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How to ‘Control+Alt+Delete’ on a Mac computer, and force quit unresponsive apps

If you want force an app or program to quit on your Mac, you can use a similar keyboard shortcut to PC’s Control+Alt+Delete.
Force quitting a program will sacrifice any unsaved changes, so do it with care.
In addition to the keyboard shortcut, there are two other ways to force quit a troublesome program.

Sometimes in life, you just have to cut your losses and call it quits. This is certainly the case when your Mac is giving you trouble with a program that’s either frozen, or running so slowly that you just can’t take it anymore. Rather than sitting there glaring at that rainbow-colored “spinning wheel of death,” instead just use a force quit override to shut down the program. Then you can restart it and, ideally, get some actual work done.

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Just remember that when you force quit a program on Mac, you may lose unsaved work. Sometimes an autosave function will come to the rescue, and you can opt to have websites reopen if you have to quit your browser, but force quitting often means losing some work, so use it only as a last resort.

While PC users have the Control+Alt+Delete shortcut, famously known as the “three-finger salute,” Mac users have an equally effective way to take the control back from the computer. Here are the three ways to force quit on a Mac.

1. How to force quit on a Mac using a keyboard shortcut

1. Press the “Command,” “Option,” and “Escape” keys. Note that the Option key is also sometimes referred to as “Alt,” and that the Escape key just reads “Esc.”

2. The Force Quit window will pop up.

3. Select the application you’d like to close and select “Force Quit.”