[[!meta title="Shutting down Tails"]]

There are several ways of shutting down Tails:

- By clicking on the system menu located in
  the upper right corner of the screen and choosing either:

  - [[!img lib/system-shutdown.png link="no" class="symbolic-22" alt="Shutdown icon"]] to
    shutdown the computer or
  - [[!img lib/view-refresh.png link="no" class="symbolic-22" alt="Restart icon"]] to restart
    the computer.

  [[!img introduction_to_gnome_and_the_tails_desktop/system.png link="no"]]

- By pressing the power button of the computer.

- By removing physically the device Tails is running from.

<div class="caution">

<p>This method might in rare occasions break the file system of your persistent
volume. <strong>Use this method only in case of emergency.</strong></p>

<p>Using the [[<span class="guilabel">read-only</span> option|persistence/use]]
of the persistent volume prevents this problem.</p>

<p>If you cannot enable persistence after using this method, you should be able
to recover most of your data by doing a [[file system check on the persistent
volume|persistence/check_file_system]].</p>

</div>

<div class="bug">

This method does not work [[with DVD|support/known_issues#index11h2]],
see [[!tails_ticket 5447]].

</div>

<div class="bug">

This method does not work [[after using the <span class="application">Tails
Installer</span>|support/known_issues#index10h2]], see
[[!tails_ticket 5677]].

</div>

While shutting down, the data stored in <span class="definition">[[!wikipedia
Random-access_memory desc="RAM"]]</span> is erased
to protect from [[cold boot
attacks|doc/advanced_topics/cold_boot_attacks]].
