What do Safe to close, Leave it and the others mean?
Four verdicts, each always shown with its words.
Every row has one of four verdicts:
- ● Safe to close: an app you can quit with ⌘Q. Save your work first if it asks.
- ◐ Close the app instead: a helper that belongs to an app. Closing the helper alone usually breaks something, so close its app.
- ○ Leave it: part of macOS, or something that starts again by itself. You never need to close these.
- ◇ Busy for a reason: it’s working hard for a known reason, such as Spotlight indexing or a video call, and settles by itself.
Each row also says what happens if you close or stop it. Verdicts come only from Procession’s guide and a few fixed rules, never a guess. Anything that runs as part of macOS and isn’t in the guide is Leave it.