How to Force Quit an Application on a Mac
This wikiHow teaches you how to quit an application that has stopped responding on your Mac. Open the Apple menu. It's the black Apple on icon in the upper-left corner of the screen.
Method 1 of 5:
Using the Apple Menu
- Open the Apple menu. It's the black Apple on icon in the upper-left corner of the screen.
- Click on Force Quit… toward the middle of the menu.
- Click on the app you want to quit.
- The note "(Not Responding)" will appear next to frozen apps.
- Click on Force Quit. The app will quit and can be restarted.
- If your computer is frozen, you may need to restart it.
Method 2 of 5:
Using a Keyboard Shortcut
- Press ⌘+⌥ Option+Esc. The "Force Quit" dialog box will open.
- Click on the app you want to quit.
- The note "(Not Responding)" will appear in red next to frozen apps.
- Click on Force Quit. The app will quit and can be restarted.
Method 3 of 5:
Using the Dock
- Press ⌥ Option on your keyboard.
- Right-click or control-click the application in the Dock.
- Click Force Quit.
Method 4 of 5:
Using Activity Monitor
- Click on Spotlight. It's the magnifying glass in the upper-right corner of the screen.
- Type "Activity Monitor" in the search field.
- Click on Activity Monitor under "Applications."
- Click on the application you want to quit.
- Click on "Quit Process" in the upper-left corner of the window. This will stop the application from running.
Method 5 of 5:
Using Terminal
- Open the Terminal utility. By default, this is in the Utilities folder, located in the Applications folder.
- If a normal Force Quit doesn't work, you may need to use this method to end the program.
- Type "top" and press ⏎ Return. The 'top' command displays information about the applications that are currently running.
- Find the program you want to close. Under the column titled "COMMAND", find the name of the application you wish to quit.
- The COMMAND list may use a truncated name for the program. Look for a name that looks similar to the program you are trying to close.
- Find the PID (Process ID). Once you find the name of program, find the number to the immediate left of it, under the PID column. Make a note of the PID number.
- Type "q". This will exit the list of applications and return you to the command line.
- Type "kill ###". Replace the "###" with the number from the PID Column you just located. For example: If you were trying to quit iTunes, and found iTunes to have PID number 3703, you would type "kill 3703".
- If the program does not respond to the 'kill' command, type 'sudo kill -9 ###', replacing ### with the PID number.
- Exit the terminal. The application should quit and you can be relaunched.
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