How to stop applications from opening on Mac startup. Go to System Preferences → Users & Groups. Switch to the Login Items tab. Click the Lock icon in the bottom left corner to change startup programs. It will require your password to allow changes. Tick the box by the application name to enable.

1. Prevent Apps From Auto Starting Machine
2. Stop Apps From Auto Starting Mac
3. Stop Apps Auto Opening Mac

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.

Mar 05, 2017  Stop Apps from Launching at Startup - MAC - Tech Talk America - Duration: 1:33. How to stop apps from automatically launching at start up on MAC OS X - Duration: 0:37. Jun 17, 2019  Stop apps from opening using System Preferences. You can see all of the apps that are set to open automatically when you log in by accessing your System Preferences. 1) Click the Apple icon System Preferences from your menu bar. 2) Choose Users & Groups. 3) Select your user on left if you have more than one set up. Oct 01, 2018  Check your task scheduler to make sure there is nothing in there about opening Edge. Go to search and type task scheduler and look at the tasks that are running if any during boot up. Also, in startup in task manager disable everything for now and see if that does it. If you’ve got an app that’s opening every time you restart your Mac, how do you stop it? After all, it’s pretty frustrating to have to deal with your computer taking forever to reboot just because it feels the need to open 47 programs when you log back in. To fix that, then, let’s cover using what are called login items to stop programs from launching automatically on the Mac. Get apps from the Mac App Store. Reinstall apps from the Mac App Store. Select the name of the item you want to prevent from opening automatically, then click the Remove button below the list. You don’t see the login window, restart your Mac, press and hold the Shift key when you see the progress bar in the startup window, then. Change System Settings to Prevent Spotify from Opening on Mac Startup. So basically, your system keeps the log of apps that automatically open during the startup. This log might be pushing your Spotify app to open during every boot. All you need to do is remove Spotify from the list.

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.

1. Download CleanMyMac for free.
2. Launch the app.
3. Open Optimization tab.
4. Click on Login items.
5. From the list of apps, disable the ones you don’t need on startup.
6. 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.

Your login items are listed in settings. One of the easiest ways to control startup items is inside System Preferences > Users & Groups.

1. Open System Preferences.
2. Go to Users & Groups.
3. Choose your nickname on the left.
4. Choose Login items tab.
5. Check startup programs you want to remove.
6. Press the “–” sign below.
7. You’re done.
8. If you need to add an item back, press “+” and choose the app you’d like add.
9. 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.

1. Launch CleanMyMac.
2. Choose Uninstaller tab.
3. Scroll through the list of apps.
4. If you spot any app that you’ve deleted, check them.
5. Delete the app leftovers you’ve chosen.

You can also find and remove broken login items with the help of System Junk module:

1. Choose System Junk tab.
2. Click Scan.
3. Review details and click Clean.

Finally, you need to clean your macOS startup items through launch services:

1. Open Maintenance tab.
2. Choose Rebuild Launch Services.
3. Hit Run.
4. 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:

1. /System/Library/LaunchDaemons - note that besides preference files this folder contains other important system items that are recommended to keep untouched.
2. /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.

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.

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(Updated on 11/6/2017)So, here’s a quick question: how long does it take for your Mac to start up? A minute? Two minutes? Five? Or just too long? One possible reason your Mac may be slow out of the blocks is that it’s trying to launch a slew of programs all at the same time.

Now, some of these programs might be actually be ones that you do want to launch automatically, such as the Safari web browser, or Apple Mail. But other, not-so-necessary programs may be piling up in your Mac’s “login items” list, too—ones that set themselves to launch automatically without asking first.

Another factor that may be slowing down your system is the Mac’s “Resume” feature, which re-opens any and all apps you had running when you shut down your Mac. That could lead to a crush of apps all trying to launch themselves at startup.

Last but not least, you may have specific programs on your Mac with “Launch at Startup” settings that you’ll need to find and disable.

Now, if you’re the patient type, waiting a little longer for your Mac to boot up so that your programs appear just as you left them might be a fair trade-off.

But if you’d rather shave a few seconds—or even minutes—off the time it takes for your Mac to settle down after hitting the power button, read on.

1. Cross items off your Mac’s “Login Items” list

Your Mac launches a series of programs each and every time it starts up. Some of these programs are critical for the smooth operation of your system; others, not so much.

To see a list of all the programs your Mac opens automatically, click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen, select System Preferences, click the “User & Groups” icon (it’s under the “System” heading), pick a user (you, most likely), and finally click the “Login Items” tab.

You should now see a list of everything your Mac is launching (or trying to launch, anyway) whenever it starts up.

Some of the items will be easy to identify—in my case, I’ve got Dropbox and Google Drive (the handy file-sharing apps) listed, as well as something called an “Eye-Fi Helper” (an app that lets my Mac receive wireless images from my digital camera) and “AirPort Base Station Agent” (which keeps tabs on my AirPort Wi-Fi base station).

To delete these or other startup items from the list (but not from your Mac, mind you), just select them and click the “-” button at the bottom of the list.

2. Keep “Resume” from re-launching previously open apps

Don’t get me wrong—”Resume” is one of the handiest Mac features, especially for those of us who like to pick up in Safari or the Calendar app right where we left off.

But if you don’t want Resume relentlessly re-launching all the apps you had open when you last shut down your Mac, you can stop it from doing so.

The next time you select Shut Down or Restart from the Apple menu, take a closer look at the window that pops up; in addition to the “Cancel” and “Shut Down” or “Restart” buttons, you’ll also see a checkbox labeled “Reopen windows when logging back in.”

Click the box to clear out the checkmark, and the only apps that’ll re-launch the next time your power on your Mac are those listed in the Login Items menu.

Prevent Apps From Auto Starting Machine

3. Check for program-specific “Launch at Startup” settings

So, you emptied the “Login Items” list and turned off the Resume feature, but there’s still a program that’s launching itself at startup. What gives? Well, it could be that the stubborn program has its own “Launch at Startup” setting.

Open the program, make sure it’s the active app on your desktop (just click its window if it isn’t), then find its Preferences menu; generally speaking, you’ll find it under its main menu in the Mac menu bar (like “Spotify” in the case of Spotify).

Stop Apps From Auto Starting Mac

Once you’ve opened the program’s Preferences menu, look around for a “Launch at Startup” setting. If there are lots of different Preferences categories, start with “General,” then try “Advanced.” (In Spotify’s case, I found a “Open Spotify automatically after you log into the computer” setting under its “Advanced” settings.)

Found the “Launch at Startup” (or the equivalent) setting? Go ahead and disable it, then rinse and repeat for any other programs that are still launching themselves when you turn on your Mac.

Stop Apps Auto Opening Mac