Closing Windows Vs Quitting Apps Vs Hiding Apps

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's look at the differences between quitting an app, hiding an app, and closing a window.

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So a lot of times I hear users, particularly new Mac users, getting confused about what happens when they "quit" an app. Sometimes is comes down to the fact that they're not actually quitting the app. They're just closing a window. There's a big difference between closing a window and quitting an app on a Mac. In addition there's a third alternative that I use more than either one of those. It's to simply Hide the app.

So here I am working in an app, in this case Safari, and I've got one window open. Let's say I want to get rid of that window. I'm done using this document, or in this case a webpage for now, and I want it to go away. Well, there are three main ways to do that. The first, and the way a lot of people do it, is to go and click on this red button. What this will do is close this window. But it will not quit the app. This is very confusing particularly for people that have used Microsoft Windows for a long time and have only recently switched to Macs. They would expect clicking the red button to actually quit the app. If you see here I click it and I'm still running Safari. The Menu is still there. I can actually go to the Menu and do things like say open up a new window. 

On Macs closing the last window used by an app doesn't quit the app. This is how it has always worked on Macs. It doesn't assume that just because you closed the last window that you're done using the app. Maybe I'm closing this window just to open a new one. For instance if I was using Pages I might close a document and then want to go and open another one and start working on it. Quitting the app Pages would be inconvenient because then I would have to relaunch it.

Now if I really wanted to quit the app the way to do that is to go to the Menu item with the name of the app and then go to the Quit item there, in this case Quit Safari. Or most people just use the keyboard shortcut Command Q. When you do that the window goes away and the app had definitely quit. It's gone.

But what is also confusing to a lot of people is when I launch that app again the window I was using reopens with the exact same size in the exact same spot with the same contents. So if it was a Pages document that Pages document would be here. In this case it's a webpage and that webpage is reloaded. There are several ways to control that. One is when you go to Quit if I hold down the Option key you can see Quit changes to Quit and Close All Windows. Or I can use the keyboard shortcut Option Command Q. This will close that window and Quit the app. When I launch the app the next time it runs like no windows were previously opened. So if I was using Pages, Numbers, or Keynote for instance it would prompt me to open up a new document. Here in Safari it's just going to open up a blank window. Not go back to the same webpage.

I could also go to System Preferences and under General I can select Close windows when quitting an app. If I turn that on it works the same way as holding the Option key down. When I Quit all windows will be closed every time I quit an app and every time I launch the app again it will start off fresh.

There's a third way to get rid of the app and the windows. This is what I use most of the time. It's instead of going to Quit use Hide. The keyboard shortcut for that is almost always Command H. If you use that it looks like you just quit the app. The window went away. The app is no longer visible but the app is still running. If I go down to the Dock here I can see a dot under Safari. It's still running. If I click on it instantly I get the app back. This window and any other windows I had open will reappear. It doesn't reload the page. It doesn't have to reopen a document. It was always there. It was always open. It was just all hidden. It has a lot of the benefits of quitting but the added advantage that I'm instantly able to go back into working with the app.

If you've been using computers for a long time you may think, well it's not good to have the app running in the background like that. It's going to take up memory. It's going to take up processor time. But it really doesn't on modern computers. Modern computers know that a hidden app really should be kind of be paused. It's not really doing much in the background. It depends a little bit on the type of app. What it's doing and all of that. But for the most part you can hide a lot of apps. I usually have several apps hidden at any time with only the one or two that I'm using at the moment visible. Very rarely do I actually Quit an app. As a matter of fact I would probably never quit Safari. I'm always doing something on the Web. I never quit Mail. Maybe if I'm working on a document in Pages and I'm finished and I know I'm not going to be using Pages for the rest of the day, maybe not even sure if I'm going to be using it tomorrow, then maybe I'll Quit the app. But if I think I'll be using that app anytime soon I just Hide it.

Hiding and Quitting, as long as you don't have this checkbox here checked so windows aren't closed are very useful if you like the positions of windows of things. For instance if I'm working in Safari here and I've got this window here and let's say I open up a new Safari window and I've got that over here as well. Then if I were to Hide the app, Command H, and bring it back those are still in the same positions. Of course they are. They were just hidden before. If I go to Quit and then I relaunch Safari those return to the same positions as well. But if I have that option checked in System Preferences or I use the Option key when quitting here so it closes all windows, or I've just closed these windows like that then when I bring up Safari again you could see I don't get all the windows back. It's going to give me one window in one of those positions but it's not going to get me back to where I was.

The same thing is true if I do full screen. So if I take Safari full screen here like this and then I close the window like that, go to Safari again you could see it opens up the window. It doesn't go back to full screen. So in full screen mode you want to move to another desktop or you want to quit the app and relaunch it rather than actually using the red button to close the window.

When you Hide an app using the App Switcher is another great way to get back to it. You just Command H for Hide and then when you want to go back to the app use Command Tab, go to the app you want, and when you select it, if the app is hidden, it simply reappears.

A good rule of thumb is never use the red button to close a window without first thinking about it. Do you really want to close this document, to close this window. On the other hand using Command H to hide you can do without thought. It's easy and in an instant to bring everything back. Only Quit that app if you don't think you're going to be using it at all for the next few hours or the rest of the day.