App Won't Quit or Respond on Mac? How to Force Quit It

An app on your Mac has frozen, shows the spinning beachball, or simply won’t close when you choose Quit.

Why: Sometimes an app gets stuck in a loop or runs out of memory and stops responding to normal commands. When a regular Quit doesn’t work, macOS gives you a few ways to force the app to close so you can reopen it.

Fix 1: Use the Force Quit keyboard shortcut

This is the quickest method and works even when the app is completely unresponsive.

1. Press these three keys together: Option (⌥) + Command (⌘) + Esc.
2. The Force Quit Applications window opens.
3. Select the app — one that’s stuck usually shows (not responding) in red.
4. Click Force Quit, then confirm.

On a Mac with a Touch Bar, Esc is on the left side of the Touch Bar.

Fix 2: Force Quit from the Apple menu

If you’d rather use the menu, you can reach the same window from the top of the screen.

1. Click the **Apple menu ** in the top-left corner.
2. Choose Force Quit.
3. Select the unresponsive app and click Force Quit.

Fix 3: Quit it from Activity Monitor

For a stubborn app — or a background process you can’t see in the Force Quit window — use Activity Monitor.

1. Open Activity Monitor (in Applications > Utilities, or search for it with Spotlight, ⌘ + Space).
2. Under the Process Name list, select the app or process. Stuck ones show (Not Responding) in red.
3. Click the Stop button (the octagon with an ×) in the upper-left corner.
4. Choose Quit to close it cleanly, or Force Quit to end it immediately. Force Quit ends it right away but you may lose unsaved work.

If the Finder stops responding

The Finder is always running, so it doesn’t have a normal Quit. If it’s stuck, open the Force Quit window (Fix 1), select Finder, and click Relaunch.

FAQ

Will I lose unsaved work? Possibly — force quitting closes the app without saving. Try a normal Quit first; only force quit when the app won’t respond at all.

Force Quit didn’t work — now what? Restart your Mac from the Apple menu. If even that won’t respond, hold the power button for up to 10 seconds until the Mac turns off, then press it again to restart.

The same app keeps freezing. That points to a problem with the app itself — see if an app keeps crashing or won’t open on Mac.

Sources: Apple Support — How to force an app to quit on Mac · Apple Support — Quit an app or process in Activity Monitor on Mac