How to Close Apps on Your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch

This brief tutorial will show you how to close (quit) any currently running Apps on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

The method used to close an open App (or game) on an iPhone or iPad has been pretty much the same since multitasking came to iOS. It’s a tiny bit different based on the device you have – an iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch with a Home button or an iPhone/iPad without a Home button.

The trick is to bring up the “app switcher” by double-tapping the Home button if your device has one, or swiping up from the bottom of the screen and momentarily holding your finger in place if your device doesn’t have a Home button. If that sounds a bit confusing don’t worry – we have a guide dedicated to using the app switcher.

If you have an iPhone, your open apps will be displayed in a carousel that you can scroll (sideways) through. When you find the one you want to close tap it and while holding your finger down, swipe up.

closing open Apps on an iPhone or iPod Touch

If you have an iPad the process to close apps is nearly identical to the iPhone. Instead of a carousel, your open apps will be displayed as a grid that you can scroll (sideways) through. When you find the one you want to close tap it and while holding your finger down, swipe up.

closing open Apps on an iPad


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20 thoughts on “How to Close Apps on Your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch”

  1. Holy smokes. Cool. Been using an ipad for over a year and missed learning this. Maybe closing all those apps will help with memory problems and Safari freezes and crashes of ios7.

  2. Hi Michael

    Not that I know of :-( It would be useful though.. Hopefully Apple will include it in a future software update…

  3. Hi lily

    What version of the operating system are you running? (See posts above to find where to find that info). Are you double clicking the button?

  4. Thanks – really helpful. No wonder the battery on my iPhone was running down so fast. I had all the apps I had ever used open in the background. Doh!

    Great tutorial.

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