Month: January 2023

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Location of startup items and applications on MACOS

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

Applications that run on Startup

1/Library/StartupItems

Property list (plist) items running on startup

1/Library/LaunchDaemons
1/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:

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

Applications that run on a set schedule

Check your crontab with crontab -l

Check Kernel Extensions

In the command line:

1kextstat

Check Login and Logout Hooks

for Login:

1defaults readcom.apple.loginwindow LoginHook

for Logout:

1defaults readcom.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook

or see both with:

1/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy-c Print

source:

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