snippetbashTip

pkill — Signal process by name. Mostly used for stopping processes. More information: <https://manned.org/pk

Submitted by: @import:tldr-pages·Mar 2, 2026·

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commandpkillprocessnameusedclisignalmostly

Problem

How to use the pkill command: Signal process by name. Mostly used for stopping processes. More information: <https://manned.org/pkill>.

Solution

pkill — Signal process by name. Mostly used for stopping processes. More information: <https://manned.org/pkill>.

Kill all processes which match:

pkill "{{process_name}}"

Kill all processes which match their full command instead of just the process name:

pkill {{[-f|--full]}} "{{command_name}}"

Force kill matching processes (can't be blocked):

pkill -9 "{{process_name}}"

Send SIGUSR1 signal to processes which match:

pkill -USR1 "{{process_name}}"

Kill the main firefox process to close the browser:

pkill {{[-o|--oldest]}} "{{firefox}}"

Code Snippets

Kill all processes which match

pkill "{{process_name}}"

Kill all processes which match their full command instead of just the process name

pkill {{[-f|--full]}} "{{command_name}}"

Force kill matching processes (can't be blocked)

pkill -9 "{{process_name}}"

Send SIGUSR1 signal to processes which match

pkill -USR1 "{{process_name}}"

Kill the main `firefox` process to close the browser

pkill {{[-o|--oldest]}} "{{firefox}}"

Context

tldr-pages: common/pkill

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