How to Force Close an App on Apple Watch Running watchOS 3

Uzair Ghani
force close

Here's how you can force close an unresponsive app on Apple Watch running watchOS 3 in a few easy steps.

Unresponsive App? Don't Worry - Just Force Close it on your Apple Watch

watchOS 3 is a powerful little operating system that drives the Apple Watch. And like any software from any source at all, it is prone to giving up the ghost at times. When that happens there are a few things which we can do. Force restarting the entire Apple Watch is one option. But the boot-up time is so immense, a user might not want to go through so much trouble. So, what else can you do? You take the route of force closing an app instead, without disturbing anything else at all. We will show you how it's done.

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Tutorial

1. Bring into view the unresponsive app which you want to force close. In fact, this works with any app at all.

2. Now hold down the Power button till you see the slide to power down screen. Let go of the Power button when you see the screen.

3. Hold down the Digital Crown till you find yourself on the Apple's Watch's home screen. When that happens, just let go of the Digital Crown.

The app has shut down for good and you can now launch it in a fresh manner from the ground up. Also, this is a great way of clearing your Apple Watch's RAM as well given you are running into performance issues in the first place. But of course, you have to quit each app one at a time. A painful process, at least you will get some performance to play around with in return.

Remember one thing - we have covered how to close unresponsive apps before as well (details here) but that method is no longer applicable with he release of watchOS 3. If you follow the steps from the previous guide with watchOS 3 you will end up initiating an Emergency SOS distress call. Obviously, you don't want to do that if you are sitting comfortably on a couch.

Let us know what you think about today's tip in the comments section below. And before you head out, make sure you check out the following tutorial:

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