How to close all apps at once on Windows 11

The short answer

• • One window: Alt+F4 closes the active window. Windows has no single shortcut that closes every app.
• • Everything: signing out closes all your open apps, and your session ends with them.
• • Your usual set, on one key: a Seqtrix sequence saves the window in front, closes the programs you name, then locks, sleeps or shuts down the PC.

The Windows facts here are from Microsoft's keyboard shortcuts and sign-in pages. Checked on 26 October 2026.

The free way first: what Windows already does

Start with what you already have. Each fact below is from Microsoft's own pages, linked under each card. Checked on 26 October 2026.

When the free tools are enough

If you close everything when you finish anyway, sign out or shut down: it is free and leaves nothing open. If one app has frozen, Task Manager or End task on the taskbar is the tool. And if you write scripts, a taskkill batch file run by Task Scheduler closes a fixed list at a fixed time.

What the free tools leave to you is the routine around it, on one key: saving first, closing only your usual programs while the rest stay open, waiting a moment, then locking, sleeping or shutting down, without writing or maintaining a script. That is the part Seqtrix does.

The Seqtrix way: the End of a remote day template

Seqtrix is a Windows app where you put steps in a sequence and fire it from a hotkey, a schedule or a click. End of a remote day is a ready-made close-down for the working day: it saves the window in front, logs and sums up your day, gives you 30 seconds to sign off in chat, closes three work apps, clears the clipboard and locks the PC.

From template: End of a remote day

Template

End of a remote day

Plan

Advanced

Steps

9

Trigger

None built in: it runs when you click it. The hotkey, schedule and app triggers below are on every plan.

These are its steps, as they ship:

1. 1
   Save whatever is open

   Press Key

   Presses Ctrl+S once, which saves the document in the window in front if its app saves with Ctrl+S. Only that window: save anything else yourself first.

2. 2
   Let the save land

   Wait

   Waits 1.5 seconds so the save can finish before anything closes.

3. 3
   Log the finish

   Run Command

   Adds a line with the date, the time and "finished work" to worklog.txt in your Documents folder.

4. 4
   Build today's summary from the worklog

   Run Command

   Copies today's lines from worklog.txt into today-summary.txt on your Desktop.

5. 5
   Show the summary to paste into chat

   Run Command

   Reads today-summary.txt back as the step's output. The file stays on your Desktop for you to copy from.

6. 6
   Time to post your sign-off

   Wait

   Waits 30 seconds while you paste the summary into your team chat. Seqtrix does not post it for you.

7. 7
   Close the work apps

   Run Command

   Ends every running process named Slack, Teams or Outlook with PowerShell's Stop-Process, which forces them to quit rather than asking them to close, so they get no chance to ask about unsaved work. The step is written to succeed even when none of them is open, so a missing app never stops the run.

8. 8
   Clear the clipboard

   Run Command

   Empties the clipboard, so nothing you copied is left to paste.

9. 9
   Lock the machine

   OS Action

   Locks Windows. Programs the run did not close stay open behind the lock screen.

What Close the work apps does is from Microsoft's pages for Stop-Process and Process.Kill, and what locking leaves open is from its sign-in page. Checked on 26 October 2026.

Make it close your programs

The template ships set to close Slack, Teams and Outlook. Five steps turn it into your own close-down:

1. 1
   Add the template

   In Seqtrix, open Templates, search for End of a remote day and click its card. On Advanced or Pro, or during the trial, Seqtrix saves it as one of your sequences and opens it in the editor with its 9 steps. On Starter the card opens a read-only preview, and its Add button offers the 15-day Advanced trial, if you have not used it, or Advanced.

2. 2
   Name the programs to close

   Close the work apps is a Run Command step. In its command, change Slack,Teams,Outlook to the process names of the programs you want closed, separated by commas, such as notepad for Notepad, the example Microsoft uses for Stop-Process. To find a name, open the Running list of a Close Application step, which shows each running program by its process name, and leave off the .exe. Leave the rest of the line as it is: that part makes the step succeed even when none of the programs is open.

3. 3
   Or close a program with its own step

   For a program you always have open, add a Close Application step and pick it from the Running list under Application to Close. The app describes the step this way: "Sends a graceful close signal first, then force-terminates if the app does not respond." In practice Seqtrix asks each of the program's windows to close, waits half a second and ends it if it is still running. If the program is not running at all, the step fails and the steps after it are skipped, so keep this step for programs that are always open.

4. 4
   Keep only what you need

   If all you want is the closing, delete Log the finish, Build today's summary from the worklog, Show the summary to paste into chat and Time to post your sign-off. To shut down, restart, sleep or sign out instead of locking, open Lock the machine and choose Shutdown, Restart, Sleep or Log Out in its OS Action list.

5. 5
   Test it, then save

   Save your own work first, because Test run really closes the programs. Watch the steps run in order, then save the sequence under a name you will recognise in a list, such as Close down.

Run it from one hotkey, a schedule or an app

A sequence has no trigger until you give it one, and a hotkey is a schedule like any other: the same form the features page shows under schedules and triggers, which lists Hotkey as a global keyboard shortcut trigger from anywhere.

1. 1
   Open a new schedule

   In Seqtrix, open Schedules and choose + New Schedule.

2. 2
   Name it and pick the sequence

   Type a Name, such as Close down, and choose your sequence under Sequence.

3. 3
   Choose Hotkey and press the chord

   Under Trigger, choose Hotkey. Click the Keyboard chord box and press the keys together, for example Ctrl+Alt+Q. A modifier key on its own is not taken, Esc cancels and Clear empties the box. Seqtrix takes the Windows key as Ctrl, so build the chord from Ctrl, Alt and Shift.

4. 4
   Create the schedule

   Click Create Schedule. In the app's own words, pressing the chord anywhere on Windows fires the sequence, in the background, even while another app has focus.

Pick a chord no other program uses. If another app already owns it, Seqtrix logs the conflict on that schedule and the hotkey stays inactive until you change it. The Hotkey, Time and App triggers are on every plan, Starter included, and each schedule counts as one of Starter's 3.

Rather not press a key?

• • At the end of every workday: choose Time instead, Weekly under Recurrence, Mon to Fri under On weekdays, and your finish time in Hour and Minute. It runs whether you are ready or not, so a hotkey is safer if your finish time moves.
• • When a game or OBS opens: choose App, then App launches under Trigger when, and pick or type the program under Application. The sequence runs the next time that program shows up in the list of running processes, which Seqtrix checks every 5 seconds. Give this its own copy of the template, cut down to the close step and naming only what should go, such as your chat apps.
• • From the Mini Mode ring: put it on a slot of the floating launcher and click it there. The ring has eight slots, and Starter has 3 of them live.

Before you rely on it

• • Seqtrix has to be running. Closing its window leaves it in the system tray (Minimize to system tray on close is on by default), and schedules and hotkeys keep running there; Quit from the tray icon stops them. To have it ready when you sign in, turn on Launch on startup in Settings, which stays off until you do.
• • It closes for real. A test run or a stray press ends the programs on the list, so save before you try it, and keep the chord one you will not hit by accident.

What Seqtrix cannot do

Common questions

Keep going

• Template: End of a remote day, and the rest of the template library
• Open multiple apps at once on Windows: the same job the other way round
• Open your whole work setup with one hotkey: the start of the day, on the Start of a remote day template
• Focus mode on Windows: block apps and sites: when an app should stay closed for a while
• Schedules and triggers: every way to fire a sequence
• Seqtrix vs Windows Task Scheduler