How to Force Quit Apps on a Mac

Whether you're using a Windows PC or a Mac, apps are bound to misbehave. Often, quitting these apps is easy, but sometimes it's not as straightforward. Windows lets you force quit apps with the Task Manager, but it's a slightly different process on a Mac. Seeing a spinning beach ball with a frozen app? If you've been trying to figure out how to force quit on Mac, you're in the right place.

To begin with, note that macOS sometimes keeps apps active on the dock even if you press the close button on the window. This is because although Windows mostly treats the close button as the quit button, that's not the case with macOS. Close and quit are separate actions on a Mac, and then there's force quit for unresponsive apps. Here are all the ways to force quit an app on Mac.

How to close or quit an app on Mac the regular way

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If you have an open window on a Mac, you can close it by pressing the close button on the top left corner of the window. It's a circular red button with a cross inside it. You can also sometimes find the close option in the File menu on the menu bar. Alternatively, you can use the close app keyboard shortcut on Mac, by pressing the Command key (⌘) and W.

If you want to quit the app entirely, you can use the quit app shortcut on Mac, by pressing the Command key (⌘) and Q. You can also find this option in the App menu on the menu bar.

Click the app name on the menu bar, typically next to the Apple logo. For example, Google Chrome will say 'Chrome'. Click Quit App.

The word App here is a placeholder, so if you're trying to quit the Passwords app, you'll see "Quit Passwords" in the App menu.

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Lastly, you can quit the app from the dock by secondary clicking the app icon on the dock and clicking Quit in the menu that appears. It may take a few seconds in some cases.

Force quit an app on Mac with the dock menu

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What we discussed above are ways to quit an app that's been working perfectly fine. If you have a frozen app on Mac, force quitting is the way to deal with it.

Right-click (a.k.a. secondary click) the icon of the app icon you want to force quit to bring up the menu, and hold the click. Hold the Option (⌥) (or Alt) key so the Quit menu option changes to Force Quit. Select Force Quit.

Force quit an app on Mac with the Force Quit Applications window

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If you don't like using the keyboard shortcut or if it's inaccessible to you, you can use the dedicated Force Quit Applications window to do it.

Click the Apple menu button in the upper left corner (the Apple logo). Click Force Quit... Select the app from the list. Click the Force Quit button.

If you want to skip the first two steps, use the force quit Mac shortcut -- press Command (⌘) - Option (⌥) - Esc keyboard shortcut to summon the window.

Using the Activity Monitor to kill an unresponsive app

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Sometimes a menu bar app can hang or otherwise give you problems. You may not find the app listed in the Force Quit window. In such instances, you will need to use Activity Monitor to kill the menu app.

Open Launchpad from the dock or the four-finger pinch gesture. Open Activity Monitor. You can use the search function to find it quickly. Find the app listed or search for it using the search bar in the upper-right corner. Click on the app to highlight it. Click the Force a process to quit button, which is located in the upper-left corner and has a stop sign with an X on it. Click Quit to quit the app, and if that doesn't do it, follow the same steps and choose Force Quit.

Force quit an app on Mac with Terminal

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You can also use the Terminal to close unresponsive apps on macOS. There's usually no need to use this command line method, but if you've got a rogue freezing app that just won't budge, try these steps.

Open Launchpad from the dock or the four-finger pinch gesture. Open Terminal from the Other folder or by via Search. Type: killall [app name]. For example: killall Music. Make sure the name is spelled right and the program name is written in title case. If the program name has multiple words, put it in quotes. For example: killall "Google Chrome". Press Return.

These methods should help you deal with most unresponsive apps on a Mac. If these methods don't work for you, you might want to uninstall the app from your Mac and try reinstalling it. You can try using an app like CleanMyMac to properly uninstall the app. Restarting your Mac may also help.

It's possible that an app is freezing because of a temporary issue or that it's incompatible with your Mac. The latter can be because you're running an older version of the app, which is perhaps not designed to run on your newer Mac. Certain apps have been upgraded for the new architecture with the new Apple Silicon Macs, so you might want to try a newer version.

If nothing works, and you're sure the app and your Mac are both updated, the last move would be to factory reset your Mac. If you have an aging Mac and are looking to upgrade, check out our guide to the best MacBook to get.