Other apps that may have crashed will be highlighted in red, followed by a label that says “(Not responding).” You’ll need to click on these then click on the “X” to kill them too. If they are, click on them to highlight them, then click on the “X” at the top left to kill the process. You can order the “% CPU” column by descending order to see if any apps are using a high amount of CPU power.

Open up Activity Monitor (hit Command + Spacebar then search for it) and click on the CPU tab. If this doesn’t work, it’s possible that a background process has crashed and is causing the issue. Right-click (or two-finger click) the app’s icon, hold the Options key on your keyboard, then click “Force Quit” and the app should close.

You can force quit any apps that aren’t responding or won’t close. First, try closing all of your applications by right-clicking (or two-finger clicking) on their icons in the dock, and choosing “Quit.” Occasionally your Mac will notify you that “Application blocked shut down” and sometimes you won’t see any errors at all. Sometimes software can prevent your Mac from shutting down properly. Even if you leave the box checked to “Reopen windows when logging back in” you’ll still have to wait for your currently-open applications and windows to close before your Mac shuts down.Īssuming your Mac won’t shut down, it’s time to try a few more things. Once you’ve started the shutdown process, you need to wait. If you’re feeling particularly impatient, you can hold the Option button on your keyboard while clicking the menu option to prevent that confirmation box appearing at all. Shutting down your Mac is as simple as clicking on the Apple logo on the menu bar at the top of your screen, then choosing “Shut Down…” followed by “Shut Down” in the box that appears. If your Mac is refusing to shut off, here’s how to shut it down anyway-and, hopefully, permanently fix the problem. Sometimes they won’t start up, and sometimes they won’t shut down.

Shut down mac with keyboard