Hung programs stop responding to user commands and cannot be terminated in the usual way. On Windows for them forced termination task manager is used. On UNIX-like operating systems, which include the operating Apple system, the kill command and its GUI are used. Today we will talk about how to force quit a program on Mac.
The workspace in macOS is organized using virtual desktops. Using this function allows you not only to rationally distribute windows, but also to easily terminate any hung program.
- We call Mission Control by pressing the F3 key or the Control + combination. Go to another desktop, free of the hung program, and click on the apple logo in the menu bar.
- Select the marked item. If a additional spaces are not used, and the spinning "umbrella", indicating a freeze, prevents you from getting to the system menu, you can use the hot keys. Press together + Command + Esc.
- Any of the described actions will open a list box running applications. The right one is highlighted in red and is accompanied by the inscription "does not answer". Select it and click the "Finish" button.
- The OS will ask for confirmation to perform this operation.
When the focus is on an unresponsive window, it can be closed without using system menu. Press the Command + Shift + Esc keys at the same time. In this case, no notifications are shown and no confirmation is required.
Dock
Each program launched on the Mac places its own icon on Dock. AT normal mode context menu control contains the item "Finish". By pressing the key, we open its extended version. An option appears in it that allows you to force-quit an application that has decided to hang.
Feature Finder
Finder starts at OS startup and runs all the time. On a Mac, this is the only application that cannot be closed. When selected, the shutdown command changes to restart.
In the Dock, to open advanced options with the item marked in the screenshot, Option is pressed before calling the context menu on the Finder icon.
System monitoring
System Monitor app allows you to explore various options interactions software and OS processes with Macbook hardware resources. In addition to viewing data, you can also end a frozen program in it.
- Open a Finder window and navigate to the Utilities folder. We start monitoring.
- Using the search box marked with a box, you can find desired process by name. Applications that are not responding to system prompts will be highlighted in red, as in the force quit menu. Select the desired one and press the button indicated by the arrow.
- Will open extra menu, in which you can choose between normal or forced termination.
In addition to programs, System Monitor allows you to work with system processes, which do not have their own GUI, but may also become unresponsive to the OS or user.
If for some reason a frozen application cannot be removed in the graphical interface, you can resort to the command line.
- Open the "Utilities" folder already familiar to us. We launch the "Terminal".
- The top command allows you to call up a list of processes running on the system. To complete the application in the Terminal, you need to pay attention to the first two columns. PID is the current process ID on the system, and Command is its name. The screenshot shows these options for Notes. Having found the data we need, we complete top job by pressing the Q button.
- Now to take off this task, you need to run one of two commands. Use the process name or its PID. Enter "killall notes" or "kill -9 19580" into the Terminal. The result of their execution is the same. The selected application is forcibly exited. Killall is more convenient when we know exactly the name of the process. PID is not a constant value and must be determined every time.
Both commands do not require additional confirmation, so working in the Terminal requires precision.
Finally
Applications on macOS freeze not often, but opportunities GUI enough to complete them in most cases. It is likely that you will never need to use the command line, but knowing its capabilities can come in handy in the most unexpected this moment.
Video instruction
To see how the described actions are performed in real time, you can watch the training video below.
Despite the fact that Mac computers in most cases they are pleased with their stable job, from time to time, even on macOS, various kinds of crashes and errors can occur. Most often this happens in the fault of programs from third party developers. Occasionally, problems can be observed even in regular applications operating system. This raises the obvious question - what to do if the program does not respond, or does not work as intended? The solution is simple - force quit the application.
Today we will look at five ways to close a frozen application:
Method 1 - using the menu.
- At active window programs, click on the logo in the menu bar.
- Select the "Force quit [program name]" option.
- Immediately after that, the application will be closed.
Method 2 - using the Dock.
- Choose necessary application, and using the right click on it, we call the context menu.
- We hold Option key(Alt) so that the line "Finish" changes to "Force Quit", then confirm our choice.
- After these steps, the application will be completed.
Method 3 - using a keyboard shortcut.
- Press and hold the following key combination Command + Option + Esc.
- After a while, a dialog box will appear in which you can select the hung application.
- It remains only to click on "Restart" or "Force quit" depending on the type of program.
Method 4 - using the Terminal application.
- Launch the Terminal application with any convenient way.
- In the window that appears, enter the following command:
killall [application name]
- For example, if you want to close Safari browser, then the command will look like this:
- We confirm our intention to complete the application.
Method 5 - using System Monitor.
- We launch the System Monitor utility in any convenient way.
- Before us will be a list of all processes. Using the search, you can select the one you need.
- Using the "cross" in the left upper corner and selecting the required process, we find the option "Force quit". After that, the process responsible for the application will be closed.
Pressing the Close button ⓧ in any of the programs on Mac OS does not always lead to the desired result, that is, the end of the program, but is limited to minimizing to the Dock. There is nothing wrong with this if few programs are open, and even more so standard Macs OS that consume the minimum amount of resources when minimized. What cannot be said about third party programs like Photoshop, after effects, Dreamweaver and other editors, but it can also be other running programs and applications that, even when minimized, consume a lot of resources and take up space on RAM. To completely close the program and unload it from memory, you need to exit the program, for this you can use the key combination ⌘Cmd + Q .
But what if you have a lot of programs open and Mac work deteriorated significantly? There are 2 ways to quickly close all open programs.
Ending a program via the Dock
by the most in a simple way will surely end running programs and applications through the Dock. click right click on the program icon and click finish.
Often this method does not work the first time, when you right-click again, select Force end - this will already complete for sure.
Forced termination of programs
The method is very convenient for completing not all programs, but selectively. The Force Quit Window is invoked by ⌘Cmd + Alt + ESC. Select in the window desired program or application and click finish.
This feature is very useful in El Capitan 10.11.6 when the Finder hangs, there is no way to do without this window. And Finder freezes in this Mac versions OS X with regular persistence.
Reload user session
This method is very simple - you just need to log out of the user session and log in again. To do this, press on the menu bar and select End Session "Username"
Then uncheck the Reopen windows when I log in again and click End session
Now, when you log in as your user, all previously opened programs will be closed, and RAM free.
Using Automator to create a rule for closing programs
Step 1 Open system utility Automator
Step 2 In the program window, select the document type Program and click Select
Step 3 In the Libraries panel (left side panel) find and drag to an empty workspace(right) End all programs
If you want it not to close all programs when using this applet, add exceptions. To do this, click the Add button and select the necessary programs
Step 4 Save new program With name Close all programs in the Programs folder. To do this, go to the menu bar and select File → Save or press ⌘Cmd + S
Even with such a perfect computer as a Mac, troubles happen, namely, the program freezes, system errors… all this is probably familiar to you. Today we will tell you about several ways to forcefully terminate software processes.
Method 1: Force Quit Programs Window.
To call this window, you need to press three keys together Command+Option+Escape. After that, it remains only to select the "Finish" item and the program will be closed. This is a simplified version of the following method.
Method 2: System monitoring
To launch this utility, press the keys Command + Space. In the Spotlight window that appears, you need to enter the name of the program that you want to "kill". After entering, a dialog box will appear in which you can find the frozen program by name (the name will be marked in red) or by identification number. After selecting the appropriate process, click "End Process".
Method 3: Force Quit Using the Keyboard
To complete active application you need to press and hold for a few seconds the keys Command + Option + Shift + Escape. Perhaps this is the fastest of all methods.
Method 4: Force termination with apple menu
To bring up the Apple menu, press and hold Shift and double click on the Apple logo in top line menu. Then select the "Force Quit [application name]" command. not bad and, like the previous one, quite simple, but it does not always work.
Method 5: Force Quit Using the Dock
To force close an application, and quickly and without any confirmation, hover over the icon of this program in the Dock and hold ALT(Option) click LMB.
Method 6: Terminal for unloading processes
If a previous methods you have not been helped in any way, then it is best to act decisively, i.e. take advantage command line(Terminal). Launch Terminal and enter the following command:
» killall [program name] «
This command will kill all processes associated with specified application so be careful.
If you know the application ID, you can use one more command:
» kill -1 «
1 is directly the ID of the program that you are going to unload from memory.
Please understand that forcibly terminating some programs may result in loss of data or failure to system settings, That's why The best way to protect yourself, it is more often to save (relevant for relevant programs) your work.
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It's true, even on a Mac, sometimes there are situations when programs freeze, after which it is not possible to continue working on them. Most often, this happens through the fault of third-party developers, although there are cases that after the update and from the Apple programs built into the system stop responding.
Mac OS X is an operating system that incorporates all the best from FreeBSD, which in turn is a server system and is focused on working 24x7, 365 days a year, which is why it is considered trouble-free. Roughly speaking, FreeBSD is the parent of the operating Mac systems OS X. Where am I going, you ask? But to what, any error caused by the application is local and does not affect the overall performance of the system. That is, if your application freezes, then the system continues to work in its normal state in 99.9% of cases. All parallel applications continue to work and the data in them will not be lost, but something needs to be done with the frozen application, and so let's get started ...
To begin with, do not panic, sooner or later everything happens for the first time and there is nothing wrong with that, Windows users do not get used to such operations. Again, on Mac OS X, you don't have to worry about anything happening to a parallel application. If your application does not show signs of life, that is, it does not respond to any keystrokes or mouse manipulations, and if it does not contain very important unsaved data, then feel free to right-click on the application icon in the Dock and select the “Force Quit” item , if there is no such item, then everything is fine with the application and it functions normally.
The second way to terminate a hung program allows us to see the entire list of running programs, as shown in the figure above. To do this, click on the apple in the upper left corner of the screen and select the “Force Quit” item, if the menu does not appear when you click on the apple, then you just need to switch to another application, or Finder and do the above operation. A list of all currently running programs will appear on the screen, usually applications that are “not responding” are highlighted in red. So you select an app and hit finish and voila, you can start the app again and keep going.
If the application “does not respond” and at the same time you have not saved the information contained in it, and there you have a doctoral dissertation that you have been writing for 5 years, then try to let the program “think” for a while, that is, leave the computer alone, go have a cup of tea , smoke, and when you return everything will already return to its place, if not, then finish and start again.
