How to Force Quit on Mac

The Force Quit Applications menu.

It doesn't happen often, but occasionally an application you are working in on your Mac freezes, crashes or stops responding. At this point, you need to force quit the application. The Mac provides a simple way to force quit.

Things You'll Need

• Your Mac

Instructions

1. Go to the top left corner of the Apple menu bar and click on the Apple logo.

2. Select "Force Quit" from the drop-down menu.

3. Select the application that is not responding from the Force Quit Applications dialogue box that appears. Typically, the words "Not Responding" appear next to the name of the application. Click the "Force Quit" button at the bottom right of the dialogue box.

4. You can also use a shortcut to bring up the Force Quit Applications dialogue box by pressing the "Option," "Command" and "Esc" keys simultaneously.

Tips & Warnings

• Sometimes after force quitting an application you'll be prompted to relaunch the application you just quit.

• Force quitting an application causes you to lose any unsaved work.

References

• Apple Support: How to Quit an Unresponsive Application Using Force Quit

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish