How to Close a program using python?

If you’re using Popen, you should be able to terminate the app using either send_signal(SIGTERM) or terminate().

See docs here.

You want probably use os.kill http://docs.python.org/library/os.html#os.kill

in windows you could use taskkill within subprocess.call:

subprocess.call(["taskkill","/F","/IM","firefox.exe"])

/F forces process termination. Omitting it only asks firefox to close, which can work if the app is responsive.

Cleaner/more portable solution with psutil (well, for Linux you have to drop the .exe part or use .startwith("firefox"):

import psutil,os
for pid in (process.pid for process in psutil.process_iter() if process.name()=="firefox.exe"):
    os.kill(pid)

that will kill all processes named firefox.exe

By the way os.kill(pid) is "overkill" (no pun intended). process has a kill() method, so:

for process in (process for process in psutil.process_iter() if process.name()=="firefox.exe"):
    process.kill()

In order to kill a python tk window named MyappWindow under MS Windows:

from os import system
system('taskkill /F /FI "WINDOWTITLE eq MyappWindow" ')

stars maybe used as wildcard:

from os import system 
system('taskkill /F /FI "WINDOWTITLE eq MyappWind*" ')

Please, refer to “taskkill /?” for additional options.

On OS X:

1. Create a shell script and put:

killall Application

Replace Application with a running app of your choice.

In the same directory as this shell script, make a python file.
In the python file, put these two lines of code:

from subprocess import Popen
Popen('sh shell.sh', shell=True)

Replace shell.sh with the name of your created shell script.

An app(a running process) can be closed by it’s name using it’s PID(Process ID) and by using psutil module. Install it in cmd using the command:

pip install psutil

After installing, run the code given below in any .py file:

import psutil
def close_app(app_name):
    running_apps=psutil.process_iter(['pid','name']) #returns names of running processes
    found=False
    for app in running_apps:
        sys_app=app.info.get('name').split('.')[0].lower()

        if sys_app in app_name.split() or app_name in sys_app:
            pid=app.info.get('pid') #returns PID of the given app if found running
            
            try: #deleting the app if asked app is running.(It raises error for some windows apps)
                app_pid = psutil.Process(pid)
                app_pid.terminate()
                found=True
            except: pass
            
        else: pass
    if not found:
        print(app_name+" not found running")
    else:
        print(app_name+'('+sys_app+')'+' closed')

close_app('chrome')

After running the code above you may see the following output if google chrome was running:

>>> chrome(xyz) closed

Feel free to comment in case of any error