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

en	There are 2 ways of shutting down Tails.

en	[[!toc levels=1]]

en	With both techniques, all the data stored in [[!wikipedia Random-access_memory desc="RAM"]] is securely erased to protect you from [[cold boot attacks|doc/advanced_topics/cold_boot_attacks]].

en	Shutdown from the system menu

en	Click on the system menu in the upper right corner of the screen.

en	Choose [[!img lib/system-shutdown.png link="no" class="symbolic" alt="Power Off"]] to shutdown the computer.

en	Choose [[!img lib/view-refresh.png link="no" class="symbolic" alt="Restart"]] to restart the computer on Tails or on your regular operating system.

en	[[!img desktop/system-with-wifi-only.png link="no" class="screenshot" alt=""]]

en	Emergency shutdown

en	To trigger an emergency shutdown, unplug the USB stick or eject the DVD from which Tails is running. Doing so might be faster than shutting down from the system menu.

en	<div class="caution">

en	You risk breaking your Persistent Storage and losing data when you unplug your USB stick while Tails is running.

en	If you use a Persistent Storage, only unplug your Tails USB stick in an emergency.

en	</div>