We've all seen the spinning beachball appear on our Mac's screen and grown in frustration as we await for the awarding that has hung to respond. Sometimes it doesn't and we accept to resort to forcefulness quit to shut it down and commencement again. But what happens when force quit is not working? Nosotros'll respond that question and testify yous exactly what to do.

Tip

A quick replacement for Force Quit is found in CleanMyMac 10. This plan by MacPaw has a tool that switches off your hanging apps (and checks if they have upward too much retentivity). We'll bear witness you lot how to utilize it later in the article.

Download the complimentary version of CleanMyMac X here (app is notarized by Apple)


Why strength quit?

Force quitting an awarding is a pretty desperate course of activeness. It tells the app to end what it'southward doing immediately and not to display any of the dialogs it might usually show you earlier information technology closes. However, it can be useful, despite the risk of losing data, if the app in question hangs and fails to respond for several minutes, and particularly if it causes the rest of your Mac to hang or even but slow downwards.

How do you lot force quit?

There are several different means to force quit an awarding.

  • Press Control-Option-Escape, select the app from the box that opens, and press Force Quit.
  • If you can access the Apple carte, click on it, cull Strength Quit, select the app and printing Force Quit.
  • Right-click or Control-click on the app's icon in the Dock and choose Force Quit.

Try to strength quit it from the Dock

If you agree down Choice and click on an app in the Dock, you will meet an extra choice for Strength Quit. Encounter if that ane works.

What to practice when an awarding won't force quit

Sometimes none of the options in a higher place works and the app carries on hanging. Don't worry, at that place are other things you can try.

Use Activity Monitor

Activity Monitor is designed to allow you to monitor the performance of processes on your Mac. However, it can besides quit those processes and and so force quit the apps running them.

  1. Go to Applications > Utilities and double-click Action Monitor to launch it.
  2. Click the CPU column header to order processes co-ordinate to the CPU cycles they are using.
  3. The procedure causing the application to hang will probably be at or near the top. Select it and so press Quit Process.
  4. The app should now forcefulness quit.

Use CleanMyMac X'southward Optimization module

CleanMyMac X - Login items
  1. If you lot don't already have CleanMyMac X installed on your Mac, download information technology hither and install it.
  2. Choose Optimization in the sidebar. And then click View all Items.
  3. Select Hung Applications, then the app you want to quit and press Quit at the bottom of the window.

Disable Launch Agents

Many processes displayed past Force Quit performed by a class of applications chosen Launch Agents. It could be an automatic app updater that works invisibly in the background. The aforementioned tool nosotros've just described has a sub-carte du jour chosen Launch Agents (encounter the screenshot above). It will strength quit the unwanted launch agents — when the regular Force Quit doesn't work.

Utilise Terminal

If, for some reason, Activity Monitor doesn't exercise the job, or you can't launch it, endeavour using Terminal instead.

  1. Go to Applications > Utilities and double-click Terminal to launch it.
  2. Type: ps -ax
  3. Press Render.

You will now run across a list of running apps and processes in the Terminal window. Locate the awarding y'all want to force quit. (Its row will start /Applications/). Now, the quitting part:

  1. Note the number on the far left of the row, that's the PID.
  2. Type: kill [PID] (supersede [PID] with the number you lot noted downwards in footstep 6).
  3. Press Return.

Restart your Mac

If none of the methods we described above works and the awarding just won't quit, y'all may need to restart your Mac. Unremarkably, we'd tell y'all to click on the Apple carte du jour and cull Restart. Just if a misbehaving app won't force quit, the chances are that it has grabbed most of the resource on your Mac and caused it to beachball, meaning you can't click on the Apple carte du jour. Then here'due south what to exercise.

  • Press and concord the power button (if you have a MacBook with a Impact Bar, it'due south the Touch ID button).
  • Look until you encounter the Apple logo on the screen.
  • Release the ability button and await for your Mac to restart.

Bank check for an update to the misbehaving app

The kickoff thing you should exercise after you restart is try and figure out why the awarding was misbehaving. And the first step in that process is to check to come across if you're running the latest version.

If the app was downloaded from the App Store, you can bank check it there. If not, clicking on the [APP Proper noun] menu volition ordinarily brandish an pick to cheque for updates.

Nonetheless, in that location is an even easier mode. CleanMyMac X (the app is bachelor for a gratuitous download here) allows you, with a couple of clicks, to check multiple apps for updates at the same time, then with another click, update them.

  1. Cull Updater in the sidebar.
  2. Check the box side by side to the apps you want to update.
  3. Press Update.
Scan complete and some list of apps shown in Updater module of CMMX

It can be very frustrating when an application stops responding or starts beach balling. It'southward even worse if the app brings your whole Mac to a standstill. However, force quitting the app usually solves the trouble. There are a number of different means to force quit apps, all of them described above. If you think your Mac'southward force quit isn't working, try a different method. Apply the Optimize and Updater modules in CleanMyMac Ten regularly and yous may never need to force quit an app again, and if y'all do, the methods we've described can help identify the culprit and quit it for you.