Use the Quit menu

With the Quit menu you can quit applications, force them to quit, and force them to quit and automatically relaunch them.

To show the Quit menu:

Click the red button in the menu panel or menu bar or, if you have enabled it, press the Quit menu keyboard shortcut.

Use the menu panel to display menus
Show Application Wizard in the menu bar
Use keyboard shortcuts to display menus

To quit an application or force it to quit:

  • To quit an application, choose it from the Quit menu.

  • To quit an application and close (or keep) its windows, hold down the Command and Option keys and choose it from the Quit menu. Windows are closed if Resume is enabled for the chosen application or system-wide. Windows are kept if Resume is disabled for the chosen application or system-wide.

    By default, Resume is disabled system-wide. To enable Resume system-wide, deselect the ”Close windows when quitting an app” checkbox in the General pane of System Preferences.

    Disable or enable window restoration for specific applications

  • To force an application to quit, hold down the Option key and choose the application from the Quit menu.

  • To force an application to quit and automatically relaunch it, hold down the Control key and choose the application.

Warning: By forcing an application to quit, you may lose unsaved changes.

Quit menu items are described below. To add or remove items from the Quit menu, open the Application Wizard pane in System Preferences and click Menus. Click the Customize Menus button and click Quit.

Customize the Quit menu

Running Applications

Choose an application to quit it. The active application is checked.

By default, running applications are sorted alphabetically. To list them from the most recent one to the oldest one, select the ”Sort running applications chronologically” checkbox in the Quit pane of the Customize Menus dialog.

Running applications include automatically terminated applications. If you prefer not to show them, deselect the ”Include automatically terminated applications in” checkbox or choose Background Processes from the pop-up menu in the Menus pane of the Application Wizard preferences.

Show automatically terminated applications

Quit Others

This command quits all the applications listed in the Quit menu except the active application.

Alternatively, you can quit all the applications listed in the Quit menu except one by holding down the Command key and choosing the application you want to keep running.

Quit All

This command quits all the applications listed in the Quit menu.

Quit Excluded

This command quits all the applications you have excluded from the Quit menu.

Keep applications always running

Groups

Groups let you quickly quit multiple applications at the same time.

To quit all the applications belonging to a group, choose Quit All from the group’s submenu. If you select the ”Choosable group menu items” checkbox in the Menus pane of the Application Wizard preferences, you can also quit all the applications belonging to a group by selecting the group menu item in the Quit menu.

Create groups

Excluded Applications

This submenu lets you quit applications you have excluded from the Quit menu.

Keep applications always running

Background Processes

The Background Processes submenu lets you quit background-only applications and services.

By default, Application Wizard shows the identification number of your background processes, so that you can distinguish different instances of a same process. To hide process identifiers, choose Hide Process ID from the submenu.

The Background Processes submenu can include automatically terminated applications.

Show automatically terminated applications