How to Speed Up Mac Startup: Login Items and Launch Agents
Login items and launch agents are why a Mac feels slow in the first minute after sign-in. Where they hide, what to remove, what to keep, and how to measure before you cut.
The Apple logo disappears in seconds on an SSD Mac. The wait happens after you sign in, in the minute when six apps all decide they need your attention at once. Startup slowness is almost always a list of apps you forgot were set to launch.
macOS lets apps start with your session in three places. One of them you've seen. The other two hide in settings screens and folders that never ask for attention. The fix is measured in seconds, not minutes, and it's worth doing anyway, because those seconds come back every day.
Why the first minute is the slow part
When you power on, macOS loads the kernel, then opens your user session. The second half is where apps get involved. Every app with a launch-at-start checkbox ticked, every background agent that starts with your session, every helper that quietly checks for updates: they all queue up at once.
On a modern Mac the disk is rarely the bottleneck. The bottleneck is the pile of small requests arriving at the same moment. One chat app costs almost nothing. Six apps, each carrying an updater helper and a background agent, cost more than the sum of their windows, because they all wake up together and all want the same CPU, memory and network at once.
The three places apps start themselves
macOS gives apps three ways to start with you. Only the first one is obvious.
The visible list. On macOS 13 and later, System Settings > General > Login Items. On older systems, System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items. This is the classic list: apps that open windows when you sign in, from chat clients to menu bar utilities. It fills up by accident too, because any app can tick a box during install.
Background items. The same settings screen, lower section. Since macOS 13, apps that run background tasks are listed here with their names: updaters, sync helpers, keyboard remappers, menu bar extras. This list exists because background items used to be invisible, and Apple decided they shouldn't be.
LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons. Three folders hold the underlying files: ~/Library/LaunchAgents for your user, /Library/LaunchAgents for all users, and /Library/LaunchDaemons for system-wide services that start before anyone signs in. Most apps install these quietly. In practice you rarely need to open the folders, because the two settings screens above show the same items in plain language. The folders matter when an app hides its launch behavior entirely.
There's also the Dock shortcut: right-click an app, choose Options, and Open at Login appears there too. It edits the same list.
Measure before you cut
Don't remove things blind. Reboot, wait two minutes for everything to settle, open Activity Monitor, and sort by CPU, then by Memory. Whatever sits at the top of that list two minutes after sign-in is what makes the startup feel slow.
A menu bar monitor shows the same numbers without asking you to open a window. RobuStats keeps CPU, memory, disk and network in the menu bar, which makes the after-start check a glance instead of a chore. The free built-in option works too: Activity Monitor can put a live CPU graph in the Dock (View > Dock Icon > Show CPU Usage).
The honest part: most of these items are small, and trimming the list to zero isn't the goal. The goal is removing what you don't use. If you only ever sign in to check one message, keeping that chat app is fine.
What to remove, what to keep
Start with the removal list:
- Apps you stopped using months ago that still open themselves at start. Compare the list against what you actually launch in a week.
- Updaters and helpers for software you no longer run. If the app is gone and its startup entry remains, that entry is pointing at nothing.
- Trial apps and demos that added themselves during install and stayed after you abandoned them.
- Anything you don't recognize. Select it, remove it, reboot. If nothing breaks, it wasn't needed. macOS won't let you remove its own entries.
The keep list is shorter:
- Your password manager, if you want it unlocked when you sit down. A manager like PassBrew doesn't need to run at start at all; it unlocks in a moment when you actually need a password, which is one less thing in the queue.
- Input methods and anything you remap globally.
- Backup software and sync clients you genuinely use. If your files live on your Mac, backup at start is a real job, not a habit.
- Security tools you chose on purpose. Most Macs don't need third-party antivirus, but if you run one deliberately, keep it.
Some apps re-add themselves after you remove them from the list. The usual cause is the app's own setting: many apps carry a toggle labeled start at login or launch in menu bar inside their preferences. Turn that off first, then remove the entry. Otherwise the app writes the entry back the next time it launches.
The LaunchAgents folder, for the curious
If you want to see the underlying files, open Terminal and run:
ls ~/Library/LaunchAgents
Most people see zero to three files. Anything starting with com.apple. is part of macOS and should stay. The rest belong to apps you installed. Removing an app with its own uninstaller usually removes its agent too.
You almost never need to delete agent files by hand. And leave /Library/LaunchDaemons alone unless you know exactly what a file does: that folder holds system-wide services that launch at boot, and breaking one can keep the Mac from finishing startup at all. For the 95 percent case, the settings screens in the previous section are the right tool.
Some software starts itself on purpose
The cleanest way to keep startup fast is to stop installing software that treats your session as a distribution channel. Web-wrapper apps ship an entire runtime and an updater that checks in at every launch, and many add a background helper on first run. Apps built natively for macOS tend to start when you start them and stop when you quit.
That difference shows up right away. Small native utilities like ClipBrew sit in the menu bar because you asked them to, and they stay out of the way when you didn't. Nothing on the menu phones home in the background, and nothing installs a surprise agent during setup. The local-first argument starts with privacy and file ownership, but it pays a smaller, daily dividend at startup too.
When the slow part isn't the first minute
If the Mac is slow all day, not just right after sign-in, the startup list isn't the cause. Start with the 10-step diagnostic, then check memory pressure, then caches. Startup is one slice of a slow Mac, and this guide is the slice.
A Mac that's ready when you are doesn't spend its first minute serving a queue of apps you barely use. Cut the obvious entries, reboot once, and glance at the menu bar monitor again. The difference shows up as the moment after sign-in that stops feeling like a wait.
RobuStats, ClipBrew, PassBrew and every other app on the menu are included in a single getapps.cafe membership. Native tools, local files, no background phone-home, and no surprise login items.