How to Quit the Finder
You can quit the Mac OS X Finder in a few different ways, the fastest way is to just launch the Terminal and type the following at the command line:
killall Finder
This will kill the Finder which will then automatically relaunch.
Force Quit the Finder
Another easy way to quit the Finder is to use Force Quit, which is accessible by hitting Command+Option+Escape to bring up a Force Quit dialog box. From here, just select Finder and then click ‘relaunch’ which will reload the Finder.
How do I get the Quit Finder menu?
Another way to Quit the Finder is to enable the hidden menu item within the Finder menu itself. To enable this menu feature you’ll want to launch the Terminal and enter the following commands:
defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool YES
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.
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!