Why your Mac takes time to be ready — and how to clean startup items

Many users notice a delay between turning on a Mac and when it becomes fully usable. Often the slowdown isn’t the core OS but apps and services that auto‑start in the background. Knowing where macOS stores these entries — and how “apps”, “agents” and “daemons” differ — lets you remove or disable what you don’t need and speed up startup times.

Below are the main places to check and safe steps to tidy up your Mac’s startup process.

Where auto‑start items live

• Login Items — user apps that launch at login: System Settings (or System Preferences) → Users & Groups → Login Items (or Settings → General → Login Items on newer macOS versions).
• LaunchAgents — per‑user helper plist files. Locations: ~/Library/LaunchAgents and /Library/LaunchAgents. They start when a user logs in.
• LaunchDaemons — system‑wide services stored in /Library/LaunchDaemons and /System/Library/LaunchDaemons. These run at boot and do not require a user session.

Apps vs. Agents vs. Daemons (short)

• Apps are regular applications that may add login items or background helpers.
• Agents (LaunchAgents) run in the user context and usually provide per‑user background features (e.g., helpers, updaters).
• Daemons run at system level and perform services for all users (e.g., device drivers, system helpers).

Safe cleanup steps

• First, check Login Items in System Settings and remove apps you don’t need at startup.
• Look inside ~/Library/LaunchAgents and /Library/LaunchAgents. Move suspicious or unused .plist files to a backup folder (not delete) and reboot to test.
• For system daemons, be cautious: only remove or disable items you recognize. If in doubt, leave them or search the plist name online before acting.
• If you prefer command line checks, you can list agent/daemon directories: ls ~/Library/LaunchAgents /Library/LaunchAgents /Library/LaunchDaemons. Don’t remove files without a backup.
• Create a Time Machine backup before major changes so you can restore if something goes wrong.

Other tips to speed startup

• Restart in Safe Mode (hold Shift at boot) to see if third‑party items cause delays.
• Reset NVRAM/PRAM and SMC on Intel Macs if you suspect low‑level hardware issues (not necessary on Apple silicon).
• Keep macOS and apps up to date; some helpers improve stability and performance with updates.
• Use Activity Monitor to spot processes consuming CPU or memory shortly after login.

For official guidance on managing login items, see Apple’s support page: Change login items on Mac.

Discussion: Does your Mac take a while to become usable after boot? Which startup items surprised you when you cleaned them up?