How to pause an app on a Mac instead of quitting it

27 October 2026 · 6 min read

macOS has no Pause button for apps. You can quit an app, hide it or leave it running, and none of those stops it using the processor. To freeze an app where it is, so that it uses no processor until you say otherwise, you have to suspend it: either with a Terminal command or with a tool that has a Suspend command, such as Foreman. Both are covered below, along with a softer option for apps you only want to slow down.

What macOS gives you, and why it is not a pause

Hiding an app (Command-H) removes its windows from the screen. The app carries on working behind them. A render keeps rendering, a sync keeps syncing, and a page in a browser keeps running its scripts (if you suspect one tab, see how to tell if one browser tab is slowing down your Mac).

Minimising to the Dock does the same. The windows move out of sight and the app keeps going.

Closing a window usually leaves the app running with no windows. Only quitting ends the program, and that throws away where you were: the half-written message, the video at minute forty, the spreadsheet with its filters set. Quitting is the right answer when you are done. It is the wrong one when you want to come back to the exact same place in ten minutes.

macOS does slow some apps down by itself. A feature called App Nap holds back apps whose windows are hidden or covered, but an app can keep App Nap away while it is doing work it considers important, such as playing sound or exporting a file. You do not control it, and it is not a pause. A pause you can rely on has to be a choice you make.

What suspending an app actually does

Suspending freezes the app exactly as it is. The program is still in memory, with every window, every document and every setting as you left it, but it is not given any processor time. It does not run, so it cannot use the processor, and it cannot keep working in the background. When you resume it, it carries on from the same instant, like pressing play on a video.

Two things follow from that.

The memory the app was using stays in use. A suspended app saves processor and battery, not memory.
Anything that depends on the clock or the network does not wait for you. A suspended app cannot answer a message, finish a download or keep a connection alive. A frozen video call is likely to drop, and a web page may need a refresh when you wake it.

The Terminal way

macOS can already freeze a process from Terminal, with no extra software. You need the app’s process ID (PID), which pgrep -x followed by the app’s name prints, for example pgrep -x Preview. Then kill -STOP followed by that number freezes it, and kill -CONT with the same number lets it carry on. Despite the name, kill -STOP does not end anything.

Use it only on apps you opened yourself. An app made of several processes, such as a browser, keeps its helpers running, and if you lose track of the number the app stays frozen until you find it again or restart the Mac.

How to pause an app with Foreman

Foreman is a Task Manager for macOS, and its Suspend command does the freezing. Here is how to use it.

Open Foreman from anywhere with Control-Shift-Escape, or click its readout in the menu bar and choose Open Foreman.
On the Processes page, find the app. The Search by name or PID field helps if the list is long.
Right-click the app and choose Suspend…, or use the Process menu. Foreman asks you to confirm first.
The row now reads “Suspended” and the app stops using the processor.
To wake it, right-click it and choose Resume, or select it and click the Efficiency Mode button in the toolbar, which reads Resume while a suspended app is selected.

The app’s windows stay where they are. If you click one, macOS shows it as it was, but it will not respond until you resume it.

If you ask Foreman to End Task on a suspended app, it wakes it first so the app can act on the request, which means it can still offer to save your work.

When pausing is useful

Pausing earns its place when an app is using a lot of the processor and you want it to stop, but you are not ready to lose its state.

A long export, scan or conversion is making the fans spin up during a video call. Suspend it for the length of the call, then resume it. See mac slow during video calls for how to find the culprit first.
A game, emulator or virtual machine is open in the background and eating battery while you work on a train. Pause it and carry on later from the same spot.
An app has gone into a loop, using a whole processor core, and you want it to stop while you decide whether to quit it. Suspending stops the spin without closing it.

What not to suspend

Pausing the wrong thing makes the Mac feel as if it has crashed, so there are limits.

Parts of macOS that the screen depends on. Finder, the Dock, Control Center and the menu bar items would freeze the interface, and Foreman does not offer Suspend for them. It does not offer it for itself either, or for processes owned by root, system accounts or other users.
Anything that has to keep going. An app in the middle of copying files to an external drive, uploading, or writing a large file may fail if it is frozen partway.
Video and voice calls, as above.
Apps that need to answer in real time, such as a music app you are listening to. A suspended music app stops playing until you resume it.

If you suspend something and the Mac begins to feel wrong, go straight back to Foreman and choose Resume. Nothing is lost by resuming.

One small habit helps: do not leave things suspended and then forget them. A suspended app keeps its memory, so a handful forgotten over a week add up, and an app you meant to come back to will look frozen when you do. Foreman marks them as “Suspended” in the list, so a quick look at the Processes page tells you what you left behind.

A softer option: Efficiency Mode

Suspending is all or nothing. If you do not want to freeze an app, only to stop it getting in the way, Foreman has Efficiency Mode. It is meant for an app you need open but do not need right now, such as a mail client, a chat app or a long-running tool in another window.

While the app is in the background, it runs at background priority, on the efficiency cores of Apple silicon with its disk use turned down, and it is held to about a quarter of the processor time it would otherwise take, so it works in short bursts instead of all at once. When you bring it to the front, or while it is playing sound, it runs at full speed until you switch away again. Foreman remembers the setting for each app, so it applies again the next time the app opens, until you turn it off.

How much difference it makes depends on how busy the Mac is. It is not a speed-up for your machine, and it will not help an app that is already idle. For more, read how Foreman’s Efficiency Mode works and when to use it.

A quick way to choose between the two: if you want the app to do nothing at all, suspend it. If you want it to keep going quietly, use Efficiency Mode. If you are done with it, quit it.

Trying it

Foreman costs $12 once, works on up to 3 Macs, and is free for 24 hours from the first launch. The trial is long enough to suspend the app that bothers you and see what changes.