Close Running Apps and Clear App History In Windows 8

Introduction

In this article we explain how to close a running Metro app & clear the app history in Windows 8.

Procedure for closing Metro apps and clearing app history in Windows 8

Step 1

In Windows 8, we want to close a single app. Windows 8 provides two ways to do that. The first one is, we can close a running app by grabbing it from the top edge of the screen and dragging it all the way to the bottom of the screen, or the second is we can right-click its thumbnail in the Switch List and select Close from the context menu.

 

Step 2

Then to remove all running app's history, press the "Win + I" key on the keyboard and select "More PC settings".

 

Step 3

After that we select the "General" tab to open the settings in the right pane.

 

Step 4

Under "App switching", we can click the "Delete History" button to delete the app history and clear the Switch List.

 

Step 5

When done, a message appears alongside the Delete history button and all the app history will have been deleted. We can verify that the app history has been removed by opening the Switch List or compact view of Windows 8 Task Manager.