Mac Manual Force Quit

If you accidentally force quit an app you’re working in, you’ll lose any unsaved data or changes. The Force Quit Window. OS X has a special window dedicated to handling apps that need to be force quit. You can access this window two ways, first, by clicking the Apple logo in the Menu Bar and selecting Force Quit. On a Mac, force quitting is best done from the Dock or via the Force Quit option from the Apple menu. You can also hit the Command-Option-Escape key combination to bring up a Force Quit Applications window. See How to Use the Force Quit to Terminate a Wayward Mac Application for details.

To quit (close) a Mac app normally, choose Quit from the app's menu in the menu bar, or press Command (⌘)-Q. If the app doesn't quit, follow these steps to force the app to quit.

How to force an app to quit

  1. Press these three keys together: Option, Command, and Esc (Escape). This is similar to pressing Control-Alt-Delete on a PC. Or choose Force Quit from the Apple () menu in the upper-left corner of your screen.
  2. Select the app in the Force Quit window, then click Force Quit.

Learn more

Mac
  • You can also force the Finder to quit, if it stops responding. Select Finder in the Force Quit window, then click Relaunch.
  • If none of your apps are responding, you can force your Mac to restart.
  • You can also force an app to close on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Force Quit Mac Not Working

If you encounter an unresponsive app on your Mac, you have four methods at your disposal to close it using Force Quit.

Dock

Safari Won't Force Quit On Mac

For an app whose icon you have parked in the Dock, you can right-click on the icon and hit the Option key. With the Option key pressed, the Quit menu item turns into Force Quit.

Mac Manual Force Quit Smoking

Apple menu

You can access Force Quit from the Apple menu. Click the Apple icon in the upper-left corner and choose Force Quit. This opens the Force Quit Applications window, which provides a convenient list of all of your open applications, denoting any that are not responding. Highlight the troublesome app and click the Force Quit button to close it.

Keyboard shortcut

You can call up the Force Quit window with a keyboard shortcut. And that keyboard shortcut is Command-Option-Escape.

Activity Monitor

If you are using the Activity Monitor to see how much system resources a sluggish or unresponsive app is consuming, you can Force Quit the app from right within the Activity Monitor. To do so, highlight the app you want to close, click the X button in the upper-left corner of the Activity Monitor window and then click the Force Quit button.

Force Quit Mac Shortcut

I will close with a warning: when you choose to quit an app normally, you will likely get a warning asking you to confirm your intentions. With Force Quit, you receive no such such warning and may lose any unsaved changes. Then again, if an app is not responding, you may have no other recourse than to use a bit of force to close it.