How to Quickly restart the Mac Finder

Finder is the most used app on Mac, it comes as no surprise that it becomes unresponsive at times. Here are four ways to quickly relaunch Finder so that it becomes responsive again.

1) Relaunch from Dock

One of the easiest way to restart the Finder is to relaunch it from the Dock. Press and hold Option key and right click on the Finder icon in the dock, select Relaunch.

2) Restart Finder from Force Quit Applications window

Press Command + Option + Esc. Select Finder from the list and click Relaunch.

3) Using Activity Monitor

Activity Monitor (also referred as task Manager by Windows users) can also be used to restart Finder or any other unresponsive app.

To open Activity Monitor, Open Finder ❯ Applications ❯ Utilities ❯ Activity Monitor. Alternatively, you can use spotlight search to open Activity Monitor, press Command + Space, type Activity Monitor and hit return. This will open up the Activity Monitor app.

Select the Finder from the list, click the cross button located at the top left corner of Activity Monitor window and select Force Quit.

4) Command Line Method

As you know anything can be done from GUI, can also be done though command line. Open terminal, press Command + Space, type terminal and hit return

Type the following command and hit return

killall Finder

This would relaunch the Finder.