How To Choose Apps That Start On Mac
Over time, as the number of Mac startup programs increases, your system’s speed will start to slow down. If you want to learn how to easily stop applications from opening on Mac startup, this article is for you. We will explain the easy ways to change startup programs on Mac and even how to remove startup programs completely. The startup items or login items are normally applications that you want to automatically start or open as soon as the Mac is opened, boot or turned on. The startup items can be any application, shared volumes, documents and other items. How To Set Apps To Launch At Startup On A Mac. There are few ways to set apps to launch at startup on a Mac. How to Stop an Application from Opening at Startup With Mac OS X. This wikiHow teaches you how to prevent a startup application from running on your Mac. Open the Apple Menu. Click the black Apple icon in the upper-left corner of the. To go completely hog-wild and choose a different application, select Other from the pop-up menu. Mac OS X opens a Choose Other Application dialog, where you can navigate to and select the application you want. (If the application isn’t recognized as recommended, click the Enable pop-up menu and choose All Applications.) After you highlight. You can choose any application to launch automatically on system startup of Mac OS X with this trick. Generally speaking, this is most appropriate for helper applications and small apps that are frequently used. How to Automatically Open an Application on Startup of Mac OS X. Open System Preferences from the Apple Menu. On the flip side, you might want to an app to the startup queue so that you can start working with it as soon as you logged into your Mac. So, if you are someone who is looking to clean up the startup programs or want to add an application to startup programs, then here how you can add or remove startup programs in Mac OS X. Safe mode verifies the integrity of your startup disk and disables certain apps and processes from running. To start in safe mode, shut down your Mac, then turn it back on and immediately press.
Whether you own a Windows PC or a Mac computer, both have system apps that launch during start up. Some of these apps can cause problems; all of them will cause extra load which adds to the total time it takes to get your computer ready to start browsing the internet. Typically, we want to reduce the amount of load time and to do that we want to adjust the system apps which launch. On the other hand, sometimes we have apps that don’t start and yet we wish to use those apps as soon as the Mac launches. In those cases, it’s best to incorporate them into the system start up so they automatically run when you turn on the Mac.
Here’s how to configure apps to be launched ruing the Mac OS X start up:
HOW TO ALTER WHICH APPS LAUNCH DURING A SYSTEM START UP ON MAC
1. Open the ‘System preferences’.
2. Click the ‘Users and groups’.
3. Click the ‘Login Items’.
4. You’ll notice a small ‘+’ symbol on the display here. Click the plus sign.
5. Find the apps you want.
6. Click the ‘Add’ button.
7. Reboot the computer and the changes will take effect.
That’s all there is to it. If you have a great deal of adjustments to make, consider holding down the command (Cmd) key when clicking the mouse to select multiple items at once inside the folders.
What are startup items?
Startup items, or login items, are services and applications that launch every time you start your Mac. These are applications that sneak into startup items without notice, never asking if you need or want them there. This way you may end up with a dozen apps launching as soon as you turn on your Mac, weighing heavily on its processor and memory capacities and slowing it down. Such items can increase your Mac’s startup time and decrease its performance.
Plus, sometimes when you remove an application or a service, it leaves a login item with a broken link. These broken login items are completely useless, cause unwanted messages, and waste your Mac's resources (because they look for non-existent applications). Whether you're running macOS Catalina or El Capitan, or earlier — it's all the same, so just read on.
So, let's go over how to take control of login items, and how to get rid of unwanted, broken or hidden startup items.
How to disable startup programs?
Do you want to stop programs from running at startup? There’s an easy way to remove programs from startup and get your Mac to load faster on launch. The fastest way to turn off startup items on Mac is an app like CleanMyMac X. Block facebook mac app.
- Download CleanMyMac for free.
- Launch the app.
- Open Optimization tab.
- Click on Login items.
- From the list of apps, disable the ones you don’t need on startup.
- Done!
How to change startup programs manually?
Disabling Mac startup programs is possible manually. Therefore, if you have some time and would like to do it yourself, follow the steps below.
How to uninstall an app on mac terminal. Your login items are listed in settings. One of the easiest ways to control startup items is inside System Preferences > Users & Groups.
- Open System Preferences.
- Go to Users & Groups.
- Choose your nickname on the left.
- Choose Login items tab.
- Check startup programs you want to remove.
- Press the “–” sign below.
- You’re done.
- If you need to add an item back, press “+” and choose the app you’d like add.
- Then restart your Mac to see the changes.
How to fix broken startup items?
Broken Mac startup files are left there because some part of apps are left on your Mac long after you’ve moved the app to the Trash. To get rid of these parts and to fix your startup, you’re going to need CleanMyMac again. First, you need to check if they’re among startup items and disable them if so. You can do it following the instructions above. Then you need to remove app leftovers. CleanMyMac works fine on macOS High Sierra and earlier OS.
- Launch CleanMyMac.
- Choose Uninstaller tab.
- Scroll through the list of apps.
- If you spot any app that you’ve deleted, check them.
- Delete the app leftovers you’ve chosen.
You can also find and remove broken login items with the help of System Junk module:
- Choose System Junk tab.
- Click Scan.
- Review details and click Clean.
Finally, you need to clean your macOS startup items through launch services:
- Open Maintenance tab.
- Choose Rebuild Launch Services.
- Hit Run.
- Done.

Once you do it, all broken app data on your Mac will be fixed.
Remove daemons and agents from startup process
If speaking of files, first go to the system folder /Library/StartUpItems. Here you’ll find all the startup files that are being launched with the system. You can delete the login item you think is necessary if you’re totally sure what you are doing.
Also, the /Library/LaunchDaemons folder contains a bunch of preference files that define how the application that is being launched along with the system should work. You might want to delete some of these files as well if you know you don’t need them and removing them is safe.
The /Library/LaunchAgents contains preference files responsible for the apps that launch during the login process (not the startup).
The above-mentioned folders contain app-related files. However, you can also check system folders to review whether you need some of the system applications to be running on startup:
- /System/Library/LaunchDaemons - note that besides preference files this folder contains other important system items that are recommended to keep untouched.
- /System/Library/LaunchAgents - most probably, you won’t also find anything worth removing in this folder, however, keeping this location in mind might help you find files related to a problematic app that causes troubles on Mac startup. If you have a problematic application that messes about on login, you can try to trace it back from this folder.
How To Choose Apps That Start On Macbook Air
But, if you’re looking for simple ways to remove login items, we suggest using a professional Mac utility. Download CleanMyMac X for free and make unwanted and broken login items a thing of the past.