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

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

Cross items off your Mac’s “Login Items” list 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.īut 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. 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. That could lead to a crush of apps all trying to launch themselves at startup. 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.Īnother 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.

How to mac startup programs