If you don’t know which application is stuck, pay attention to the ones that have the note “Not Responding.” This usually appears next to frozen applications. Now all you have to do is select the application you want to close and choose “Force Quit.”.You will be directed to the new window named “Force Quit Application” where all the magic happens. From the drop-down menu, select “Force Quit…”.Click on the black apple icon in the upper-left corner.To force quit an application, simply do the following: The most conventional and effective way to close frozen programs is to go to the macOS® menu bar, located along the top of the screen in the Finder menu. You can download Toolbox and try it out for free here (no registration needed). The package includes over 30+ useful utilities for Mac that any user will benefit from, including downloading videos and music from sites like YouTube, taking screenshot or record videos, optimize your Mac performance, free up extra space and so much more. Using a smart app like Parallels Toolbox can help you to free up unused memory on the fly and prevent the applications from getting frozen over and over again.

Although the effect will only be related to that one particular application that got stuck, sometimes it can hurt. When you force close on Mac, you may end up losing files and data, or mess things up on the drive. When you close an application in the traditional manner, it will clean everything it runs in the background and alert you to save the work. Less space? Less ability to work on multiple things at once.įorcing Mac to quit the application does resolve the problem but may have downsides. The more space (memory) you have to work, the more projects you can have out to work on. So anytime your system utilizes all of its existing resourses to run the task, it becomes unresponsive. The number one reason we have a problem with frozen applications in a Mac is insufficient RAM-or, in other words, a lack of computer memory to operate the system compared to the number of applications you usually open (including those numerous open tabs in a browser). We need to see the bigger picture and understand what causes the problem and how to cure it while understanding how to avoid it from happening again. Today I’m going to list three easy ways to force-quit an application on a Mac, without harming the system.įorcing a frozen application to quit is the same as killing the symptoms when we get sick versus curing the virus.

The shortcut actually exists, and moreover, there are a few other extremely convenient ways to fight buggy apps. Luckily, Apple® has you covered and gives you multiple options. So how do I quit that annoying program that’s not responding? There is no equivalent to the PC’s Ctrl+Alt+Del shortcut on a Mac ® to force quit an application.

Mac shortcut to shutdown