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Quit applications politely from the command line | 11 comments | Create New Account

Jul 28, 2014 MORE: 10 Best Mac Productivity Apps You can also open the Force Quit window from the Apple menu. A third way: Option-right-click on an app in the dock to get the option to force quit that app. Think of Force Quit as “End Task” for Mac users. Shortcut of the Day highlights a great shortcut on various platforms from the desktop to mobile devices to the web. You can find more shortcuts.

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Very nice, thank you!

This script is well done and may be useful to some people. But automatically overwriting open files when you quit an application remotely isn't always 'polite.' Your cat might have been sleeping on the keyboard while you were away from your desk. If you send a kill signal to an application, at least you can be sure that no stored data has been overwritten.

That's a good point. Maybe I'll put out a new version with an option not to save.

I've just uploaded version 1.1 which includes an -n option that tells the app not to save changes.

Is it really such that OS X applications (which ARE processes, otherwise they wouldn't appear in 'ps' listings) do not catch SIGTERM/SIGINT and such to shut down cleanly? Really!?
To me this seems hard to imagine. But then I don't know better.

Yes, really. For example, the command one might expect to work as desired, killall -QUIT TextEdit, produces an error message saying 'The application TextEdit quit unexpectedly.' By all means feel free to play around with the various kill signals, but from what I can find, none of them perform the same way as pressing âŒ˜Q when using the application.

Obviously every application has a process at its core, so you will see at least one process for each application, but an application is more than just a process.

I just tried it: 'killall -TERM TextEdit' works as I expect, producing no error message but just telling TextEdit to die asap. 'killall -QUIT' indeed does behave different. But SIGTERM is what's usually sent if you do not give an explicit signal.
On the other hand it's right that on SIGTERM TextEdit won't ask you for saving your half-finished document, it will discard all changes. But that's what I expect if I say 'dear program, please terminate asap'.
Now I think I understand your hint and what it's for, I got it wrong after the first read. But I am still pretty sure that most OS X programs (application or not) do handle SIGTERM and do some clean up before exiting.

Perhaps this example will help further illuminate the matter: I use an application called Journler that updates its internal database as part of its quitting procedure. killall Journler kills the app without triggering that procedure.

For further reading, you might be interested in this.

This script was exactly what I was looking for. I am running an iTunes 9 Home Sharing server on an alternate account under Fast User Switching. This is serving the iTunes 'master library' for my family. The iMac it runs on is also a family computer for the kids.
Of course, I frequently need to administer the master library to keep it synced with purchases that have been loaded into individual users' libraries. With this script I'm able to ssh into the iMac FUS account, close down iTunes, then open the same iTunes library on my laptop without interrupting anyone's iMac session.
If the current iMac user is running a second copy of iTunes, this script doesn't seem to see it; it closes down the FUS iTunes session without asking me to choose between the processes. The script does generate a warning message (twice):
_RegisterApplication(), FAILED TO establish the default connection to the WindowServer, _CGSDefaultConnection() is NULL.
but this doesn't seem to interfere with its successful execution.

Just a note that version 1.3 is available.

Usage: quit [-a] [-p] [-s|n] application names

Arguments are the names of one or more applications. Arguments are not case sensitive. Arguments with spaces should be quoted.

Options:

-a Match argument string with any of the application's name, displayed name, short name, or title. E.g.: `quit 'Microsoft Word'` and `quit -a Word` will both quit Microsoft Word, because the app calls itself 'Word' in the menu bar.

-p Use partial matches (e.g. edit for TextEdit). Prompts for confirmation.

-s Attempt to save modified files when quitting. Overrides any previous -n option.

-n Do not attempt to save modified files when quitting. Overrides any previous -s option.

If neither the -s or -n options are specified, quit will try to detemine if any documents require saving, and if necessary will ask the user whether to save or not.

This script is super useful and helped me schedule cron jobs on a kiosk running Snow Leopard. It was the only thing that would let me automate the closure of an OpenOffice Impress presentation (although I had to execute 'quit' twice while in a full-screen presentation for some reason). On another note, where should I copy custom scripts to so that they can be executed globally? Or how do I modify the included path to include a folder with custom scripts? Thanks!

Recently we covered How to fix this copy of windows is not genuine error, Today I will show you how to force quit on Mac OS X. If you have some apps or programs that are not responding then in windows it is simple, you just press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and task manager pops up. Where you can force quit any program.

Unfortunately Mac OS X doesn’t work like Windows and it kinda does as well. Below I have tried to combine all the different possible ways to force quit not responding apps and programs in Mac OS X.

How to force quit on Mac OS

Before I start with all the different ways to force quit in Mac OS, I would like to make it clear that I am using Mac OS X Yosemite but if you are using OS X Lion, MacOS Sierra or El Capitan, you options will be fairly similar.

Activity Monitor

First and the most Windows-like method to force quit on a Mac is by using the Activity Monitor. It is like the task manager of Windows.

Go to Spotlight Search and search for Activity Monitor and Open it.
Mac OS X will open activity monitor which will show all the running processes and “activities” running on your Mac.
Here you have to scroll down and find the program or app you want to force quit.
How to force quit not responding apps in mac
Select the program and click Quit Process button inside the activity monitor and you shall see a pop-up asking for confirmation.
Click Force Quit button from there and the not responding app will be force closed on Mac.

Also read:How to connect via SSH – Windows – Mac – Android

Using Force Quit Applications window

Suppose you have a program that is not responding on you and you have a lot of processes running inside the activity monitor or you dont want to go through the activity monitor.

Actually Mac OS X has a built in feature which you can open by pressing Command+Option+Escape button at the same time.
This window in kind of a collapsed view of Task Manager in Windows, basically it will show all the apps and programs that are working.
You might have noticed that there is a Not Responding text right next to the program that is not responding on you. Just select that program and click the Force Quit button.

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