How to Force Close an App on a Chromebook

by Jerrad Gleim | Oct 24, 2018 | Tutorials | 0 comments

Have you ever had an app freeze up on you and find that you can’t close it using the X button? Has your computer ever been running slow and you wondered why? Read this post to learn how to force close apps that are frozen or using too much memory using the Google Chrome Task Manager.

WARNING: Closing apps using the Task Manager can cause data loss. We recommend using the information made available in the Task Manager to find the app that is having problems and then go directly to the app and try closing it the normal way. Only use this tool to force close an app as a last resort.

How to Force Close an App on a Chromebook

1). Using your keyboard, press + Esc at the same time.

The task manager window will appear at the center of your screen.

Google Chrome – Task Manager Panel

Task – application name.
Memory footprint – how much memory the task is using (in Kilobytes).
CPU – the percentage of the computer processor dedicated to running the application.
Network – how much internet the task is using (KB/s).
Process ID – a number Chrome OS assigns the task.

Chrome Task Manager Panel Columns – Task, Memory Footprint, and CPU.

2). Find the app in the list that fits ONE or BOTH of the following criteria.

TIP: You can sort the apps in the panel by clicking the column headers such as Memory footprint or CPU.

Memory footprint: 300,000K or more
CPU: 40% or more
NOTE ON BROWSER APP: The Browser app cannot be closed. Browser is a system app that is responsible for making your Chromebook work. If you see that the Browser app is over 300,000K memory or 40% CPU, try closing some tabs or see if you can find a tab that may have some multimedia running in it.