How to Kill Safari from the Command Line

Usually, Safari is a good and stable web browser for surfing the web.  But sometimes, it can get ‘stuck’ on loading a web page and then that damn beach ball comes up.  Sure, you can wait and see if it resolves itself but why when you can stop the beach ball icon sooner rather then later.

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People may not know that you can close most Mac apps via the Terminal.  But one has to do this only when there isn’t any other way, as it may damage some necessary files that could render an app unusable the next time you want to use it.  Anyway, here’s how to terminate a locked Safari window:

1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
2. At the command prompt, type: killall Safari
3. That’s it.

The killall command abruptly shuts down all of the processes relating to Safari, and then the web browser itself.

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Dan Uff

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