It may not be often that you find your Mac with many open Finder windows or multiple windows of Safari or any other app. But when you do and you want to close them all at once, you have two options.
If you tend to use the app switcher a lot to open recent apps, then all of the apps you accessed months ago are just sitting there cluttering things up. While force-closing all of the recent apps on your iPhone isn't really necessary, it's sometimes nice to wipe the slate clean and empty the app switcher completely to start fresh. How to Quit apps/programs in Mac - latest macOS. To close an unwanted app shown in thumbnail view, click or tap the X in its upper right corner (shown here). With a mouse, you can also right-click the app’s thumbnail, and choose Close from the pop-up menu. After you close an app, the miniature views of the other running apps remain onscreen, letting you either switch to them or close them. After all of that, you can now see that there are several methods open to you on how to force close a program on Mac. All of them are viable options and the last option, in fact, is quite extreme. However, it is also good to note if a particular program is giving you a problem quite often it might be best to uninstall it completely and start.
The first is the Command + Option + W. The second one involves mouse clicks. If you’re not the three-key-shortcut type, you’ll want to check out how to close all windows of a Mac app (including Finder) with this keystroke + click.
Select Close All Tabs. Handy for getting rid of all those open browser windows in one quick go. Members can use the Apple Store app on the iPhone to go through all of the pre.
How to Close all Windows in Mac App with Keystroke+Click
Note that this method works for all Finder Windows or multiple instances/windows of other apps (including browsers etc).
#1. With the app/Finder open, click on File from the top menu.
#2. Now, press the Option/Alt key on your Mac keyboard.
#3. You should notice that the Close option changes to Close All.
#4. Click on Close All and all the windows will be quit/closed.
That’s it. Being a keyboard-shortcuts guy, I’ve wondered if this one helps. But I realize, of late, that this tip will be helpful for those working their mice a lot (I’m thinking digital artists).
There is one interesting exception to this though. While in Finder, or Chrome the default option is Close and the Close All (or Close All Windows) option shows only when you press Alt/Option. But in Safari, when you have multiple windows/instances open, you will notice that Close All Windows shows up even without pressing the Alt/Option key.
You should remember that this method will close windows, which means all unsaved work will be lost. For instance, if you’ve got multiple websites open in different windows of Chrome, closing all windows will lose all the open data. By default, browsers only ask you when you try to close multiple tabs so even this feature won’t save data.
The method didn’t work for apps like Microsoft Word in Yosemite so the implementation seems to be specific to some apps.
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Jignesh Padhiyar is the co-founder of iGeeksBlog.com who has a keen eye for news, rumors and all the unusual stuff that happens around Apple products. During his tight schedule, Jignesh finds some moments of respite to share side-splitting contents on social media.
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To quit (close) a Mac app normally, choose Quit from the app's menu in the menu bar, or press Command (⌘)-Q. If the app doesn't quit, follow these steps to force the app to quit.
How to force an app to quit
Press these three keys together: Option, Command, and Esc (Escape). Or choose Force Quit from the Apple menu in the upper-left corner of your screen. (This is similar to pressing Control-Alt-Delete on a PC.)
Then select the app in the Force Quit window and click Force Quit.
Quit All Open Apps Mac
You can even force the Finder to quit, if it stops responding: Select Finder in the Force Quit window, then click Relaunch.
Learn more
Mac Close All Windows
How to force an app to close on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.