Do You Really Need to Close Apps? – Charm

When Windows was my daily operating system, I’d developed the habit of closing programs when I wasn’t using them. Especially in the early days when RAM was in short supply.

When I switched to macOS in 2019, this habit followed me to Steve Jobs’ little walled garden, but it turns out I wasn’t actually closing my apps like I thought—and I didn’t need to anyway.

Why macOS Handles Apps Differently

The thing that caught me off guard about macOS in the early days is that the little red button with the “X” on it doesn’t actually close the application like you think it would on Windows.

On Windows, when you close the last open window of an app (if it has more than one) you’re usually terminating the process, with a few exceptions. Like apps that go live in the notification area.

If you press the red button on macOS, the app’s windows go away, but you may still notice its icon in the dock. That’s because macOS draws a distinction between closing a window (Command + W) and quitting an app (Command + Q). When you use the second command, you’ll see a little warning pop up to tell you that you’re now really closing the app in some cases or it will close right away and the icon on the dock will also disappear.

When You Don’t Need to Worry About Quitting

So, what happened during all that time I thought I was closing applications, but I was only closing windows? Nothing. Not a thing. I never noticed any performance issues at all. This is probably because macOS will compress and shuffle memory around as needed, and apps in the background aren’t constantly burning power unless they’re actively doing something.

I don’t want to create the impression that only macOS does this either. All modern operating systems are good at managing memory, and putting idling apps away if needed so all your active apps get the memory they need.

So for the vast majority of apps, you can just leave them alone, and it won’t impact your resources, but it will be more convenient to simply pick up where you left off.

When You Should Quit Apps

MacBook displaying the force quit applications window.

That said, sometimes it pays to hit Command + Q. Some apps are notorious resource hogs—Chrome, Photoshop, or big games can eat memory and battery even when minimized. I rarely leave games open and running in the background, and I do make a point of completely closing Chrome at the end of the day. Is this just a placebo? Maybe, but my rule of thumb is that small apps that I often use (like Notes) don’t ever need to be closed.

You’ll also want to quit apps when they start misbehaving. A frozen app or one leaking memory in the background is often fixed with a quick restart. And there’s a security angle: leaving certain apps logged in (like banking or messaging apps) when you walk away from your Mac isn’t always the best idea. My rules of thumb basically look like this:

Command + Q when I know an app is resource-hungry or buggy.
Force Quit (Option + Command + Escape) for stubborn apps that refuse to close.
Activity Monitor when I want to see what’s actually eating up CPU or memory.

In practice, I almost never have to do any of that, but this works for me when needed.

So, What Now?

So if, like me, you’ve now realized that you haven’t actually been closing your apps at all on your Mac, the best thing you can do is not worry about it. It’s been fine so far right? The only real wrinkle here is that sometimes the way an app behaves can be a little confusing.

In my case, Steam is the biggest culprit. I can never get it to spawn a new window after closing them all, so if I accidentally close my Steam client window instead of minimizing it, I have to force quit the app to get my game library window back. Beyond that, it’s a non-issue.