Chrome adding itself to login items.

It is strange that none of the steps mentioned in the community works for me.

Apple tech support does not have any solution.

What is the next step? Do we keep closing the chrome when the mac boots up?

One more thing about Apple support... the support doesn't even know what version of Linux OS they're using as a base. He/She said that it's a Unix not Linux.

I definitely see that it's a some kind of Debian version that they customize for their machines/OS. The executables are also with .deb files.. and file structure falls under some legacy version of Deb.

laksjan wrote:

One more thing about Apple support... the support doesn't even know what version of Linux OS they're using as a base. He/She said that it's a Unix not Linux.

This is true.

I definitely see that it's a some kind of Debian version that they customize for their machines/OS. The executables are also with .deb files.. and file structure falls under some legacy version of Deb.

macOS has nothing whatsoever to do with Debian. If you have specific questions about specific files, it would be better to start a new question about that topic. It's a fascinating topic, but it doesn't have anything to do with this Chrome problem.

But macOS merely looks like Linux. It actually pre-dates Linux. It was Linux that was designed to mimic the appearance and behaviour of the BSD system that macOS is very loosely based on.

Aswin_Kutteri wrote:

It is strange that none of the steps mentioned in the community works for me.

Apple tech support does not have any solution.

That is because Chrome is a 3rd party app. Apple tech support has no idea how Chrome works and has no control over it.

What is the next step? Do we keep closing the chrome when the mac boots up?

Most reports suggest this is caused by a Chrome extension. But because apps are self-contained, there is no way for anyone to know how it works internally.

This is a user-to-user tech support forum for Apple products. While I realize Chrome is very popular, you have stumbled upon one of the few places on the internet where you are least likely to find anyone who knows anything about Chrome.

Ventura has made some complicated background behaviour more visible. But all it did was make this behaviour visible.

So you use CleanMyMac BTW, Thomas Z? I would't.

At best, this suspicious app takes up system resources without doing any good. There are other, less risky ways to clean up space if that's what you used it for. Its anti malware function is not reliable.

Mylorac - I had been experiencing this exact same issue after upgrading to Ventura as well. I tried removing Google Chrome from the Login Items list with no success. I have tried removing (almost) all the extensions in the Chrome settings and still nothing. I tried removing Chrome from the Dock and nothing, it still "self adds" itself to the login list. I was finally able to get this to stop by making Safari the Default Internet Browser

### Update

Discovered a Chromium Bug report back from 2012 - 10 years back - where something similar was reported: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=140017 (read the post made in November 2022 at the end of the long thread) or directly read the commit message: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/fee70e5f023da215c410ff7c0cfdada633896134

Apparently, this is due to the "background mode" feature of Chromium which is said to work correctly/well on Windows but was improperly implemented on macOS.

As per the link above, it says the issue is "Fixed". Maybe this issue will get resolved when Brave and Chrome gets updated to Chromium 109.x.x.x builds.

I had original turned off the google updater extension but it didn't work. So I then went into my "CleanMyMac" app and turned the extension off there first and then back to the login extension under settings and turned it off there as well. Then with Chrome open i deleted Chrome from the start up menu. Additionally I removed Chrome as my default web browser and removed Chrome from my dock menu, restarted my mac and it was good to go. To this day it hasn't re-added itself back; fingers crossed

Yes. The Problem is with the chrome extension the chrome don't open's itself but the there's a chrome extension which was causing the problem of auto login on startup. There were plenty of extensions added to my chrome browser, I removed many of them and for me the problem has been solved.

Problem Solved.

I have removed every extension in chrome, removed the 2 google files in Launchagents under my home library and it keeps coming back. This is clearly not an extension issue. That or there are multiple issues that are causing this and some are getting lucky and some are not. My default browser is and always has been Safari, only reason I have Chrome is because of my work in IT at a University where I have to be able to test and troubleshoot items in Chrome. But I get the stupid Google Updater message multiple times a day even if Chrome isn't open.

Chrome Updater is a service that runs seperately from the Chrome browser extensions. Disable the Chrome Updater service. Please review all your login items and review them. I am sure that it's the extensions that affect this issue. It could be some other app like VPN extensions, anti-virus, brower helpers etc.. that could be launching during login and affect your chrome installation..

One other thing you can do is to make sure you uninstall Chrome, try it out if it comes back agian... Then re-install it again, now not allowing any of the Chrome apps to launch during login.

I stumbled across this after noticing that MS SharePoint and OneDrive were continuously adding themselves to login items. It seems like Apple should allow us to manage what items are added there. I shouldn't get a notification that an app has added itself, I should get a notification that an app WANTS to add itself.

@Jerry21a

Thanks for the advice!!! Worked out for me 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

in this example, please pretend chrome is the clock

https://www.appsntips.com/learn/stop-apps-from-opening-startup-macos-ventura-mac/