Location of startup items and applications on MAC (OS X)

Quick cheatsheet to know where to look when you need to rid off some startup item, app or service.

Applications that run on Startup

/Library/StartupItems

Property list (plist) items running on startup

/Library/LaunchDaemons
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons

Applications that launch on User Login

You should be able to add/remove most applications from your user account. Go to System preferences -> Users and groups -> Select user -> Login Items.

By console you can check in the following folders:

~/Library/LaunchAgents
/Library/LaunchAgents/
/System/Library/LaunchAgents/

Applications that run on a set schedule

Check your crontab with crontab -l

Check Kernel Extensions

In the command line:

kextstat

Check Login and Logout Hooks

for Login:

defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook

for Logout:

defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook

or see both with:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c Print

Comments 6

  1. None of these work!

    I typed them in terminal and ‘file not found’

    Instructions are too unclear for new users to terminal commands…..

      1. This only adds/removes a tiny fraction of the start-up items. Sadly, most are hidden. Hence the conversation about LaunchDaemons / LaunchAgents.

  2. It appears to me that the filepaths in the first few sections are not intended for us to run. Rather, they represent locations where may place files to be used by the System.

  3. (correction) It appears to me that the filepaths in the first few sections are not intended for us to run. Rather, they represent locations where may place files to be used by the System.

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