What Is The Control Alt Del Mac Doesnt Seem

Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read more than 500 million times---and thats just here at How-To Geek.

The Force Quit dialog, which you access with CommandOptionEsc, allows you to close misbehaving applications much like the CtrlAltDelete Task Manager in Windows.

However, if you want more in-depth information info about your running applications and overall system resource usage, youll want to use the separate Activity Monitor application.

What Is The Control Alt Del Mac Doesnt Seem

This is particularly useful when using a full-screen application, such as a game, and your Mac doesnt seem to be responding.

This should work even if a misbehaving application has taken over your screen and your Mac isnt responding to other keyboard or mouse actions.

If that shortcut doesnt work, youll likely need to forcibly shut down and restart your Mac.

To force your Mac to shut down, press the Power button and hold it for several seconds.

You should only do this if your Mac cant shut down normally.

Click the Force Quit button and your Mac will forcibly close that application.

For example, you can press and hold the Option and Ctrl keys and click an applications icon on your dock.

You can also press and hold the Option key and then right-click an applications icon on your dock.) Select the Force Quit option that appears to forcibly quit an application.

However, it doesnt allow you to see how much CPU or memory different applications are using, get an overview of your systems overall resource usage, or other statistics like Windows Task Manager does.

To access it, press CommandSpace to open Spotlight search, type Activity monitor, and press Enter.

Or, open the Applications folder in the Finder, double-click the Utilities folder, and double-click Activity Monitor.

From the View menu, you can select which processes you want to seejust your user accounts processes, or every running process on the system.

The CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk, and Network tabs all show how much resources all the processes on your computer are using in total.

Click the Users Groups icon in the System Preferences window.

Applications that are checked in this list will launch when you sign in, so you can uncheck them if you dont want them to launch automatically.

You can drag-and-drop applications from your dock or Applications folder to this window, tooif you do, theyll be added to this list and will automatically open when you sign in.

If you ever get into trouble on your Mac, CommandOptionEscape will open the Force Quit dialog and serve a similar purpose.

For everything else, you have Activity Monitor and System Preferences to help you out.

Hes written about technology for nearly a decade and was a PCWorld columnist for two years.

Chris has written for The New York Times, been interviewed as a technology expert on TV stations like Miamis NBC 6, and had his work covered by news outlets like the BBC.

What Is The Control Alt Del For Mac