Swipe up to close apps not working in iPadOS 26

In iOS 26, some apps may remain active when swipe‑up gestures are disabled for multitasking. Currently, the only workaround is to re‑enable full gesture controls in Settings > Home Screen & Multitasking > Multitasking Gestures and restart the device. This restores swipe‑up to close apps without needing the three‑button method.

There is generally no reason to force close an App that is operating normally. Due to the design of iOS/iPadOS, Apps consume virtually no system resources when they are dormant. Force closing and relaunching an App is also not power efficient; relaunching an App requires the App to be fully re-initialised, whereas resuming from a saved state requires significantly less power.

If you need to force-close an App, check that you are using the correct method...

Swipe upwards from the bottom edge to the centre of the screen - and pause briefly before lifting your finger from the screen. This will open the App switcher page - that will show a thumbnail image of each of your open (but not necessarily running) Apps. To force-close an App, swipe the corresponding thumbnail off the top of the screen.

crymurcred54 wrote:

I’m not trying to force close anything personally, I just want to be able to swipe up to return to my Home Screen as I have always done on my iPad. Apparently apple does not allow this feature anymore in iOS 26.

The Home Screen gesture remains - and is no different from the preceding iPadOS 18.x.

A simple flick from the bottom edge of the iPad screen will minimise the current full-screen App window and return to the Home Screen. By contrast, an upward-swipe from the bottom edge to the centre of the screen - with a short pause before lifting your finger from the screen, will open the App Switcher page.

If you really want to close all open windows when returning to the Home Screen, there is a new setting in iPadOS 26 to force this behaviour:

Settings > Multitasking & Gestures > Close All Windows After Swiping Home - set to ON

Reboot your ipad. It solves the problem.

It is definitely a bug in iPadOS 26 and 26.1.

there is no reliable fix

only viable workaround is swiping down in the app, selecting the stoplight buttons and closing it that way.

hopefully Apple will fix it in the next update.

Grakky wrote:

I'm finding that you need to get the line at bottom of iPhone to show up by touching near bottom and then swipe up not too fast, then minimize view of the app just appears, swipe that to close the app, it is very awkward.

That may be because there is just no reason to do it.

I was in this thread saying they didn’t close with the Magic Keyboard and the iPad 4th generation—can’t afford new::))

OK, FINALLY figured it, but still a bit difficult gotta “kinda” be perfect; I have bad arthritis as well.

So—gotta one click in the center of the SCREEN in center of track pad.

This is where it can get tricky…3 finger swipe from just about 1/3 over to the right of the track pad and the apps appear on the right of the screen and you can get rid of them. SOMETIMES but not always—it’s APPLE!!! although should still be “idiot proof” can swipe on the screen from the CENTER bottom EVEN when SAFARI is open , which was really annoying, and they will come to the right, and then swipe out——OMG!!! :)

I'm finding that you need to get the line at bottom of iPhone to show up by touching near bottom and then swipe up not too fast, then minimize view of the app just appears, swipe that to close the app, it is very awkward.

Yes I read it.

We have 3 iPads and 3 iPhones and have the same problems on all three though iPad seem worse. Resetting multitasking and rebooting does not always fix the problem or only does for a short period of time.

we consistently have the issues with both closing apps via swiping and switching between apps - both worked perfectly on all 6 prior to iOS/ipadOS 26 and 26.1. So all things being equal it’s a software bug in the new OS.

If you go to Settings > Multitasking & Gestures and select Full Screen Apps, all apps will open full screen and can be closed by swiping up.

Still BUGGY—although seems like—-if I click on the window, and 2 finger swipe from 1” in from left of track pad, it works…..let’s see if it lasts::))

from center of track pad up—-OMG just not exactly the same always—-and 3 fingers, sometimes not straight up, more up and bear to the right, lol

Bathus wrote:

One often has a reason to close apps: because apps I’m not using clutter up my screen! And, yes, the swipe up to close functionality has become dodgy and often simply does not work. Rather than blaming the customer, maybe Apple should not have released an IOS that is this buggy.

Maybe, just maybe, iOS 26 is not buggy, but there is a problem with your iPhone. I have seen no other reports of your issue, and certainly not from the roughly 500 million users who have updated. Surely just a few thousand of them would have reported it if they have experienced it.

And there is no good reason to close apps, it increases your battery energy drain and slows down your iPhone→Do not close "background" apps | Communities

Did you know you can switch between recently used apps just by swiping the bar at the bottom of the screen left or right?

One often has a reason to close apps: because apps I’m not using clutter up my screen! And, yes, the swipe up to close functionality has become dodgy and often simply does not work. Rather than blaming the customer, maybe Apple should not have released an IOS that is this buggy.