How to close all open applications at once on Windows 11?

If you are used to working with multiple application windows, closing them one by one can be time-consuming. Windows 11 does not have a specific close all application button to prevent users from accidentally losing work on unsaved documents. However, there are some methods and workarounds to close all open applications at once on Windows 11, as shown in the following guide.

Use Windows PowerShell to close all applications

Step 1:

Type Windows PowerShell in the search bar and then click to open as usual.

Step 2:

Then the user enters the command below and presses Enter to execute.

Get-Process | Where-Object { $_.MainWindowHandle -ne 0 } | ForEach-Object { $_.CloseMainWindow() }

This will close all applications including the PowerShell window.

Close all open windows with shortcut key

The Alt + F4 shortcut is commonly used to close a specific application or shut down/restart the system. You can use similar shortcuts to close all open applications at once, then trigger the shutdown or restart action.

Press the Alt and F4 keys at the same time to open the Shut Down Windows dialog box. Click OK to execute. Windows will automatically close all open applications.

Close the specified application on Windows

If you only want to close a few specific applications, creating a batch file can automate the process of closing them all at once.

Open the Notepad application and enter the following command for each application you want to close.

taskkill /IM appname.exe /F

Replace appname.exe with the name of the application you want to close , such as notepad.exe, chrome.exe, winword.exe, etc.

Then you need to save this file with .bat extension. Finally double click on this file to execute. All specified applications will be closed immediately.

Close multiple windows of an application

Right-click on the application icon on the taskbar and select Close all windows .

Use Alt + Tab

Alt + Tab helps you observe all open application windows, but we still close them manually, which is to click on the x icon.