The Problem
Users are unable to delete apps on Mac because the system detects them as still open, even if the app appears closed, due to background processes still running.
The Solution
First, force quit the app using Activity Monitor or Terminal commands on Mac, then proceed to delete the application.
If you’re unable to delete a Mac app because it says the app is still open, there are two effective ways to resolve this issue:
Method 1: Using Activity Monitor
- Open Activity Monitor by searching for it using Spotlight (press Cmd + Space and type “Activity Monitor”)
- In Activity Monitor, look for the app that’s causing the issue or type the name of the app in the search bar. You might need to check under different tabs like CPU or Memory
- Once you find the app, select it and click the Stop ⊗ button and choose Force Quit.
- You may need to force quit multiple processes associated with the app if there are more than one running. Click View in the menu bar > All Processes, Hierarchically
- Force quit all the process associated with the problematic app.
- Try deleting the app now.
You should now be able to delete the app. If this method doesn’t work and still can’t delete the Mac app, don’t worry—we’ve another option for you below.
iPhone Mirroring Not Working Properly? Try These Fixes
Method 2: Using Terminal
With Terminal commands, you can force quit apps on your Mac and delete stubborn apps that refuse to delete.
If you know the exact name of the app
Open Terminal on your Mac and type or paste the command below.
killall [AppName]
Replace [AppName] with the exact name of the application you want to delete.
Note
The app name is case-sensitive and if the app’s name consists of multiple words (like “App Store”), enclose it in quotation marks, for example: killall News OR killall "App Store"
If you don’t know the exact name of the app
If you don’t know the exact app name, you can list all running processes and then search for the app visually or by a partial name. Here’s how you can do it:
- First, use
psto list all processes:ps aux | grep [partial name or keyword]For example,ps aux | grep Text - This will show a list of all processes that match the keyword ‘Text’, along with their Process IDs (PIDs)
- From the output, find the PID (the number in the second column) corresponding to the app you’re looking for.
- Use
kill -9to force quit the app:kill -9 [PID]For example:kill -9 1234
By following these steps, you should be able to force quit the app and successfully delete it from your Mac. If you encounter any specific issues or error messages, feel free to share them in the comment below!
More About Mac
