How do I stop an active AutoHotkey script?

Question

Yesterday while debugging my AutoHotkey script, I accidentally triggered an endless loop of MouseMove and MouseClick events. Every 0.5 seconds my mouse

Answer 1

Add an emergency exit hotkey

The most reliable method of ending an active script is to pre-emptively include an emergency ExitApp hotkey. A common practice is to place the following at the bottom of any script.

Esc::ExitApp  ; Exit script with Escape key

You can also set hotkeys to pause, suspend, or reload your script.

^!p::Pause    ; Pause script with Ctrl+Alt+P
^!s::Suspend  ; Suspend script with Ctrl+Alt+S
^!r::Reload   ; Reload script with Ctrl+Alt+R

Log off

On Windows 10/8/7/Vista, you can quickly log off with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Delete, followed by Alt+L.

This is because pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete opens a special window which cannot be manipulated by programs like AutoHotkey.

End with taskbar icon

If you have control of the keyboard and mouse, you can end the script by right-clicking AutoHotkey's green H icon in the taskbar and selecting "Exit"

End all active scripts with AHKPanic()

For a more generic solution, AHK user None wrote AHKPanic(), a method which can pause, suspend, or kill all other running scripts. (Optionally ends the script that called it)

AHKPanic(Kill=0, Pause=0, Suspend=0, SelfToo=0) {
DetectHiddenWindows, On
WinGet, IDList ,List, ahk_class AutoHotkey
Loop %IDList%
  {
  ID:=IDList%A_Index%
  WinGetTitle, ATitle, ahk_id %ID%
  IfNotInString, ATitle, %A_ScriptFullPath%
    {
    If Suspend
      PostMessage, 0x111, 65305,,, ahk_id %ID%  ; Suspend. 
    If Pause
      PostMessage, 0x111, 65306,,, ahk_id %ID%  ; Pause.
    If Kill
      WinClose, ahk_id %ID% ;kill
    }
  }
If SelfToo
  {
  If Suspend
    Suspend, Toggle  ; Suspend. 
  If Pause
    Pause, Toggle, 1  ; Pause.
  If Kill
    ExitApp
  }
}