Mac Tip: Force Quit An Application From Terminal

This Mac tip is provided by Mark Greentree and was originally posted on Mark’s blog – Everyday Mac Support. For more of Mark’s tips visit his site, follow him on Twitter, or browse his archive of posts here.


How To: Force Quit An Application From Terminal

Did you know you can force quit applications at anytime from the Terminal. This is especially handy should you be having problems quitting the applications from the normal user interface.

Simply navigate to your Applications folder and then to your Utilities folder and proceed to Terminal.

Then type:

killall Safari

Please change Safari to the name of the application you wish to quit.

Upon successful entry, followed by the return key to activate the request, your application in question will be immediately shut down.

Please make sure that all your documents within a given application are saved as this method will not allow you the option to save any unsaved documents prior to the application quitting.

Mark Greentree

Mark Greentree is the principle blogger and podcast creator of Everyday Mac Support. His aim is to inform users at all levels of experience how to get the most out of the Apple hardware and associated software. He is the lead host of Not Another Mac Podcast, an Apple based round table discussion with Mac users and experts from all over world.