If you close all the windows of an application and don’t use it for a while, you may see it disappear from the Dock and from the Application Switcher. The application isn’t fully quit (at least not immediately), but requires you to open it again in order to use it. This macOS feature is called Automatic Application Termination.
Application Wizard lets you decide whether showing or not showing automatically terminated applications in the Quit and Switch menus. Including automatically terminated applications in the Quit and Switch menus allows you to effectively quit them or quickly make them active without having to reopen them.
Open Application Wizard. On macOS 13 or later, choose Application Wizard > Settings. On macOS 12 or 11, choose Application Wizard > Preferences. Then click Menus.
To show automatically terminated applications in the Quit and Switch menus, choose “Include in Running Applications” from the “Automatically terminated applications” pop-up menu. Automatically terminated applications will appear with a dimmed icon.
To show automatically terminated applications in the Background Processes submenu of the Quit menu, choose “Include in Background Processes” from the “Automatically terminated applications” pop-up menu.
By default, the Quit menu doesn’t display background processes, but you can add the Background Processes item to the menu.
Open Application Wizard. On macOS 13 or later, choose Application Wizard > Settings. On macOS 12 or 11, choose Application Wizard > Preferences. In the Menus pane, choose “Don’t show” from the “Automatically terminated applications” pop-up menu.