How to Force Stop An Unresponsive Program On macOS

There will be times when a macOS program suddenly stops working, fail to respond and you just want it to be turned off immediately. Luckily, there are several ways you can force close them.

Please note that this is a method to force quit a program, so it won’t ask you to save your work, data, or anything. Once you force close, macOS will immediately close the program without any notice, so only use these methods if you have no other way.

Use the Finder

Step 1: Click the Apple icon in the upper left corner of the screen and select Force Quit in the list that appears

Step 2: You will be taken to the task manager, which displays all the programs that are running

Step 3: Select the app you want to stop, then click the Force Quit button at the bottom.

Use keyboard shortcuts

Step 1: Hit Opt + Cmd + Esc (on several Mac keyboards, Opt is replaced with Alt)

Step 2: Same as above, you will be taken to the task manager

Step 3: Select the app you want to force stop, then click the Force Quit button at the bottom.

Use the Option key

Step 1: Right-click, or hold Ctrl and click the program you want to force stop in the Dock

Step 2: Hold the Option key to turn the Quit selection to Force Quit in the list of options.
Use Activity Monitor

Step 1: Click the Spotlight icon (magnifying glass) in the upper right corner of the screen, then type Activity Monitor into the text box to open Activity Monitor. In the list that appears, select the application you want to stop.

Step 2: In the task manager, find the unresponsive program, then click the red stop icon in the upper left corner of the screen.

If this doesn't work, we recommend saving all the work on other programs and then restarting your computer.