If you're anything like me, you'd like the ability to fully exit your iPhone apps to help free up memory, improve battery life, stop background processes, and fix unresponsive apps. The thing is, you can, with the help of the app switcher. Force-closing apps also helps keep your app switch clean and organized.
Back in iOS 4, iOS 5, and iOS 6, all you had to do was double-click the Home button, tap-and-hold on the app you wanted to close, and tap on the red minus sign that would appear. In iOS 7 and later, long-pressing the cards or icons in the multitasking view does nothing.
How to Force-Close Apps in iOS 7 & Later
Force-closing apps on iPhone has been the same ever since iOS 7, so there isn't much change between it and iOS 8, iOS 9, iOS 10, iOS 11, iOS 12, and iOS 13. As long as you have an iPhone with a Home button, anyway.
- Double-click the Home button to bring up the multitasking view.
- Swipe up the card of the app you want to exit.
If you have an iPhone X or later, there is no Home button, and double-clicking the Side button has nothing to do with the app switcher. Instead:
- Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and hold for a moment in the middle to bring up the multitasking view.
- Swipe up the card of the app you want to exit.
No matter which way you used to access the app switcher, the app will fly off the screen and release its resources to your overall system.
On the iPhone 8 or older (left) and iPhone X and newer (right).
Easy, right? Don't feel bad if you couldn't figure it out. While many of these types of features will be familiar to veteran iOS users, some aren't immediately obvious if it's your first time picking up an iPhone.
Pro-Tip: Close Multiple Background Apps at Once
Although there isn't currently a way to completely exit all your background apps at once, you can use multiple fingers, one for each card, to swipe and close apps at the same time. Repeating the gesture multiple times will make quitting everything quick and easy.
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