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At the same time, there’s a useful ⌘ + Tab shortcut that lets you move quickly between active apps. The problem with ⌘ + Q is that you can only use it on an app that’s currently active. Shut down apps with ⌘ + Tab and QĪ pro-level trick to closing apps as efficiently as possible is to cycle through them first by using ⌘ + Tab.
Learning to use ⌘ + Q on any app you don’t want open will be a significant productivity boost to your daily workflow. The fastest way to quit an app from anywhere without taking your hands off the keyboard is to use the ⌘ + Q shortcut, which will completely quit any active app.
Click on the app’s name in the menu bar. One of the most reliable ways to quit apps on Mac is by using a menu bar dropdown selection: To verify that the app is fully closed (quit), make sure there’s no dot below it in the Dock. They would just close that specific window instead. Safari) won’t actually quit when you use the Close button. This will terminate Google Chrome browser instantly.Some apps (e.g. Go ahead and type in the following command in Terminal: kill 9635 Note that the PID number for Google Chrome is 9635. The full command would look like this: ps -ax | grep Īnd in our case, it will be something like this: ps -ax | grep ChromeĪnd it should output the following in Terminal: Now, let’s say we want to force quit Google Chrome, we can make use of the grep command in conjunction with our ps -ax to get exactly the information about the process we want. Upon typing in ps -ax, you may get a long list of output of running processes that look something like the screenshot below:
Type the following command in Terminal: kill. To kill (force quit) a specific application, look for its name and note down the PID number. This will give you a list of all running process on your Mac along with other details like its respective PID number, elapsed running time, process name and process location. Launch Spotlight Search with Command + Spacebar and search for Terminal. Choose the application you want to quit in the “Force Quick Application” dialogue box.Īlternatively, you can quit an application using shell command via Terminal. Press and hold the following keys: Command + Option + Esc. If your application is not responding, do the following:
If you don’t want to wait it out, here are two ways how you can force quit an application that’s not responding. If your application is not responding or you encounter the Spinning Beach Ball of Death, chances are your application has crashed. Once in a while, the application you are working on may freeze (or hang).