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Mac close all open programs

Through the list of actions shown in the middle window, find "Quit All Applications," then double-click it to create a window on the right side of Automator. Put a check next to "Ask to save changes" if you want certain apps with unsaved data to prompt you to save changes before they close.

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If not, keep that unchecked. If you want certain applications to remain open while all others close, add them to the "Do not quit" list. Click on "Add Find the Quit application in Finder and place it on either your desktop or your dock. I chose to place it on the far-right of the dock, next to a few other utilities I use regularly. Now, when you're ready to shut down all of your open apps, simply click on the Quit icon once and they'll begin to close. If there are any applications on the "Do not quit" list, they'll remain open on your dock.

And if "Ask to make changes" is checked, you'll receive a popup for any unsaved material. Now that you have created the Automator app for quitting all apps, using it is a piece of cake. Just double-click the app to open it, causing all applications including itself to instantly quit. Those two features should be left on as a data safeguard anyway, and they contribute to why this particular trick works so quickly, since it relies on window restoration to relaunch apps where they were left off.

Enjoy this tip? Subscribe to the OSXDaily newsletter to get more of our great Apple tips, tricks, and important news delivered to your inbox! Enter your email address below:. Great tip.

Since upgrading to Mavericks I can no longer see which applications are open by looking at the dock — which I keep on the left side of the screen. With the previous version of the OS I could at least see at a glance which applications were open.

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Still, for all day usage I wish I could easily see which apps are open. The tiny white line on the light gray background is just too hard to see — even with my glasses on. Mac OS X Random, always 1 App did not quit, so……….???????


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I am a new Mac user just got the Mac Air for Christmas , so that may explain it, but did the writer leave any steps out assuming everyone would know what they are? Charles, it works perfect and exactly as described. You did something wrong.

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Read the instructions and try again. Thanks for this. This way, if I click on the application by accident, I can cancel out. Thank you for the great tip, I created [close all applications] app using Automator and have the app icon in the dock. The app apparently will quit all open apps only if the finder is the active app, otherwise it will leave any app open if it is in active window.

Quit All Open Applications Instantly from Mac OS X Dock with a Simple Mac App

So before running the app you must make sure that the finder is foremost. The only way to do this is to add a few more steps to the automator apart from the workflow.


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The first tells Finder to activate. Only when the Finder window is above other application window will the Quit All Applications command work. After that the second applescript sequence tells Finder to close every open Finder window. Very un intuitive.. It is true, the Quit All Applications action will oftentimes not work on applications that have a window open the desktop. The application needs to be more elaborate.

Here are the steps.

First, follow the instructions on this article to run Automator and to create a new Automator application. A new dialog box will open with this code already pre-entered for you:. This will get Finder to make the Finder window the window that is on focus, opening a new window if none is open at that point. Third, follow the instructions on this article to add the second step in this workflow, which is to Quit All Applications. Awesome applescript LY! Thanks for giving it to us.


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This is a great solution. However, when I ran it, I got an error. After looking into it I discovered the applescript above needs a tiny, tiny little tweek….