Continuous Force Quit item in Dock's right click menus?

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Level 1

23 points

Continuous Force Quit item in Dock's right click menus?

Hi!

I am a very experienced user of MacOS (I am an adept since Mac OS 8)

I have no clue why, and I am very annoyed by the Dock now having a permanent menu item that is called 'Force Quit'. I know the function, I know how to force quit applications for years, but this item being there at the bottom and me having the automatic behaviour of selecting that area just to quit, makes me continuously force quit apps.

Just above it is the conventional 'Quit' item, but why on earth are both options stacked there?

The common behaviour was / should be that an app's 'quit' menu item in Dock changes to 'Force quit' when it got into an unresponsive state. The item changes, never are there both options above each other.

Is this a 'new feature'? Can I get rid of it, since to me it is totally obsolete.

Posted on Mar 28, 2025 2:19 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

mario_amazing

Level 1

19 points

May 1, 2025 3:13 PM in response to OlliFlamme

This issue is likely caused by a custom keyboard shortcut conflicting with the standard Dock menu. In my case, I had created a shortcut named "Quit …" in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts.

After removing that custom shortcut and restarting the affected macOS services, the redundant Force Quit item disappeared.

To fix it:

Go to System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts.
Look for and remove any shortcut named "Quit …" or similar.
Restart relevant processes to apply changes:

for app in "Dock" "Finder" "SystemUIServer"; do
  killall "${app}" > /dev/null 2>&1
done

After that, the Dock menu should return to normal behavior — showing only Quit, and replacing it with Force Quit only when the app is unresponsive.

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Answer 2

OlliFlamme Author

Level 1

23 points

May 2, 2025 1:13 AM in response to mario_amazing

Thanks a lot, mario_amazing

You hit the nail on the head! Very odd that I had a custom setting for what is option+q for quitting apps. I remember that I had an odd moment where I was frustrated by the option+w being right next to option+q. I have a similar frustration with option+c and option+v. These are pretty frustrating to accidentally hit wrongly. How may times have I not expressed the idea that those that came up with those shortcuts are morons, since I have repeatedly hit them wrong, having to either reopen my app that was quit against my intention or because I needed to pick up that copied stuff again, after having copied stuff I actually wanted to replace.

So I found this setting, deleted it and in Terminal I restarted Dock with the killall Dock prompt.

The force quit menu item was gone and the prices could be reversed.

Excellent tip, I'm quite surprised that I couldn't figure it out myself.

Now, I'm back to normal! Thanks!

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Answer 3

dialabrain

Level 10

135,923 points

Mar 28, 2025 3:24 AM in response to OlliFlamme

FWIW, you should also test while in Safe Mode. In case there is a third-party app causing the issue.

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Answer 4

dialabrain

Level 10

135,923 points

Mar 28, 2025 2:46 AM in response to OlliFlamme

Don't know why you are seeing that. "Force Quit" is normal shown when you option right-click on an open App in the Dock.

Try booting into Safe Mode then restart normally. Sometimes that will fix anomalies.

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

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Answer 5

Owl-53

Level 10

102,565 points

Mar 28, 2025 3:49 AM in response to OlliFlamme

There could be something in the main User Account playing up. To further isolate this - Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac.

Then log out of the Main User account and log into the dummy account and test again if the issue persists.

If the issue is present in the dummy account - then, this appears to be a System Wide issue on the computer.

To avoid a session of Q&A, Q&A and Q&A

Download the Application Etrecheck ( External Link ) directly from the Developer.

The Application is Not a " Silver Bullet " and is only a tool to examine the Hardware / Software used on this computer

This is a Diagnostic Tool that makes no changes to the computer Hardware / Software used on this computer

The application is free or paid from added features.

The Report will Not Reveal Any Personal Information.

Post back the Full Report - copy and paste - >>>> using the Additional Text Icon ( 3rd Icon to last ) <<<<

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Answer 6

Owl-53

Level 10

102,565 points

Mar 28, 2025 2:54 AM in response to OlliFlamme

Try the previous suggestion - First

If it works - great

Like the other user, I don't receive the Force Quit from the Dock

If not, try this Terminal command

killall Dock

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Answer 7

OlliFlamme Author

Level 1

23 points

Mar 28, 2025 3:19 AM in response to Owl-53

Thanks for the replies.

I forgot to mention: I had already renamed the preference file

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

and done killall Dock in Terminal.

Dock then reopened with default prefs, but the menu thing persisted.

(FYI: all applications have the double 'Force Quit' and 'Quit' in the Dock menu options. Not sure I mentioned, but I believe you assumed that correctly.)

Gonna try that again with a reboot. Then I'll try the safe mode boot, but I'm afraid (quite sure) that it will not do much to the common boot afterwards however.

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