Tips & Tricks: 4 Ways to Force Quit a Stuck Mac App

Crashes, hangs, freezes… they happen, even with the best Mac apps. Here are four ways you can force quit an app that’s not responding. (1) Click the Apple menu and choose Force Quit (or press Command-Option-Escape), select the offending app, and click Force Quit. (2) Option-right-click (or Control-Option-click) the frozen app’s Dock icon and choose Force Quit. (3) To force quit the frontmost app immediately, press Command-Option-Shift-Escape. (4) Open Activity Monitor, select the process in the list, click the X button on the toolbar, and click Force Quit. If one method doesn’t work, try it a second time, and if that doesn’t work, try another method. If nothing works, restart the Mac. Remember that you may lose unsaved changes when force-quitting an app.