How To Disable Lion's 'Resume' Feature

Wednesday July 20, 2011 7:00 pm PDT by Jordan Golson

Resume is one of the main new features to OS X Lion, one taken directly from iOS:

Now apps you close will reopen right where you left off, so you never have to start from scratch again. And when you install software updates, you no longer need to save your work, close your apps, and spend valuable time setting everything up again. With Resume, you can restart your Mac and return to what you were doing — with all your apps in the places where you left them.

Now, this feature might be all well and good, but what if you want your Mac to behave like it did in Snow Leopard? Resume can be easily disabled, but the option is fairly hidden.

Head to System Preferences and select the General tab. At the bottom of that page is a checkbox labeled "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps." If you uncheck that, your apps will continue to behave as they did in Snow Leopard.

Hat tip OS X Daily.

Top Rated Comments

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omnivector

40 months ago

You guys really shouldn't be encouraging people to disable this feature IMHO.

Rating: 30 Votes

ovrlrd

40 months ago

This is the best tip and I am surprised it's not mentioned in the article:

Hate the new resume feature and how you end up with a bunch of old windows/tabs open when you launch Safari, QuickTime, or any app that uses Lion's new resume feature?

Well a simple three button keyboard shortcut will save you all the trouble:

⌥ + ⌘ + Q
(thats Option + Command + Q)

Simply press these keys when you want to quit an app and the next time you open it, the last opened windows/tabs will not be resumed and you will start with a fresh app.

Rating: 14 Votes

pjhamill

40 months ago

Resume is a really good feature, just not while using Safari.

I hope when you say that you're referring to 'online banking' ;)

Rating: 13 Votes

GenesisST

40 months ago

I hope when you say that you're referring to 'online banking' ;)

There's private browsing for 'online banking', so your wife doesn't your weird tastes in "bank accounts"... :D

Rating: 11 Votes

sclawis300

40 months ago

How is that "fairly hidden"?

Rating: 9 Votes

robertsduney

40 months ago

It most certainly is not good when you're "online banking." Even when you're not, who wants everything they had open when they closed an application quickly with COMMAND+Q to open again when they reopen it?

It is most especially annoying with Preview. If I open a picture, look at it, quit the application, then open the application again when looking at another photo, it open the old one just behind the new one! It's an ever-growing tree!

Rating: 6 Votes

PlaceofDis

40 months ago

am i the only one that likes this feature?

Rating: 6 Votes

Bregalad

40 months ago

Had my first "unexpectedly quit" Mail app on Lion at the beginning of the day, nothing major but when I restarted my MBA the Mail app started at the point it was left off where it froze, so I have to restart again.

In my opinion Resume should never operate after Restart.

Having apps relaunch after a full reboot of the OS is the worst idea Apple has ever had. The point of rebooting is to clean things up, not take you straight back to the problem you were having.

I also believe that Resume should be set at the Application level rather than the system level. Run Safari for a week or so and it'll be using so much real RAM it'll make your head spin. I should be able to quit it and start it up clean without that affecting the Resume behaviour of any other app.

Rating: 5 Votes

bartzilla

40 months ago

You guys really shouldn't be encouraging people to disable this feature IMHO.

Yes. How dare we use OUR computers in a way YOU dislike. Sorry about that.

Rating: 5 Votes

cerote

40 months ago

There's private browsing for 'online banking', so your wife doesn't your weird tastes in "bank accounts"... :D

Yea, hated when those "bank accounts" would resume in preview or quicktime.

Rating: 5 Votes

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