If you've recently switched to Mac from Windows, you'll no doubt have wondered if there's a Ctrl-Alt-Del equivalent for Mac. The command brings up a menu that is used on Windows to terminate a program/task, or reboot a system. You can even choose to sign out of your account or switch to another one. So, basically, it's a universal fix.

To do this, just follow a few simple steps: Open the Activity Monitor app Locate the frozen application in the processes list ( hint: you can use the search box in the upper-right portion of the. Click on the app to highlight it Click on the ‘X’ button in the upper-left corner of the Activity.

#5: Use Activity Monitor To Force Quit All Apps on Mac. You can use the Activity Monitor tool to force quit apps on Mac. No matter how many apps are frozen, you can certainly close them all with the help of Activity Monitor. This tool is mainly designed to check all the running processes and some system-related background processes. To do this, simply click the “Apple” icon in the upper-left corner of your screen and select “Force Quit.” This will launch the “Force Quit Applications” box. Alternatively, you can open this menu by pressing Option + Command + Escape. Click on the name of the application in red. This item will typically be labelled “(Not Responding).”.

How to press Ctrl Alt Delete on a Mac? There's no exact keyboard shortcut that performs the same task as Ctrl+Alt+Delete does on Windows, but you can achieve similar results on Mac — at least with terminating apps — through different commands.

Improved force quit on Mac

The Mac version on Ctrl-Alt-Delete: Grab the best tools for force quitting, effortlessly

There are at least five ways to close programs on Mac via Force Quit. You can use Terminal, a keyboard shortcut, the Apple Menu, Dock, or Activity Monitor, all of which will represent ctrl alt del equivalent for Mac.

In this article, we take a look at all the known ways of using the Mac version of Control Alt Delete.

How to Ctrl-Alt-Delete on a Mac

The simplest answer to 'How do you control alt delete on a Mac keyboard?' would be to use Force Quit. And guess what, there's a shortcut for that as well.

So here's how to do Ctrl Alt Delete on a Mac:

1. Press ⌘+Option+Esc and you'll bring up the Force Quit dialog box. This can be used at any time but, given that you can quit any app by making it active and pressing ⌘+Q, the only time you'll need it is when an app stops responding or starts beachballing. The command would still works when the app is in full-screen mode.
2. Once you've called up the dialog box, you'll see a list of currently running apps. Usually the one that's causing a problem will be labelled as not responding.
3. Select the non-responding app and press Force Quit.

How To Force Quit All Apps Mac

If you don't want to memorize the shortcut, there's an easy way to perform the same action via the Apple menu: Click on the Apple logo in the upper left corner > Force Quit > select the app and force quit (the equivalent of ctrl alt del on Mac).

Tip: If apps regularly become unresponsive or start hogging processor cycles, iStat Menus can help get to the bottom of what's causing the problem. It will show you which apps are using the biggest CPU cycles. And if you need more information, you can launch Activity Monitor directly from the iStat Menus app.

All other alternatives for Ctrl+Alt+Del on a Mac

How to perform 'Ctrl-Alt-Delete' on Mac?

There are a couple of other force quit shortcuts to unfreeze app on Mac:

1. Dock. If you hold down the Control and Option keys, and click on an app's icon in the Dock, you'll see Force Quit listed as an option in the menu that pops up. Select it and the app should force quit.
   
2. Activity Monitor. You can double-click on any application in the Activity Monitor to bring up a separate window with more information about it and the Quit option to close it.
   
3. Apple Menu. The third way to do the equivalent of control alt delete on a Mac keyboard is to click on the Apple menu and select Force Quit. This will bring up the Force Quit dialog box and you can select the unresponsive app from there.
   
4. Terminal. If the basic methods don't work, you can access Terminal utility in the Applications and type the force quit command:
   1. Type 'top' and press the Return button. You'll see the information about all the apps that are active at the moment.
   2. In the Command column, find the name of the app you want to terminate and make a note of its PID number (right on the left).
   3. Type 'q' to return to the command line.
   4. Type 'kill111' (replacing 111 with the PID number) — this will perform force quit on Mac for the selected program.
   5. Quit Terminal.

Once you learn how to force quit an app on Mac, here are two quick ways to relaunch it:

1. Click on the app icon if it's in the Dock.
2. Click on the magnifying glass in the top right corner, type the name of the app, and click on it once it appears.

What do you do when application won't Force Quit

Sometimes it's not just one app that's unresponsive. What to do when your Mac freezes? How do you start Task Manager on a Mac?

To fix browser freezing — let's say, if you can't quit Safari — it would be enough to go into Activity Monitor and kill Safari processes. But if the whole system is not responding and force quit doesn't work on Mac, you'll have to give it a fresh start.

Unlike Windows macOS doesn't use the typical Ctrl-Alt-Delete shortcut to choose frozen programs to Force Quit. If you have a frozen Mac that won't do anything and you can't use any of the methods above to force quit (tip: you can force quit the Finder if it's misbehaving — it's just an app), you need to force it to restart.

Simple steps to fix force quit not working on Mac:

1. Hold down Command and Control and press the power button to restart it. If you have a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar, that won't work. You'll need to force it to shutdown and then start it normally. You do that by holding down the power button for five seconds. Your Mac will then forcibly shut down.
2. You can restart your Mac again by waiting a few seconds and pressing the power button.

This is not the most time-efficient option, but it's definitely helpful to know how to close all apps on Mac.

How to check performance with Activity Monitor

If your Mac is running slowly, but all your apps are still working, or if the fans seem to run more often than normal or are louder than usual, there may be a process hogging CPU cycles. Seems it is a good time to peek inside the processes running on your computer. You can use Mac Activity Monitor shortcut to discover the culprit.

Here's how to start task manager on Mac:

1. Launch Activity Monitor from the Utilities folder in your Applications folder and click the CPU tab.
2. Make sure the arrow next to CPU% is pointing down. If not, click it.
3. If there are any apps or processes using up significant CPU cycles (more than half), they may be causing a problem. You can quit them if you select the app or stop process (it could be a Safari tab) and press the X in the toolbar.

All in all, there is no direct equivalent of pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete on a Mac but by using a combination of the Force Quit function and Activity Monitor tool you can not only end task on Mac, but actually achieve a more informed result. And if you'd like to have even more control over your Mac, use iStat Menus to get all the up-to-date information. You can download and try iStat Menus for free from Setapp and see what's slowing down your Mac right now.

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

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Although it is very rare, Mac users face the spinning ball kind of app freezing issue on their computer as well. Despite having such good configuration, you might have already encountered with such problem when your PC stopped working like usual. Like Windows, you need to close the non-responding application to fix the issue and run your Mac like nothing happened. Therefore, you should check out this article to know the best ways to force quit apps on Mac. No matter whether you have MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, you can certainly follow this tutorial and fix the frozen application issue.

#1: Use General Panel

There is a simple method that can be used to force quit apps on MacBook Pro as well as MacBook Air. It is quite easy, and most of the people use this method only to get the job done. The good thing is there is no need to use any third-party software or anything else since it can be done with the help of in-built options. However, in this case, you need to use the trackpad or mouse.

How To Force Quit All Apps Mac Osx

At first, click the Apple logo visible on the top-left corner of your screen or navigation bar. Here you can find an option called ‘Force Quit.’

Click on this option. It should open the Force Quit Applications panel. Now, you can choose an app, and click the Force Quit button.

That selected will be closed forcefully.

#2: How To Force Quit An App On Mac Without Mouse

If your trackpad or mouse pointer is frozen along with the application, and you want to force quit an app on Mac without mouse or trackpad, here is what you can do. This is same as the previous trick. In other words, you need to use a keyboard shortcut to open the Force Quit Applications panel. The keyboard shortcut is Option+Command+Esc. You need to press these three buttons together.

After that, the corresponding panel would appear. Now, you need to select the app using up/down arrow. If you want to close the selected app, hit the Return button.

Then you need to confirm the whole thing.

#3: Use Option Key

Option or Alt key plays a vital role in various cases, including this one. You can force quit an application without opening the Force Quit Applications window. All you need to do is to use the Option key on your keyboard. In this case, you need to use mouse s well as keyboard to get the job done.

To use this method, make sure you are on the frozen app window. After that, press and hold the Option key. Now right-click on the app icon in the Dock. Here you should find an option called Force Quit. Use this option to force quit apps on Mac.

#4: Force Quit Apps On Mac Using Terminal

If you cannot force quit apps on Mac using those aforementioned methods, you can do the same with the help of Terminal. Like Command Prompt on Windows, Terminal is an in-built program for Mac. Being said that, you do not need to install anything to use Terminal. To close a running process using Terminal, you need to follow this method.

Open the Terminal first. After that, type ‘Top’ and hit the Return button. Following that, find out the corresponding PID number of the running process that you want to close.

Return to the Command Prompt panel, and type a command like this-

kill PID

The process will be closed immediately.

#5: Use Activity Monitor To Force Quit All Apps on Mac

How To Force Quit On Keyboard Mac

You can use the Activity Monitor tool to force quit apps on Mac. No matter how many apps are frozen, you can certainly close them all with the help of Activity Monitor. This tool is mainly designed to check all the running processes and some system-related background processes.

To utilise this tool, you need to open it first. Following that, select the process that you want to kill. After selecting, click the close button. Here you can find two options, i.e. Force Quit and Quit. You need to use the Force Quit option to get the job done.

That’s all! These are some of the best methods to force quit apps on Mac. However, many people ask whether it is bad to force quit apps on Mac or not. The answer is yes and no. If you are working on a document in the Pages app and you force quit the app, your work won’t be saved. It would be deleted immediately. On the other hand, if you do not kill the app, you need to stay with a concurrent spinning ball.