3 quick ways to restart or relaunch Finder on Mac

Occasionally, you may need to restart the Finder on your Mac. It may be because the Finder has stopped working, or you have enacted some change that requires a Finder restart. On these rare occasions, it’s good to know how to quickly relaunch the Finder. Let’s show you the steps to do that.

A Mac showing the option to Relaunch the Finder

How to restart Finder on macOS

Here are three ways to relaunch Finder on Mac. You can go through this short video or read the written tutorial.

1. From the Dock

The simplest way to restart the Finder is to do so from the Finder icon on your Dock.

  1. Hold the Option key on your keyboard.
  2. Right-click on the Finder icon in your Dock.
  3. Click Relaunch.
mac restart finder

2. Using Force Quit

  1. Open Finder.
  2. Click the Apple icon () in the menu bar and hold Shift on your keyboard.
  3. Click Force Quit Finder.
Force Quit Finder

Alternatively, you can also press Command + Option + esc keys to open the Force Quit window. From here, select Finder and click Relaunch.

Relaunch Finder using the Force Quit menu

3. Using Terminal

Okay, how about one more way?

  1. Open Terminal.
  2. Type killall Finder and press the return/enter key.
"killall Finder" command in Terminal on Mac

For all of these methods, the Finder will automatically restart. If it doesn’t, you can launch it from the Dock by clicking on the Finder app icon.

There are other ways to restart the Finder, but these are a few of the easiest ways to do so. If your Finder is acting weird, then it may be a good idea to give it a relaunch via one of the above methods.

Have any tips about restarting the Finder that you’d like to share? If so, sound off down below in the comments with your thoughts and opinions.

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