How to Force Quit on Mac
Force quit a frozen Mac app with Cmd+Option+Esc, the Apple menu, the Dock, or Activity Monitor, and force restart when the whole Mac locks up.
You will be able to close any frozen app without restarting, and you will know what to do when the whole Mac locks up.
When an app freezes, the pointer turns into the spinning wait cursor, Apple's name for the multicolored wheel, and the app stops responding. Force quitting shuts the app down immediately, even if it is completely frozen. You lose any unsaved work in that app, but everything else on your Mac keeps running normally.
There are four ways to force quit on a Mac, and knowing all of them means you still have an option when the mouse stops working or the Dock goes unresponsive. The keyboard shortcut is the fastest of the four.
We checked every method here against Apple's support pages for macOS 27 in September 2026.
Only your Mac. All four methods and the force restart use tools built into macOS, so there is nothing to install.
Use the keyboard shortcut (fastest method)
Press Cmd+Q first. When an app quits normally, it can save your changes before it closes, which a force quit cannot do. If the app does not quit, press Cmd+Option+Esc. Apple words it as pressing Option (or Alt), Command and Esc together, and notes that on a Mac with a Touch Bar the Esc key sits at the left end of the Touch Bar. A window titled "Force Quit Applications" appears, showing all running apps. Apps that are not responding will say "(Not Responding)" next to their name. Select the frozen app from the list and click the "Force Quit" button. Confirm when prompted. The app will close immediately.
Good to know: Memorize Cmd+Option+Esc. It needs only the keyboard, so it still opens the Force Quit window when the mouse or the Dock stops responding. If the whole Mac has locked up and the shortcut does nothing, go to step 5.
Force quit from the Apple menu
Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the screen. Select "Force Quit" from the dropdown menu. The same Force Quit Applications window appears. Select the frozen app and click "Force Quit." This method requires the menu bar to be responsive, so it does not work if the entire system is locked up. Use it when one app is frozen and the rest of the Mac still responds to the mouse.
Force quit from the Dock
Find the frozen app's icon in the Dock at the bottom of the screen. Control-click (or right-click) the app icon. For an app that has stopped responding, Apple's Mac User Guide says to choose "Force Quit" from this menu. If the menu shows "Quit" instead, hold down the Option key and "Quit" changes to "Force Quit." Click it. The app closes immediately. This method is quick if you can see the Dock and the app icon. If the Dock is hidden or unresponsive, use the keyboard shortcut method instead.
Use Activity Monitor for stubborn processes
Open Activity Monitor (search for it with Spotlight by pressing Cmd+Space and typing "Activity Monitor"). This app shows every process running on your Mac. Find the frozen app in the list. You can sort by name or use the search bar, and Apple marks an unresponsive process with "(Not Responding)" in red. Stop only processes you recognize. Apple warns that when you force a process to quit, any other apps or processes that use it can run into problems. Select the process and click the Stop button in the upper-left corner of the Activity Monitor window. Choose "Quit" first, which closes the process only when it is safe to do so. If it stays open, click Stop again and choose "Force Quit." Activity Monitor reaches further than the other methods, because it lists background processes and system-level tasks that never show up in the Force Quit window at all. Use this when the normal methods do not work.
Heads up: If you do not recognize a process name, leave it running, because it can be part of macOS itself. To see which apps and processes depend on one, choose View > All Processes, Hierarchically.
Force restart the Mac as a last resort
If apps will not quit but the Apple menu still opens, choose Apple menu > Restart, which Apple says to do before forcing the Mac off. If the entire Mac is frozen and no method works (keyboard, mouse, and trackpad are all unresponsive), press and hold the power button for up to 10 seconds, until the Mac turns off. On a Mac laptop with Touch ID, Apple says to hold the Touch ID button. The screen goes black and the Mac shuts down. Wait a few seconds, then press and release the power button to turn the Mac back on. This is a hard shutdown, so you lose any unsaved work in all open apps. A file that an app was saving at that moment can be left damaged, so open your recent documents after the restart and check them.
If the same app freezes again, update it first, then work through the rest of Apple's checklist in FAQ 2 below. If the whole Mac freezes, not just one app, restart it and keep an eye on the Memory Pressure graph in Activity Monitor. If it stays green and the freezes continue, work through our guide on how to fix a slow boot on a Mac, which covers Safe Mode and Disk Utility First Aid.
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
Force quitting is safe for your Mac. It does not damage hardware or the operating system. However, you will lose any unsaved work in the app that you force quit. Files that were already saved before the freeze are fine. Apps that auto-save, like Pages or Google Docs, limit the loss. Others do so only in some setups. Microsoft Word's AutoSave, for example, works on files stored in OneDrive or SharePoint. Save often with Cmd+S, and keep Word files there if you want AutoSave to cover them.
Start with Apple's checklist for an app that freezes. Update the app, because a newer version can fix the bug. Make sure the app is compatible with your version of macOS. Open a different file in the app, since the problem can sit in one damaged file. Disconnect any device you just plugged in, such as a printer, and remove plug-ins or add-ons from other developers, especially after an app or macOS update. To check memory, open Activity Monitor, click Memory, and read the Memory Pressure graph. Apple says red means your Mac needs more RAM, so quit the apps you are not using. As a last resort, delete and reinstall the app.
Cmd+Option+Esc is the closest equivalent. It opens the Force Quit Applications window, which does the job Task Manager does on Windows. On Windows, Ctrl+Alt+Delete opens a security screen where Task Manager is one of the options, and Ctrl+Shift+Esc opens Task Manager directly. For the full list of running processes that Task Manager shows, use Activity Monitor on the Mac (step 4).
Yes, and macOS treats it as a special case. Apple's instruction is to select Finder in the Force Quit window and then click Relaunch, because the button changes its label for Finder. Finder reopens right away instead of closing, because Apple keeps Finder open at all times. Relaunch it when Finder stops responding or stops showing files. Your other apps keep running, so do this before you restart the whole Mac.
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