In this episode, Tyler demonstrates what to do if an app on your Mac becomes unresponsive.
If VoiceOver announces that an app is "Not responding," the first thing to try is to Command-Tab away from it, wait for VoiceOver to announce that the app is ready, and then Command-Tab back to it. If that doesn’t work, Command-Tab away from the app and turn Voiceover off, wait a few seconds, then turn it on again. Finally, if all else fails, force quit the app by Command-Tabbing to it and pressing Command-Shift-Option-Escape. Alternatively, you can press Command-Option-Escape to open the force quit window and select the problem app from the table.
If you select "Finder" in the table, the "Force quit" button turns into a "relaunch" button that, when clicked, restarts Finder. Relaunching Finder may be useful if it has become unresponsive, or if you've issued a command in Terminal to alter Finder's behavior that will only take effect on its next launch.