How to restart a frozen app on a Mac without logging out

27 October 2026 · 4 min read

To restart a frozen app on a Mac, force quit it and open it again. You do not need to log out or restart the Mac. Press Option-Command-Escape, select the frozen app, click Force Quit, then open the app again from the Dock, Spotlight or the Applications folder. Only that app is affected, and everything else you have open keeps running.

Logging out or restarting the whole Mac is the heavy option. It closes every app and only helps if the problem is bigger than one app. This page covers the quick way, a way to do it in one step, and what to check if the app freezes again.

Force quit, then reopen

Press Option-Command-Escape. The Force Quit Applications window opens.
Select the frozen app. It may be marked “(not responding)”.
Click Force Quit and confirm.
Wait a few seconds until the app has left the Dock, then open it again.

That waiting matters. If you reopen the app while it is still shutting down, macOS may just bring the old copy forward, or the new copy may fail to start. A count of ten is usually enough.

Many apps restore your windows or documents when they reopen, and some ask first whether to reopen them. Reopening them is normally safe. If the app froze because of a particular window or file, though, reopening the same window can freeze it again. In that case, if the app asks, choose not to reopen them.

Do I lose my work?

Force quitting stops the app at once, so changes you made since the last save are lost. Apps that autosave may offer a recent copy when they reopen. If the app is only slow and not frozen, give it time first, because a force quit throws away what it was still working on. Quit vs force quit on a Mac: what you lose with each goes through this.

When the app is not frozen, only misbehaving

If the app still responds but is acting strangely, you can restart it more gently: quit it with Command-Q so it can save, then open it again. That is the better choice for an app that is slow, shows the wrong thing or has a stuck feature, but still answers you.

Restart in one step with Foreman

Doing the force quit and the reopen by hand is two steps. Foreman, a Task Manager for the Mac, does it with one. Right-click the app and choose Restart. Foreman quits the app and opens it again, and it opens it behind Foreman, so you stay where you were and the app does not jump in front of what you are reading.

Open Foreman from any app with Control-Shift-Escape, and a frozen app marked “Not responding” is easy to spot in the list.

A frozen app will not quit politely, so for one marked “Not responding” the surest route is End Task, which force quits it at once, followed by opening the app again. Restart is the right choice for an app that still answers but needs a fresh start. For an app that still answers, End Task asks it to quit the normal way, and if it is still open after a moment, Foreman brings it forward, since it may be asking about unsaved changes, and offers Force Quit.

Foreman is $12 once, and free for 24 hours from the first launch.

Do not reopen at once

A common mistake is to click the Dock icon again while the frozen app is still there. Clicking the icon of an app that is still running does not start a new copy. It tries to bring the same stuck app forward. Wait until the icon has lost its running dot, or until the app is gone from the Force Quit window, and only then open it.

If the app will not quit

Now and then a force quit does not take. Wait ten seconds, try the Dock route (right-click the icon, hold Option, choose Force Quit), and look at Terminal if that fails. How to force quit an app that won’t force quit has the steps in order. You can skip logging out for all of them.

If the app freezes again

One freeze can be a one-off. If the same app freezes again after a restart, check these in order:

Update the app. An update often fixes a freeze that keeps coming back. Check the app’s own menu for updates, or the App Store if you got it there.
Check the file. If it only happens with one document, the document may be the cause. Try another one.
Check the space. If the Mac’s disk is nearly full, apps can hang when they write. Open System Settings > General > Storage to see how much is free.
Check what else is running. Many apps open at once can leave the Mac short of memory, and the apps slow down together. Too many apps open? How many is too many on a Mac helps you judge it.

When logging out or restarting is the right call

Restarting the app is not enough in a few cases:

Every app is slow, not just one. The cause is the Mac, not the app.
Finder, the Dock or the menu bar has stopped responding. Finder can be relaunched from the Force Quit window. If the Dock or menu bar is stuck, see what to do when your whole Mac freezes.
The app was frozen by something that restarts with it, such as a stuck background process.

For anything else, restarting just the app is quicker, and it keeps the rest of your session exactly as it was.