Is there a way to completely quit Dashboard?

[thesdx]

Hi! I've noticed that my memory (1GB) is constantly being eaten up. (I only have 13MB of free memory right now) I didn't really know what was causing it, until I noticed that my huge amount of Dashboard widgets were still running and hogging a ton of memory. Is there a way to "quit" Dashboard and/or prevent it from running in the background?

 

[siurpeeman]

you could never launch it to begin with, or you could quit the process in the activity monitor.

 

[thesdx]

I tried, but you have to quit every single widget in Activity Monitor. Even if you do, they just load right back up again.

 

[siurpeeman]

even though you've got 13 mb of free memory, how much inactive memory do you have? inactive memory is just as good as free. i have 2 gb of ram in my laptop, and i only have 82 mb of free memory, but over 1 gb is inactive.

 

[osirisX]

The Dashboard is a process of the Dock. Kill the Dock and you will kill all the running widgets.

 

[zap2]

^^Yup, then just don't open dashboard.
Or you could, in terminal

To turn Dashboard off:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050723123302403&lsrc=osxh

But you'll still need to kill the Dock to activate the disable of dashboard

 

[WillJS]

Or use this apple script like me if you're going to use it repeatedly.

tell application "Dock"
quit
launch
end tell

 

[emptyCup]

I tried, but you have to quit every single widget in Activity Monitor. Even if you do, they just load right back up again.

Go into Dashboard. Click on the big + in the circle on the bottom left. Click manage widgets. Uncheck every widget you don't want. They will not run or take up RAM. Despite Apple shipping their machines with every program in the Dock and every widget on the Dashboard, both run best when you only keep what you need there. Best wishes.

 

[Dimwhit]

For me, the only widgets using memory are the ones active when I go to the dashboard. So close them all out and it should get rid of them using memory. At least for the most part.

 

[tuqqer]

Is there a way to "quit" Dashboard and/or prevent it from running in the background?

Just an interesting side note: I have a solid dozen close Mac friends, and not a single one uses Dashboard. Some may love it, but for those that don't, this is a popular request, how to quit forever the damn thing.

It's been awhile since I figured out how to get rid of mine, but I could've sworn it was in my Login Items, and I just removed it from there. Could be wrong however, it's been years.

 

[dejo]

Hi! I've noticed that my memory (1GB) is constantly being eaten up. (I only have 13MB of free memory right now)...

How much memory is inactive?

 

[Hls811]

... Or just go and get this:

Stop Dashboard Widget

Its a widget which closes the widgets...

I've been using it for about a month without any problems.

 

[TimJim]

... Or just go and get this:

Stop Dashboard Widget

Its a widget which closes the widgets...

I've been using it for about a month without any problems.

thats what i do

 

[macintoshuser]

MainMenu lets you disable Dashboard in two clicks. Nice and simple.

 

[speakerwizard]

yes, dont worry too much about free memory, as other apps / system needs it osx (unix) redistributes on the fly.

also these link:
http://www.macosxhints.com/comment.php?mode=view&cid=73107&query=quit dashboard

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070307084342195&query=quit+dashboard

 

[aaronw1986]

... Or just go and get this:

Stop Dashboard Widget

Its a widget which closes the widgets...

I've been using it for about a month without any problems.

This works well.