How to Force Quit App on Mac

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How to Force Quit App on Mac – Guide

Forcing a frozen application to close is the same as eliminating the symptoms when we get sick or curing the virus. We need to see the big picture and understand what is causing the problem and how to fix it, while understanding how to prevent it from happening again. The main reason we have problems with apps frozen on a Mac is insufficient memory – or on another words, the lack of computer memory to run the system compared to the number of applications you normally open (including the many tabs opened in a browser). Therefore, whenever the system uses all its resources to perform the task, it stops responding. Think of RAM as a physical workbench.

The more space (memory) you have to work with, the more projects you can work on. Small space? Less ability to work on multiple things at once. Forcing the Mac to shut down solves the problem, but it can have drawbacks. Closing an app the traditional way will clear up everything that is running in the background and prompts you to save your work. If you force shut down on Mac, you could lose files and data or mess things up up in the unit. While the effect only applies to the specific app that crashed, it can sometimes be painful.

How to Force shutdown an application on macOS

Although the instructions may vary depending on the version of macOS you are using (Big Sur, Catalina, etc.), forcing an application to close is relatively easy. There are several ways to force an application to close in macOS. We’ll cover that in this section.

close an application

Before we dive into other methods, let’s first make sure you’re closing the app correctly. All open applications on Mac are displayed at the bottom of the screen. This is known as a ‘Dock’. You can try closing the app by following these steps:

use the ‘control’ button and the mouse or trackpad to click on the app.

While holding down the Option key, you will notice that ‘Exit’ will change to ‘Force Exit’. The application will automatically terminate as soon as you click on the ‘Force Exit’ option.

Use the Apple Menu

One of the easiest and most universal options for forcing an application to close is to use the Apple menu. The good thing about this option is that regardless of how the app is behaving (it’s using all its RAM, not responding, etc.), it will quickly close the problem app. Here it is how to Knife:

Make sure the offending application is active in addition to any other applications your Mac is running. You will see the app name in the upper left corner.

Click on the Apple icon in the upper right corner.

From the drop-down menu, click Force Exit [Name of App].

Highlight the app whose termination you want to force. Then click Force Exit in the lower right corner.

A small popup will pop up a window asking you to confirm that you want to fully force this application. Click Force Exit.

Use Activity Monitor to shut down an application

For those unfamiliar with how Activity Monitor works, it is very comparable to Windows ‘Task Manager’ or ‘System Monitor’ for Linux users. Essentially, you can easily control all Activity Monitor processes and applications. To use Activity Monitor to force an application to close:

Open the ‘Finder’ in your Dock.

Click on ‘Applications’ and then ‘Utilities’.

Click on ‘Activity Monitor’.

Click on the ‘Energy’ tab and double click on the app.

Click on ‘Exit’.

Use a keyboard shortcut

For those who prefer to use a simple, basic keyboard shortcut to force a program to close, it’s a very straightforward process. This process is very similar to method one listed above. However, it is a shortcut.

First choose which app is unresponsive and then bring it to the foreground. Do this by simply right-clicking the target application icon shown in the Dock and then choosing ‘Show / Show all / Show all windows’ according to which application is not responding. Once the specific app is displayed in the foreground, press and hold the ‘Command’ plus ‘Option’ plus ‘Shift’ plus ‘Escape’ keys for just a few seconds to force the app to close.

Using any of these five methods should solve your problem by instantly closing the unresponsive application on your system so you can get back to work right away.

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