[Dave Taschler]

Here’s a trick I found from Mark Christiansen – https://www.provideocoalition.com/tip_kill_and_save_a_stuck_after_effects_project_on_mac/

Instead of using Force Quit, you can trigger a segfault.

A segfault can be triggered even when there is no threat to the system, and it has a key advantage over simply killing the application via Force Quit: a copy of the project is saved before the application goes down. So don’t let that spinning beachball of death get you down; try this.

First, you need the process ID (PID) for After Effects. There are several way to get this; this simplest is to open Activity Monitor and look for the AE icon in the list, then look over to the PID column. You can also open Terminal and type “top” and look for After Effects in the list, with the PID listed to its left (to get out of that lilst view, use ctrl +C).

Copy or remember that number and from the Terminal command line type the following:

kill -SEGV [pid]

replacing [pid] with that process ID you copied (no brackets). Press enter and a crash type of dialog will appear. Check the folder with your project, you should see a copy of that project with _1 after it. That’s your saved project, then you can Force Quit AE knowing you have a current backup.