How to Control+Alt+Delete on a Mac and Force Quit Applications? – POFTUT

How to Control+Alt+Delete on a Mac and Force Quit Applications?


Windows operating system provides the CTRL+ALT+DELETE shortcut in order to forcibly close frozen applications. This shortcut will open the task manager which will list currently running applications and right-click can be used to the closed selected applications. macOS provides similar mechanisms in order to close frozen applications forcibly with a different keyboard shortcut.

How To Close Application Forcibly On MacOSX?

MacOSX operating system provides different ways in order to close or quit a frozen application forcibly.

  • ⌘+Option+Esc
  • Dock
  • Acvity Monitor
  • Apple Menu
  • Terminal

How To Close with ⌘+Option+Esc On MacOSX?

The most practical and easy way to close a frozen application forcibly on MacOSX is to use the ⌘+Option+Esc keyboard combination. This will open the Force Quit Applications menu like below. They’re all currently running applications will be listed where we will select the application we want to forcibly close and then click to the button Force Quit from the left bottom corner.

⌘+Option+Esc Key Combination To Open “Force Quit Applications”
Force Quit Applications Window

How To Close Application with Dock On MacOSX?

MacOSX Dock list popular and currently running applications. This dock list the icons of the applications where left click will open specifid applications menu which contains Force Quit menu. This force quit can be used to close the frozen application forcibly.

Close Application with Dock

How To Close Application with Activity Monitor On MacOSX?

MacOSX Activity Monitor is used to monitor processes running on the system. Activity monitor provides information like CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk, Network usage about the applications, and processes. Activity Monitor can be also used to close a frozen application forcibly. In the activity monitor just double click to the process you want to kill which will open a window that provides the “Quit” button which will forcibly close this application or process.

How To Close Application with Activity Monitor On MacOSX?

How To Close Application with Apple Menu On MacOSX?

Apple Menu is used to manage currently active or selected applications. It provides different actions about view, window, edit etc. The Apple menu provides the Force Quit for the currently selected applciations which will directly and forcibly close this application.

How To Close Application with Apple Menu On MacOSX?

How To Close Application with Terminal Menu On MacOSX?

Terminal is used to access the command-line interface of the Apple MacOSX operating system and bash environment. There are different commands which can be used to kill or stop an application of process forcibly. We can use top and kill commands in order to quit and application or process forcibly. “top” command will list currently running processes. There we will get the process id or PID. The “kill” command will be used to kill the specified process ID. Alternatively, the “ps aux” command can be used to list current user processes like below.

$ ps aux

We can see that the “Thunar” process ID is 1985. So we will provide this PID into the “kill” command like below.

$ kill 1985

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