OS X Tip - Force Quit Apps From The Dock (With Pic)
by , 2:00 PM EDT, June 15th, 2001
While the next installment of Hot Cocoa will not run until next week, we wanted to give you your OS X fix by offering up a little tip that an astute Observer brought to our attention. We all know that the best thing about Mac OS X is its resistance to crashing. The Unix core's protected memory scheme essentially allots a specified block of memory for each individual application to run in. If something happens with that application, it is contained in a specified area and therefore does not, generally, effect other apps.
This means that when one program in OS X starts misbehaving, users can generally quit the offending application, relaunch it, and continue working as normal. System wide crashes are ALMOST a thing of the past.
Apple provides a number of ways to Force Quit an application if it stops responding. If you are using, say, Internet Explorer and your cursor turns into the Spinning Wheel of Death, but the rest of your apps remain responsive, you probably need to Force Quit Internet Explorer. The two most common ways to do that are:
- Go to the blue Apple Menu, select Force Quit..., and shut down the application in question
- Use the Command + Option + Escape keystroke to bring up the Force Quit window, and kill the application from there
However there is a third, and arguably far easier way, to force quit an application. If you Control + Option + Click (or Option + Click and hold) on an application's icon in the Dock, you will notice that you now have the option to Force Quit instead of the plain vanilla Quit option usually associated with Control + Clicking on a Dock icon.


While OS X users are spared from system wide crashes for the most part, individual applications still act up fairly frequently. This tip should help you more efficiently deal with the pesky apps when they do.
Observer Comments
after yuou have already opened the op up menu from dock, you cna still choose force quit even though it say only quit.
just depress option + control and it will switch to Force quit as long as those keys are depressed.
more useful if llike me you are a creature of habit and alway open those menus with a right click or double finger tap on the touchpad.
Comments are currently closed. Please email the author instead.
Recent Headlines - Updated February 9th
- Tue, 6:27 PM
- iPad - Apple Job Posting Hints at a Camera in Future iPads
- 6:22 PM
- Product News - Apple Releases Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 3.0
- 6:18 PM
- Product News - Apple Updates iLife ‘09 with Aperture 3 Support, Slideshow Performance
- 4:53 PM
- News - Google Introduces “Buzz” Social Information Sharing Service
- 4:19 PM
- Just a Thought - iPad: A Reason For Being
- 3:28 PM
- News - Google Lowers Nexus One “Equipment Recovery Fee” to $150
- 2:27 PM
- Deal Brothers - Refurbished 13” MacBook 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo: $749
- 1:31 PM
- Jeff Gamet's Blog - Macworld Expo: It’s Our Show, Not Apple’s
- 10:38 AM
- Quick Look Review - Texas Tea for the iPhone and iPod touch
- 10:25 AM
- News - Apple Rolls Out Aperture 3 Video Tutorials
- 10:00 AM
- Hot Forum Topic - Backing Up Your iPhoto Library
- 9:35 AM
- Product News - Notebook, iThoughts Add TextExpander touch Support
The Mac Observer Reader Specials
- TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com
RamJet Memory: Mac Pro 8GB Kit $275.99, Mac Pro 4GB Kits $145.99! Sale on MacBook and MacBook Pro 8GB kits $459.99! MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac Mac mini 4GB Kits for $113.99! 1TB SATA Hard Drives for $109.99! Click here- If you own a car, you need CarMD! Catch problems, estimate repairs and more. Now for Mac. $98.99 at www.CarMD.com Save $10 with code TMO1.
If you're using a Mac, then you've gotta check out Full Tilt Poker for Mac. This Full Tilt Poker bonus code does the unthinkable, it actually rewards!For the latest Apple products use Ciao, a price comparison website, to find laptops like MacBook Air. Then find the best prices on MP3 players and use our comparison tool to evaluate mobile phones like the Apple iPhone.
Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.


