It’s not difficult to quit apps on your Mac. All you have to do is hit Cmd + Q on your keyboard or select Quit from the app’s menu at the top of the screen, and the app you have open will close.
But that only closes one app at a time. What if you want to close multiple Mac apps at once, such as when you’re shutting down your computer for the day or restarting it?
There’s actually a very easy way to mass quit apps on your Mac. Read on to see how you can do it yourself!
A Simple Keyboard Shortcut for Quitting Multiple Apps
There are many useful keyboard shortcuts to know for Mac. One is Cmd + Tab, a shortcut that lets you quickly switch between applications you have open. This keyboard shortcut is the starting point for quickly quitting multiple apps on your Mac.
By keeping the Cmd key held down after hitting Tab, you keep a list of the apps you have open up on your screen. You can then hit Tab again to move along the list of these apps, stopping on one you want to select or close down.
If you let go of the Cmd button when you have an app selected, the highlighted app will become active. Any open windows will come to the front of your screen (though minimized windows stay minimized) and any keyboard shortcuts you use at this point affect that app.
If you don’t let go of the Cmd button when you’re in the app switcher though, you can quit apps with a single key.
When you’re still in the app switcher, and you have an app highlighted, keep holding down the Cmd key and hit Q on your keyboard. The highlighted app will close immediately.
With Cmd still held down, you can now hit Tab to move to another app, and then hit Q to close that one next.
Or you can just keep hitting Q if you’re closing every app you have open. The app switcher will highlight a neighboring app in the window once one closes, and you can keep going with just one key press. It’s a very efficient way to mass quit your Mac apps!
Close All the Apps You Want, Easily
Closing apps with Cmd + Tab + Q only takes a second or two. So it’s a great way to quickly close apps when you’re powering down for the night or before you do a lot of app updates.
We really like how quick and easy this keyboard shortcut is and hope it helps you the way it helps us with shutting down multiple apps on our Macs all at once.