watch Dock
While multitasking on your Apple Watch, you can close unnecessary apps from the Dock (or Multitasker or App Switcher) to make switching among apps quicker. In other words, with the help of these, you can clear some recently used watch apps.
1) Double press the Digital Crown. If you’re on an older version of watchOS, press the side button once.
2) Swipe or turn the Digital Crown to reach the app you wish to remove.
3) Swipe left on the app card and tap X.
4) Press the Digital Crown or side button to exit the Dock.
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