How to control what boots up on your Mac

When you boot up your Mac, you’ve probably noticed that a number of apps and tools are loading themselves into memory alongside the operating system. This has its advantages – it ensures that your files are always in sync with the cloud and certain plug-ins are always available. But it’s important to strike a balance: Starting too many programs with macOS can put a strain on your system.

This doesn’t mean that your Mac takes longer to start up and be ready to use, but auto-starting apps can use up valuable memory space and processor time. It’s important to be selective about what can and cannot launch with macOS.

You can control it using the tools and options built into macOS — no third-party software required. Spend a few minutes running an audit on these auto-start apps and removing any unnecessary ones, and you’ll be left with a leaner and faster Mac.

To get started, let’s do some detective work to see what macOS is actually running with to begin with. Boot up your computer if it’s off or restart it if it’s on, log into macOS, and then give the operating system a few minutes to install.

A quick glance at the menu bar and Dock will offer up some clues. Along with whatever apps are set to run automatically at startup, you’re usually going to see utilities that like to run at all times, such as media server software or utilities that tweak the functionality of macOS. are – for example, Which manages window snapping.

For more detailed information about what’s in memory, open Spotlight (cmd + space), then find activity monitor and launch it. It shows you everything that’s currently running on your Mac, from interface applications you can see to background processes you might not otherwise be aware of.

Use tabs with top – cpu, Memory, energy, Disc, network — To see how your Mac’s system resources are being used. When it comes to deciding which apps can start with macOS and which can’t, you need to figure out which are the most useful and which are the worst culprits for hogging system resources. Are.

Some entries in Activity Monitor simply name the app, making it easy to see what’s what. Others may not be so obvious, so a quick web search may come in handy to identify what a process or app does. file provider process, for example, Cloud streaming controls file functions,

If you want more information about a process, click on it and then click on the Inspect button on the toolbar at the top (it’s a small “i” in a circle). You’ll get a dialog box showing you what its parent process is, how much memory and CPU the item is using, how many times it’s hung recently, and the Mac user account it’s associated with.

Now that you know what you’re dealing with, you can do something about it. The simplest and cleanest way to prevent an app from launching with macOS is to disable this behavior in the app’s settings – assuming there is an option to do so. You may need to do some digging, but most will have a setting for this.

With file storage software Dropbox, for example, the process goes like this:

• Click on the Dropbox icon on the menu bar.
• Click on your profile picture and Like.
• uncheck start dropbox on system startup Below Common tab.

Whatever you block from launching with macOS can still be run manually—that doesn’t change.

If the program in question doesn’t provide a way to disable automatic launch in its settings, you can also open a panel in the macOS System Settings:

• open Apple menu and select system setup,
• choose General > Login Items,
• See top for list of apps below open at login, To prevent a program from launching, select it, then click – (Loan),
• next grade, allow in background, lists processes and apps that you may not see immediately but that automatically launch in the background. You can prevent anyone from launching by toggling it off.

You can also control this behavior from the macOS Dock.

• Click and hold on the Apps Dock icon.
• choose Option and check or uncheck open at login The options depend on whether you want the program to start with your Mac.

If you want to temporarily prevent an item from starting, after rebooting your Mac, hold down shift From when you see the Dock (if the login window doesn’t normally appear), or press and hold when you see the progress bar shift while clicking log in button until the desktop appears (if the login window appears).

If none of this works for you, you can go into your macOS system files to find files for both apps running in the background and other parts of background processes that are part of macOS itself. Here, you’ll see references to LaunchAgents (which automatically run actions for the current user session) and LaunchDaemons (which automatically run actions at the system level).

• From Finder, open Go Menu.
• hold down Option key on your keyboard. A Library The entry (which was not there before) will appear in the drop-down menu; Select it.
• Back in the Finder, you’ll find yourself in Library section. Click the icon at the top of your Finder window that shows the item as an icon, list, etc., and select column from the menu.

• Now that you are in the column layout, click on Library (probably in the second column from the left) in that second column, and then see launchagent Or LaunchDaemons in the next column. These contain entries that will be removed if you disable autostart for the apps associated with them, as explained above. However, if you’re having problems with apps and they haven’t been removed, you can also remove them from here.

Well if instead of clicking on Library in that second column you click on System > Library and then choose launchagent Or launchdaemons, You’ll see items that are part of macOS. These can’t be removed (and really shouldn’t need to be), but can be interesting to explore.

In fact, most of the time, you shouldn’t delve into these folders when managing startup items, but it’s a good idea to know where they are.