Mac OS X Tip – Keyboard combination to Force Quit an application

Have you ever had a time where your Mac was slow to respond, so you try to open Activity Monitor only for it not to respond either.  So you try to click on the Apple logo and select Force Quit but you have the Beach Ball instead of a mouse pointer.  Well you are in luck.  There is a keyboard combination that will do the trick to get the Force Quit Applications window to open for you.

What you will want to do is hold down the following keys – Command+Option+Escape.  You can press all three keys at once, but that takes the correct timing.  What I would suggest is pressing Command+Option then press Escape while the other two buttons are held down.  Now you will see your Force Quit Applications window.  From here you can select the application that is not responding, and then click the Force Quit button.

This keyboard combination can have other useful applications; such as when you are installing an application, and it has finished, but the installer is still showing in the Dock Bar.  When you press Command+Option+Escape you will see two Finder applications.  You will want to select one of the Finders, and then select Relaunch.  At this point your screen will refresh by repainting the icons on your desktop and your Dock Bar.  Now you will only have one Finder showing.  This can  also be effective  if an application running causes two Finders to appear in the Force Quit applications.

As you can see this one keyboard combination can have two results.

Photo Credit: From my iMac