Admittedly, another keyboard is a little silly and not quite convenient.Īnother option would be to switch over into System Preferences and remap a hardware escape key to regain a physical Escape key to accommodate the innovative design of a virtualized escape key on the Touch Bar. You could also connect an external USB keyboard or Bluetooth keyboard to the Mac which has a physical escape key, then trigger the familiar keystroke to force quit the problematic app. The Apple menu option is perhaps the next best choice, followed by Activity Monitor, and relying on the Terminal. Mac OS actually offers at least 6 different methods to force quit Mac applications, and while the keystroke combination is by far the most convenient and likely a firm habit for many Pro users, it’s not always going to work as discussed here. You can also short-cut the Apple  menu approach to Force Quit by holding down the SHIFT key and then going to the  Apple menu and chosen “Force Quit Application Name” to instantly force that app to close.Īdditional Mac Touch Bar Force Quit Options Choose the app from the task list to force quit and then choose “Force Quit” and confirm.Choose “Force Quit” from the Apple menu options.

From the app that needs to be force quit, pull down the  Apple menu.Force Quitting on Touch Bar MacsĪn app is stuck, frozen, or crashing and the Touch Bar not working so you can’t access the Escape key? Uh oh, but don’t worry, here’s another easy way to force quit without the virtual escape key: That might revive the Touch Bar and allow you to use the virtual Escape key on the Touch Bar to force quit the Mac the usual way. Not to worry, if you have a Touch Bar Mac without a hardware Escape key you can use other methods to force quit Mac apps, as we’ll discuss here.įirst things first, you might want to try to forcibly refresh the Touch Bar on a Mac by targeting the related processes. If an app isn’t responding, the software Escape key on the Mac Touch Bar is often inaccessible and unusable as well, so that deeply engrained keystroke isn’t always going to work to force quit stuck apps on Touch Bar Macs.

Jump command for force quit on mac