If you used a Windows PC in your lifetime, chances are that you are familiar with unresponsive apps like Chrome, Photoshop, and even Windows File Explorer if you were unlucky. As a result, the spinning wheel had just one job to do, spinning over and over.
Macs also tend to get into a situation when apps becomes completely unresponsive. In such situations, you have no choice but to force quit apps on Mac to get back to your work. Thankfully, there are options to force quite apps on Macs just like Windows PCs. You not only have one but various methods to do the same on a Mac.
NOTE: Keep in mind that, if you force quit an app, you won’t receive any prompts to recover your unsaved work. If you don’t want to lose the work, we suggest you to wait for a couple of minutes until the app comes back to its responsive state. It’s better to wait than to Force Quit Apps on Mac.
If you want to force quit apps on Mac, here’s how you can do it using 5 different methods.
5 Ways To Force Quit Apps on Mac
1. Using Finder
This is what Apple usually recommends you to do when you want to force quit any app on a Mac.
- Click on the Apple icon on the finder bar (or) the one located on top-left your screen.
- Select “Force Quit” option from the list. This will bring up the “Force Quit Applications” menu.
- Choose the app that you wish to force quit/stop, and click “Force Quit.”
2. Using Keyboard Shortcut
There might be a time, when the above method doesn’t work for you. In that case, it’s time to switch to Keyboard Shortcut. SImilar to Windows 10, you can perform the same Ctrl+Alt+Del action on a Mac.
- On a Mac Keyboard, press Option + Command + Esc together (or Alt + Command + Esc on some other keyboards).
- Just like the previous method, it will bring up the “Force Quit Applications” menu.
- Choose the app that you wish to force quit/stop, and click “Force Quit.”
3. Using Option Key on Dock
If the app/program is still annoying you, it’s time to go a manual way to force quite apps on mac, when you can’t access the Force Quit Applications menu.
- On the dock, Right-Click or Click while holding Ctrl the application you want to force quit.
- Now, hold the Option key on the keyboard, this will turn the Quit option to “Force Quit.”
- Select Force Quit option, and you should be good to go.
4. Using Activity Monitor
- Open the Activity Monitor on your Mac. You can open that by clicking on the Spotlight icon (Search icon on the top-right corner of your screen), and search for Activity Monitor.
- Once it opens up, choose the app that you want to force quit.
- After that, click on the Stop (X) icon on the top-left, and select the Force Quit option.
5. Using Terminal
This should be your last resort when it comes to force quit apps on Mac. Working with Terminal might be a little confusing for some of you, so we suggest to use this method as the last option.
- Open up your Applications folder, look for Utilites, and launch Terminal under that.
- After Terminal starts, it will display the diagnostic information about your CPU and RAM usage. Below that, you will see a table showing applications running in background. You need to located the app’s PID which is unresponsive left to its name.
- Once you get that, copy the PID using “Cmd+C.”
- Open new Terminal window and type “kill followed by a space and pressing Cmd+C. Hit the Return key after that. The command should look something like of that shown in the above image.
6. If Force Quit Doesn’t work
If the above methods doesn’t’t work for you, the last and final resort left for you is restarting your Mac. Since your Mac is completely frozen, you can do that by pressing Ctrl + Command + Power button of your Mac. Also, you can just hold down the power button to shut down the Mac.
Why Apps Become Unresponsive on Mac?
The problem lies in the RAM of your Mac. Since the applications are updating day by day, their RAM usage keeps increasing alongside. So in order to fix this, you can upgrade your RAM on your Mac if you are repeatedly facing this issue. But with the latest Macs, you don’t get that option. Either you’ve to go for the Mac Pro, or get another Macbook with more RAM.
Conclusion (How To Force Close Apps on a Mac)
We hope the above methods helped you to force quit apps on Mac. Please make sure that you go through each step carefully to avoid further system freezes on your Mac. These were some of the working ways to force quit your Mac apps when they become unresponsive.
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