What the hell is the keyboard shortcut to force-quit a program in OS X? On the dropdown list of commands under the apple logo, it shows it, but the keystrokes are apparently something not on my keyboard-command-something not on my keyboard. What keys do those symbols correlate to?
This is on a brand-new Macbook, and yeah, I’m new to OS X.
CMD-OPT-ESC (I think)
That is correct.
⌘ is Command Key
⌥ is Option (Alt) Key
⎋ is Escape (Esc) Key
It’s funny. I am not new to Mac OSX, but I have never learned that combination. I usually press various similar looking combinations until something happens. The problem is that I can never look it up when I need it.
Exactly! You can’t get to that menu when you really need it unless other applications are working and can be gotten to, and those symbols are so damned mysterious that you can neither remember it or puzzle it out.
I have to use a PC at work so my first recourse is to give my home Mac the traditional three-finger salute made famous by Bill Gates. It takes me moment to puzzle out why that doesn’t work and then try to remember the Apple version.
It’s not like Ctrl-Alt-Delete is painted in big bright letters on your PC keyboard. Those who use Windows have to memorize that one, too.
There’s three ways to force quit, that I know of.
One is the Cmd-Opt-Esc combination.
Another is to open up Terminal and to kill the process with the “kill [process ID]” command. (I usually use “top” to find the process ID. You can also use “ps”).
The third is to kill the processes using Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities) or Cmd-Shft-U.
Two and three are useful to know because sometimes applications stubbornly refuse to force quit. Also, if your Dock ever begins to misbehave (mine has, at times, disappeared), the only way to force quit it is through the second and third methods. When you force quit Dock, it will automatically relaunch itself. Hopefully, this will sort out any Dock problems.
Thanks. I think I’m going to keep a list of shortcut keys as I discover them, for reference. The habits I built up in my 15 years or so of using a PC are not going to die easily. It’s hard enough switching to a new keyboard on a laptop, but if you just go ahead and change some of the keys, it’s baffling.
On a related note, is there any meaning to the symbols for command and option? I get that the up-arrow means shift (logical enough), and know that I know what I’m looking at, the escape symbol makes some sense. But the little loopy squareish thing for command and the…thing for option seem to be just random symbols. What am I missing?
(I will now await the glaringly obvious answer. It took me a few days to realize that the up arrow is not in fact the cursor key up arrow, but a representation of shift…)
Yes, you can - press “⌘-tab” - it’s the Mac equivalent to “alt-tab”. Each time you press that combo, you cycle through the open applications. When you get “Finder”, you can go to the Apple logo at the top left corner to get the drop-down menu for “Force Quit.”
Here’s the explanation for the command symbol. Before clicking, have a guess at where it came from. (You’ll never guess.)
The option symbol looks vaguely like a switch in a circuit diagram, or perhaps a fork in a train track. Things approaching from the left could be channeled into either of the two paths on the right — hence there’s an option. At least that’s how I look at it.
Ohhh. <smack>
I can contribute that the high F keys are super-useful, but I forget which one does which and so I cycle through them. But one of them minimizes everything so you can see the desktop, one of them zooms out on all your applications that you’ve got running, and I forget the other one. But I use those all the time.
You’re certainly right - I never would have guessed that! As for the option symbol, my brain insists that it is either some sort of embossed ‘x’, or an escalator. Neither of these make a damn bit of sense, but nor does the command symbol, so who knows.
Zsofia:
F8 brings up the Spaces interface (in Leopard, anyway).
F9 zooms all your windows so they all fit on the screen without overlapping.
F10 zooms all the windows of the current app.
F11 clears the desktop
F12 brings up the dashboard.
Add, right-click the dock icon and choose force quite (if the process has stopped responding), or option-right-click if the process hasn’t hung.
While we’re on the topic, is there a way to remap these shortcuts? One of the few things I like better about Windows over Mac OS is the more sensible functions assigned to the Home and End keys; in Windows they jump the cursor to the beginning and end of the current line, whereas in the Mac they jump to the top and bottom of the page. I’d like to change Mac OS to emulate the Windows behaviour.
Also when I’m looking at folders in Finder I’d like the Backspace key to go up one level, as it does in Windows Explorer.
Thanks all!
It’s a switch. (E.g. it switches on an option. Yeah, that’s the ticket. For realsies.)
Doublecommand may take care of some of that.
Command-rightarrow moves you to the end of the line. Command-leftarrow to the beginning of the line. Since those are already taken care of, the MacOS behavior of Home and End keys makes more sense.
(Oh, and if you add the Shift key to the works it highlights everything in between current position and beginning or end of line).
Option-rightarrow moves one word at a time. Option-leftarrow does likewise (but leftwards, of course).
And Command-uparrow in the Finder opens the parent window.
I can’t say you’re wrong for having your preferences, because we all do. I can try to justify the Mac’s reasoning, though. Home and End do just what they say, take you to the documents home and end positions. If you notice where they are on the keyboard (next to the PageUp and PageDown keys), their positions logically suggest larger navigation moves. Coupled with AHunter3’s hint, you’ve got logical use of all of the keys. As for the backspace key, I wish there were a different way to do it on Windows. On the Mac keyboard, BackSpace is labelled Delete, and, well, the muscle memory works for me on Windows, but I do hate the fact that a key used for deleting things causes navigation movement!
I just heard about this newfangled thing called Google 