Force quitting an app loses unsaved work in that app. Save frequently in creative and office apps — force quit is a last resort, not a daily habit.
What you will achieve
Force quit a hung macOS application using the keyboard or Activity Monitor when the spinning beach ball will not clear — restoring responsiveness without rebooting the entire Mac.
1) Recognise a true hang
Wait a few seconds for disk-heavy saves to finish. If the app is unresponsive for several minutes, the pointer shows the beach ball only over that app’s windows, and other apps work fine — force quit is appropriate. If the entire system is frozen, force quit may not open — hold the power button for a forced shutdown instead (rare on Apple Silicon; try Option+Command+Esc first).
2) Force Quit window (keyboard)
- Press Option+Command+Esc.
- Select the frozen app in the list.
- Click Force Quit.
- Confirm if prompted.
This shortcut works on Intel and Apple Silicon identically. It does not quit background processes — only user-facing applications.
3) Force quit from the Dock
Option+right-click (or Option+Control+click) the app icon in the Dock → Force Quit. Useful when the keyboard shortcut is blocked by a full-screen app capturing input.
4) Activity Monitor for stubborn processes
- Open Applications → Utilities → Activity Monitor (or Spotlight: “Activity Monitor”).
- Find the app or helper process — sort by CPU if it is runaway.
- Select it and click the × button → Force Quit.
Kill helper processes only if you know the parent app — killing WindowServer or loginwindow logs you out abruptly.
5) Terminal (advanced)
killall "Application Name"Replace with exact process name from Activity Monitor. Use kill -9 only when normal kill fails — can corrupt open files.
6) After force quit
Relaunch the app. macOS may offer to reopen windows — acceptable for browsers; risky for unsaved documents if autosave failed. Check for auto-recovered files in the app’s File menu or ~/Library/Autosave Information/.
7) Repeated hangs
One-off beach balls happen. Constant hangs in one app suggest outdated plugins, corrupt preferences, or disk issues — update the app, remove its plist from ~/Library/Preferences/ after backup, or reinstall. Apple Silicon: confirm you are not running an ancient Intel-only build via Rosetta when a native update exists.
Verify
App closes; beach ball disappears; other apps remain responsive; relaunched app opens without immediate re-hang.