XKILL(1)

💅 XKILL(1) — xkill, X Version 11 — kill a client by its X resource 💅

🌸 NAME 🌸

xkill — kill a client by its X resource ✨

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

xkill [-display displayname] [-id resource] [-button number] [-frame]
    [-all] [-help|-version]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so bestie, xkill is a utility for forcing the X server to close connections to clients. This program is very dangerous, but it's useful for aborting programs that have displayed undesired windows on a user's screen. 😭

If no resource identifier is given with -id, xkill will display a special cursor as a prompt for the user to select a window to be killed. If a pointer button is pressed over a non-root window, the server will close its connection to the client that created the window. That's the whole tea. 💅

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -display displayname — specifies the name of the X server to contact. 🦋
• -id resource — specifies the X identifier for the resource whose creator is to be aborted. If no resource is specified, xkill will display a special cursor with which you should select a window to be killed. 🎯
• -button number — specifies the number of pointer button that should be used in selecting a window to kill. If the word any is specified, any button on the pointer may be used. By default, the first button in the pointer map (which is usually the leftmost button) is used. 🖱️
• -all — indicates that all clients with top-level windows on the screen should be killed. xkill will ask you to select the root window with each of the currently defined buttons to give you several chances to abort. Use of this option is highly discouraged. 💀
• -frame — indicates that xkill should ignore the standard conventions for finding top-level client windows (which are typically nested inside a window manager window), and simply believe that you want to kill direct children of the root. 🪟
• -help — makes xkill print a usage message and exit without killing anything. 🫶
• -version — makes xkill print its version and exit without killing anything. ⭐

⚠️ CAVEATS ⚠️

This command does not provide any warranty that the application whose connection to the X server is closed will abort nicely, or even abort at all. All this command does is to close the connection to the X server. Many existing applications do indeed abort when their connection to the X server is closed, but some can choose to continue. 😭

no cap, this is not a "process guaranteed dead" button — it's a "close the X connection and hope" button. Choose your chaos wisely. 💀

🎀 XDEFAULTS 🎀

• Button — Specifies a specific pointer button number or the word any to use when selecting windows. 🌸

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• xwininfo(1)
• XKillClient(3)
• XGetPointerMapping(3)
• X(7)
• KillClient in the X Protocol Specification

👑 AUTHOR 👑

• Jim Fulton, MIT X Consortium
• Dana Chee, Bellcore

🫶 Cute sign-off: this is xkill 1.0.7, dated 2025-04-05, from the XKILL(1) manual page. Byeee bestie, go close that connection with main character energy 💖✨