Switching from Windows to Mac: what to do when an app freezes
When an app freezes on a Mac, press Option-Command-Escape, pick the app in the Force Quit window and click Force Quit. That is the Mac’s answer to Ctrl+Alt+Delete. You do not have to restart the computer, and the other apps are not affected. The rest of this post covers the habits you can keep from Windows, the ones to drop, and the other ways to reach the same result.
Wait first, as you would on Windows
On Windows, a frozen program’s window fades and its title bar adds (Not Responding). The advice is to give it a minute, because many apps are only busy. The Mac works the same way, with its own sign: the spinning rainbow wheel, often called the beach ball, appears over the app’s windows when it has stopped answering for a few seconds.
A beach ball is not always a freeze. An app opening a huge file, exporting video or searching a big library can show it for a while and then recover. If you can see the app is still doing something, such as a progress bar that is still moving, wait. The spinning beach ball on a Mac: what it means and what to do goes through how to tell the difference.
If a minute or two passes and nothing changes, the app is stuck, and it is time to force it to close.
The Mac version of Ctrl+Alt+Delete
Press Option, Command and Escape together. A window called Force Quit Applications appears and lists your open apps. Click the frozen one, then click Force Quit. macOS asks you to confirm, and then the app closes.
If you prefer menus, click the Apple menu in the top left of the screen and choose Force Quit. It opens the same window.
One caution carries over from Windows: force quitting throws away anything the app had not saved. Some apps keep a recovery copy and offer it when you reopen them. Many do not. This is why waiting a little longer is worth it when you have unsaved work.
Two more ways: the Dock and Foreman
From the Dock. Right-click an app’s icon in the Dock. If the app has stopped responding, the menu offers Force Quit. If it looks like an ordinary menu, hold the Option key and the Quit entry changes to Force Quit. It is handy when you already have the pointer near the Dock.
With Control-Shift-Escape. On Windows you press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager. macOS does not assign those keys to anything by default. Foreman is a Task Manager for Mac that uses them: press Control-Shift-Escape from any app and its window opens, with your apps grouped with their helper processes. An app macOS has marked as hung reads Not responding. Select it and click End Task, and Foreman force quits an app marked Not responding at once. Ctrl+Shift+Esc on a Mac: open a task manager with the same keys covers the shortcut in more detail.
For an app that is not marked as hung, End Task first asks it to quit the normal way, as Command-Q does, so it can offer to save your work. Press End Task again within a minute and Foreman force quits it. If the app stays open after a moment, Foreman brings it forward, since it may be waiting on a question about unsaved changes, and offers Force Quit.
Habits that carry over, and habits to drop
Carry over: wait before you act, save often, and close the biggest memory users first when the whole machine is slow. The idea that one stuck program should not need a restart is the same on both systems.
Drop: two Windows habits do not fit. The first is that the red button in the top left of a Mac window closes the window, not the app. Many Mac apps keep running with no windows, and the Dock shows a dot under the icon of an app that is still open. If you closed a window and the app still seems to be eating resources, it is probably still running. Press Command-Q with the app in front to quit it properly.
The second is restarting at the first sign of trouble. On a Mac, a restart is for when the whole system misbehaves, not for one stuck app. What to do when your whole Mac freezes covers that case.
If force quit does not work
Sometimes the app stays on screen after you force quit it. Wait a few seconds, because quitting can take a moment while macOS cleans up. If it is still there, try the Force Quit window again, and then the Dock method. How to force quit an app that won’t force quit lists what to try next.
A short checklist
- Wait a minute or two, and look for signs of activity.
- Press Option-Command-Escape, select the app, click Force Quit.
- If that is awkward, right-click the app in the Dock, hold Option, and choose Force Quit.
- Reopen the app. If it offers to reopen its windows, accept to get your place back.
- If the same app freezes again and again, check for an update to it.
With Foreman, the same job is Control-Shift-Escape, select the app, End Task. Foreman is $12 once, free for the first 24 hours, so you can try the Windows-style approach before you decide.
None of this is hard once the keys are in your fingers. Option-Command-Escape is the one to learn first, because it works on every Mac with nothing installed.