Question

How to kill an internal process in Emacs? For example I run M-x shell.

I can check running processes with M-x list-processes but how can I kill a process from this list?

Answer 1

There is no default key binding for this; however see pjammer’s answer — list-processes+ includes (among other things) a kill binding on C-k — and also Joao Tavora’s answer — which provides just a kill binding (for the same key).

event_jr points out in the comments that you can use M-: (kill-process) RET to kill the current buffer’s process.

More generally: You can use M-: (kill-process PROCESS) RET, where PROCESS “may be a process, a buffer, or the name of a process or buffer”, with those names being as they appear in the output of list-processes. Process names take precedence over buffer names, should you happen to have a conflict; so it’s probably best to be in the habit of supplying the process name.

Alternatively, Emacs 23+ has a general system process manager (M-x proced) which is more akin to running top, and which does have a default binding for sending (arbitrary) signals (k). Of course it may be far less obvious in that listing which process you’re interested in.

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Edit: Better late than never 🙂 The following enables M-x kill-process RET to be used (tested in Emacs 26.1):

;; Enable M-x kill-process (to kill the current buffer's process).
(put 'kill-process 'interactive-form
     '(interactive
       (let ((proc (get-buffer-process (current-buffer))))
         (if (process-live-p proc)
             (unless (yes-or-no-p (format "Kill %S? " proc))
               (error "Process not killed"))
           (error (format "Buffer %s has no process" (buffer-name))))
         nil)))