How to Quit the Finder
You can quit the Mac OS X Finder in a few different ways, but perhaps the fastest way is to just launch the Terminal app, which is located in /Applications/Utilities/, and type the following string at the command line:
killall Finder
Hit the Return key and this will kill the Finder process, which will then automatically relaunch as a fresh new Finder process. This is a common trick to force many defaults commands to take effect, and it can be a valuable troubleshooting technique if the Finder is misbehaving for one reason or another, or just outright crashing.
Force Quit the Finder
Another easy way to quit the Finder is to use Force Quit, which is accessible by hitting Command+Option+Escape keys together to bring up a Force Quit dialog box. From here, just select Finder and then click ‘relaunch’ which will reload the Finder in a similar fashion to the aforementioned killall trick.
How to Add a “Quit Finder” Option to the Menu
If you find yourself wanting to actually quit the Finder application without it relaunching, you can enable a hidden menu item within the Finder menu itself. To enable this menu feature you will need to launch the Terminal application and enter the following commands:
defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool YES
Hit return, and after that command is executed, you will want to kill the Finder so that it reloads with the new “Quit Finder” menu option enabled:
killall Finder
Now that you’re all done, you’ll have a “Quit Finder” menu item within the Finder menu itself.
Pull down the Finder menu and at the bottom the new Quit option will be there. Choosing this will actually quit the Finder as if it was an application, and it will not relaunch automatically in this case. This also has the effect of hiding the desktop, and it also disables the file system of OS X from being accessible to the user through general folders and files, though documents will still be available to apps through the Open menu, and files can still be saved through the menus as well.
Updated: 4/15/2013
Also, Option-right click on the dock icon.
Thanks for this – works a treat on 10.6
Ben:
“Option-right click on the dock icon” doesn’t quit finder.
Why would you want to quit the Finder? It just causes problems. Some things rely on the Finder to work. I messed up the Dock once and I had to reinstall the system. All my files were fine but it just was a waste of time.
Just go to Activity Monitor, look for Finder and click Quit process
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Pure desktop. FINALLY!
Fantastic!
Thank you so much! This really helped!
Thank you so much! Worked perfectly!
How do I make finder un-quit able again?
To disable the quit option, change the yes to no in the command.