The Persistent State
macOS has a feature designed to prevent data loss: when you quit an application like Preview, Pages, or Safari, it remembers exactly what documents or web pages were open. The next time you launch that application, it automatically reopens every single one of those windows. While helpful if you accidentally quit a program, it is incredibly frustrating if you intentionally closed six massive PDF files and just want to open a single, fresh, blank document the next day.
How to Disable “Resume” Globally
You can force macOS to always launch applications with a clean slate, entirely disabling the system-wide Resume feature.
1. Click the Apple logo () in the top-left corner of the menu bar.
2. Select System Settings (or System Preferences on older versions).
3. In the left-hand sidebar, click on Desktop & Dock (or just “General” in macOS Monterey and earlier).
4. Scroll through the options until you find the “Windows” or “Window behavior” section.
5. Look for the toggle switch labelled Close windows when quitting an application.
6. Turn this toggle switch On.
Note: The wording can be slightly confusing. By telling the Mac to “close windows when quitting,” you are explicitly telling it NOT to save their state. When this is toggled on, apps will always open completely blank.
How to Bypass Resume on a Per-App Basis
If you like the Resume feature for Safari but absolutely hate it for Preview, you can leave the global setting turned off and manually clear the state when closing specific apps.
Instead of pressing Command + Q to quit an application, press and hold the Option key, then press Command + Q. (Alternatively, hold Option and click the application’s name in the menu bar; “Quit” will change to “Quit and Keep Windows”).
Holding Option inverses the system default for that specific quit action, allowing you to force a clean slate only when you specifically want one.