Are there are too many apps opening every time you login on your Mac? Did you notice that your Mac boot up takes more time than usual? Your Mac has lagging issues after startup? Looking for a way to Stop unwanted apps from opening at startup on your Mac?
Good news, this article helps you remove unwanted apps from automatically starting at login & also boost your Mac startup performance.
While “login items” at startup is one of the useful features in MacOS, too many login items could cause performance issues. For those who are new to Mac & wondering what’s login items, it’s similar to the “Startup Programs” in Windows Task Manager. The “login items” gives us the ability to enable / disable programs that start automatically when we login to Mac.
There are some users, who want to have some of their favourite apps open as soon as they login and there are some that want a clean login with quick boot up and no impact on performance.
This guide will cover 2 ways to stop apps from starting at login
- Disable login items – in System Settings
- Stop program from opening at login – From Dock options
Disable login items in System Settings
One easiest way to check all the applications that start at login & to disable them is through System Settings
- Click on the Apple icon in the Menu bar.
- On Mac OS Ventura & later: Select System Settings > General > Login items
- On Mac OS Monterey & earlier: Select System Settings > Users & Groups > Login items
- In the Login items page, under “Open at login” section, you can see the list of apps that automatically open every time you login.
- Select the application you want to disable from starting automatically & click on the “-” Minus button under that list.
This will remove the application from that list. No confirmation will be given.
Stop unwanted apps from opening at startup – From Dock options
Another way to Stop unwanted apps from opening at startup is by disabling it directly from the Dock options. While this doesn’t show you the list of apps that start at login, this is the easiest way if you know which app you are looking to disable.
For instance, I want to stop Spotify from opening at startup every time on my MacBook.
- Right click on SPOTIFY icon in the Dock. (If the App icon is not available, you have to add it to the Dock)
- From the “options > open at login” – Click on it to untick. (Refer to the image). This will stop Spotify from opening at startup.
While there are other ways to achieve this, from Terminal on Mac OS & from Finder, I choose to write only the easiest ways for the users.
I hope this article helped you. Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts or if you have any questions.
