Make sure the app or process is highlighted, then click the Quit (X) button in the top-left corner of the Activity Monitor window.Note that an unresponsive process is labelled with (Not Responding). To make finding the culprit easier, click Process Name in the column header to sort them alphabetically, or use the Search field in the top-right corner of the window to find the app or process. Under the Process Name list, select the app or process you want to quit.That's because you're seeing the list being updated every five seconds to show changes in individual app usage statistics. You'll notice the order jumps around a lot. The main window lists all the apps and processes currently running on your Mac. You can find it in the /Applications/Utilities folder. You can also force quit misbehaving Mac apps using Activity Monitor. After selecting the offending app, click on Force Quit to shut it down.Īlternatively, you can open the Force Quit applications interface by pressing Command + Option + Escape all at once.Unresponsive apps will have a 'Not Responding' designation next to them. Click on the Apple logo in the menu bar.There's a second option for quitting an unresponsive app, and it may be one of the more intuitive solutions. If the app is acting up, hold down the Option key and right-click its icon in the Dock to reveal a Force Quit action in the popup menu.

If the beachball stays on the screen for more than a few minutes and you can't interact with the app's interface, this usually indicates the app in question has crashed, which means it's time to force quit it and restart the app to see if you can pick up where you left off in the hope it won't crash again.

Macs aren't infallible, and at some point during your time using them you'll come across a situation in macOS where an app has become unresponsive, leaving you without access to its contents and functions, and only a continually revolving beachball for your troubles.

How to force close on mac os