When an application freezes on a Mac, the standard operating procedure is to press Command + Option + Escape to open the “Force Quit Applications” menu. However, this menu has a massive limitation: it only displays top-level, graphical applications like Safari or Microsoft Word.
If a hidden background service (like a frozen menubar utility or a crashed update daemon) begins consuming 100% of your CPU, it will not appear in the Force Quit menu. Furthermore, if the entire graphical interface locks up, you cannot click the menu at all.
To forcefully terminate frozen background processes by name, system administrators use the pkill command in the macOS Terminal.
Step 1: The Basic pkill Command
The pkill command allows you to terminate a process by simply typing its name, rather than having to hunt down its numeric Process ID (PID).
If the Spotify application has frozen and refuses to close, open the Terminal and type:
pkill SpotifyPress Return. The command will instantly send a termination signal to the application, forcing it to close immediately. Note: The command is case-sensitive by default. Typing pkill spotify (lowercase) will fail.
Step 2: Using the Case-Insensitive Flag
Because macOS application names can be complex (e.g., Creative Cloud Helper), remembering the exact capitalization is difficult.
To make the command case-insensitive, append the -i flag.
pkill -i "creative cloud"Note: If the application name contains spaces, you must enclose the entire name in double quotation marks, as shown above.
Step 3: Killing Multiple Processes Simultaneously
The true power of pkill is that it uses pattern matching. It does not just kill an exact match; it kills anything that contains the word you specify.
Google Chrome is notorious for spawning dozens of independent helper processes. If Chrome completely locks up, killing the main app might leave 20 orphaned helper processes running in the background.
If you run:
pkill -i chromeThe terminal will instantly terminate the main browser, the audio engine, the crash handler, and every single helper process simultaneously, completely purging Chrome from your system memory.
Step 4: The Nuclear Option (SIGKILL)
By default, pkill sends a polite request (SIGTERM) asking the application to close itself. If the application is catastrophically frozen, it will ignore this request.
To send a brutal, un-ignorable termination signal (SIGKILL) that forces the operating system to rip the application out of RAM immediately, append the -9 flag.
pkill -9 -i safariWarning: Using the -9 flag gives the application absolutely no time to save data or close files properly. Any unsaved work in the application will be permanently lost. Only use this if the standard command fails.