How to Prevent macOS from Automatically Reopening Apps After a Forced Reboot

Why Do Apps Reopen After a Forced Reboot?

When you force your Mac to shut down or restart (typically by holding the power button), macOS attempts to preserve your session. Upon rebooting, it often automatically relaunches the applications and windows you had open. While this feature is designed to prevent data loss and save time, it can be extremely frustrating if a malfunctioning or resource-heavy application caused the system freeze in the first place. If a problematic app is set to reopen automatically, you may find yourself stuck in a loop of crashes and forced reboots.

How to Prevent Apps from Reopening Temporarily

If your Mac has just crashed and you are currently in the process of rebooting, you can prevent apps from reopening for this specific login session by using a simple keyboard shortcut during the startup process.

1. Wait for the Apple logo and the progress bar to appear on your screen during the boot process.
2. When you see the login screen, enter your password but do not press Enter yet.
3. Press and hold the Shift key on your keyboard.
4. While still holding the Shift key, click the Log In button (or press Enter).
5. Continue holding the Shift key until the Dock appears and the desktop fully loads.

This action forces macOS to bypass the saved state feature for this specific login, giving you a clean desktop without launching previously open applications.

How to Permanently Disable the Reopen Feature via Terminal

If you prefer that macOS never attempts to reopen your windows after a restart, you can disable the feature entirely using a Terminal command. This method is highly effective for users who prefer a clean slate every time they turn on their computer.

1. Open the Terminal application. You can find this by navigating to Applications > Utilities, or by searching for “Terminal” using Spotlight (Command + Space).
2. In the Terminal window, carefully copy and paste the following command:
3. defaults write com.apple.loginwindow TALLogoutSavesState -bool false
4. Press Enter to execute the command.
5. Next, to ensure the change takes effect properly, you should also disable the prompt that asks if you want to reopen windows. Paste this command and press Enter:
6. defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowLaunchesRelaunchApps -bool false
7. Close the Terminal application.

From now on, whenever you shut down or restart your Mac, the system will default to not saving your application state, and you will boot to a clean workspace.

How to Re-Enable the Reopen Feature

If you decide you miss the convenience of having your applications automatically restore themselves, you can easily revert the changes using Terminal.

1. Open the Terminal application again.
2. Execute the following command to re-enable saving the application state:
3. defaults write com.apple.loginwindow TALLogoutSavesState -bool true
4. Then, execute this command to re-enable the launch feature:
5. defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowLaunchesRelaunchApps -bool true
6. Close the Terminal. Your Mac will now behave as it originally did.