How to close application completely when clicking red button on any app?

I'm a long time windows/Ubutnu user who have recently migrated to Mac OS X and running 10.7.4. One thing which i'm unable to get used to is that while the red button closes a window, the program will remain open until you quit the application using the Menu Bar. One option to bypass it is use the key combination Command+Q but by doing that all the instances of that program opens up the next time I open that application. Is there a way out?

Solution 1:

You can't close the application by clicking on the red button, as you said it is meant to close the window...

Using cmd-q is not a bypass but the shortcut to close the application. And the windows are not instances of the application, they are in the same instance...

What bothers you is the "resume" functionality that restores the state of an application -- e.g. all open windows -- when you restart it.

Look here or here to see how you can tune or disable this "resume" feature.

Solution 2:

What you need is RedQuits. It allows to do exactly what you explained in your post.

I just arrived on Mac OS world two days ago, and I have been pretty confused about this functionality of Mac OS. Fortunately, there is a software to get around of this "issue".

It works nicely on 10.10.4.

Solution 3:

Indeed, there are some applications which will close completly when hitting the red button, while others will just close a window. I'm afraid you can't do nothing about it, as it's a developers choice.

What you can do is disable the Auto-Open, so the Command+Q shortcut will do exactly what you want.

To do so, just go to System Preferences > General and uncheck "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps".