(Credit: René Ramos)
When an app stops working in Windows, the Control-Alt-Delete command—well, really, Control-Shift-Esc these days—can help you quickly shut down the offending program. As a Mac user who had to adjust to Windows for work, it frustrated me that macOS didn't have as obvious a solution. If I were on my MacBook, and my computer stopped working, it always felt like I was at the mercy of that spinning pinwheel of death before I could regain control.
However, as it turns out, Mac users have several ways of dealing with this issue. You can close out the app from the Dock, open the Force Quit Applications window, or use Activity Monitor, Apple's version of the Windows Task Manager. You can even kill a program from the command line in Terminal. Here's how to perform all four methods.
1. Close an App From the Dock
This is a quick one, but it works better than you might think. If a program you're using hangs when you try to close or interact with it, you can shut it down from the Dock. Control-click on the program's icon to open a menu, then select Quit. Even if it takes a few seconds, the app in question should close like normal. If not, you may need to take more drastic measures.
(Credit: PCMag / Apple)2. Force-Quit Applications
This one's my personal favorite, since it's easy to remember and is basically a streamlined version of Windows Task Manager. Go to Apple > Force Quit in the menu bar to open the Force Quit Applications window that will list all your open programs. Those who love to use the Mac's keyboard shortcuts can use Option-Command-Esc. From here, just select the app that is having the problem and choose Force Quit to shut it down (or Relaunch, if you're having an issue with Finder).
(Credit: PCMag / Apple)3. Open Mac's Task Manager
If you need something more full-featured, macOS Activity Monitor offers views of CPU status, memory usage, energy usage, and more. Open Launchpad, go to the Other folder, and select Activity Monitor. There's no direct keyboard shortcut, unfortunately, but you can press Command + Shift + U to open the Utility folder and select Activity Monitor from there.
With the Activity Monitor open, select the program that is misbehaving and click the Stop button at the top of the window that looks like a stop sign. You can then choose Quit or Force Quit next to the application.
(Credit: PCMag / Apple)4. Force-Quit From the Terminal
Apple's OS also has Terminal, its command line application, which allows you to quit open applications with the help of a little code. Head to Launchpad > Other > Terminal to launch the program. With the Terminal window open, use the command line code killall, then name the program to immediately close out of the open application. If you wanted to close out the OpenEmu game emulation app, for instance, you'd write: killall OpenEmu. Make sure the program's name is capitalized properly—Spotify, Messages, Steam, etc.—and the open application will be closed.
(Credit: PCMag / Apple)