I deleted and inactivated all the apps in System Preferences/General/Login Items but "Login Items" notifications keep popping up. There is no app info in the notifications. Just says "Login Items"...
What and why is that?
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 13.1
Jay Gamel wrote:
... What I would like to know is why apple cannot identify the offending app and include it in the notice. Obviously, the warnings are issued on a specific instance related to a specific app.
You're right, but identifying the app in question can become very challenging, particularly for apps that a user installed under the guise of something "free" — for example, products specifically designed to harvest personal information and / or deliver targeted interest-based advertisements that accrue revenue simply by loading a webpage.
People have been plucking that poison fruit for years, but the creeping incremental nature of such things appears to have motivated Apple to finally Do something!!!™ exactly as users have been clamoring for them to do, and for at least that long.
Well, guess what? They got what they asked for. Apple's implementation of it is imperfect, but if I had a better idea I'd be sure to recommend it. Or, I'd develop it myself.
Which brings us to:
I am not a programmer so I don't understand what prevents the app ID from being recorded and reported.
Mac users are not expected to be programmers. They aren't even expected to know much about computers or anything else of a technical nature. They just want to use their magical Apple stuff and not have it get in the way of doing whatever it is they need them for.
So, what about inexplicable annoyances regarding mysterious login items, or intrusive dialogs like "<suspicious_app> may damage your Mac" that result as a consequence of a Mac user installing something they may have long since forgotten about?
Fortunately, some of us are programmers and are very good at it. EtreCheck can help identify what those apps may be, and will help others suggest what to examine and / or delete at the user's discretion. To learn how to use it and how to post its report in a reply to this Discussion or any other, please read How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report - Apple Community.
By the way I have not read all nine pages of this Discussion. If EtreCheck was recommended elsewhere I wouldn't know. When a Discussion gets this long and convoluted few people will be sufficiently motivated to study it in any depth, so if it was already suggested it's probably a good idea to reiterate it anyway.
Jay Gamel wrote:
... What I would like to know is why apple cannot identify the offending app and include it in the notice. Obviously, the warnings are issued on a specific instance related to a specific app.
You're right, but identifying the app in question can become very challenging, particularly for apps that a user installed under the guise of something "free" — for example, products specifically designed to harvest personal information and / or deliver targeted interest-based advertisements that accrue revenue simply by loading a webpage.
People have been plucking that poison fruit for years, but the creeping incremental nature of such things appears to have motivated Apple to finally Do something!!!™ exactly as users have been clamoring for them to do, and for at least that long.
Well, guess what? They got what they asked for. Apple's implementation of it is imperfect, but if I had a better idea I'd be sure to recommend it. Or, I'd develop it myself.
Which brings us to:
I am not a programmer so I don't understand what prevents the app ID from being recorded and reported.
Mac users are not expected to be programmers. They aren't even expected to know much about computers or anything else of a technical nature. They just want to use their magical Apple stuff and not have it get in the way of doing whatever it is they need them for.
So, what about inexplicable annoyances regarding mysterious login items, or intrusive dialogs like "<suspicious_app> may damage your Mac" that result as a consequence of a Mac user installing something they may have long since forgotten about?
Fortunately, some of us are programmers and are very good at it. EtreCheck can help identify what those apps may be, and will help others suggest what to examine and / or delete at the user's discretion. To learn how to use it and how to post its report in a reply to this Discussion or any other, please read How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report - Apple Community.
By the way I have not read all nine pages of this Discussion. If EtreCheck was recommended elsewhere I wouldn't know. When a Discussion gets this long and convoluted few people will be sufficiently motivated to study it in any depth, so if it was already suggested it's probably a good idea to reiterate it anyway.
I solved mine by doing the following, until the Notifications stopped.
Try going to notifications in settings and turning on the preview setting there. That was how I found the 2 apps causing this on my Mac. Deleted one app and re-installed the other app and no more notices. Preview setting adds info to help ID the cause. Hope this helps.
bartosz149 wrote:
Hi, I'm having the same issue.
Even though the pop up notifs are from apps that no longer exist on my hard drive!
The apps may no longer be on your Mac, but since you didn’t uninstall all parts of the apps, specifically the helpers that are running the background processes. If you didn’t use the uninstaller for the app, then you’ll have to dig around to find the remnants. Most often they are in the LaunchAgents or LaunchDaemons folder. EtreCheck might be able to help you find them.
RedstoneRosh12 wrote:
Hello, I understand that to attempt to solve this issue I should uninstall the app that is causing this issue. In fact I have done that before but it still seemed to show the notification. I thought maybe it was not a clean uninstall so I reinstalled it and uninstalled it again. However it still is showing the same problem. Do you have any tips on what my next steps could be to try to remedy this problem?
How did you uninstall the app and what app is it? Most apps that show this dialog cannot be uninstalled by dragging the app to the trash. You would need some kind of special uninstaller app. And even if you had one, or if you followed explicit uninstallation instructions directly from the developer, it still might not work. Sometimes developers don't provide uninstallers or their uninstallation instructions are wrong.
PS: Please never try to use any kind of "app zapper" or "clean up" tool to uninstall software. They can't possibly work. Anyone who has ever recommended them has always been wrong - every time. And with modern version of macOS, they can cause irreparable damage to the system. Instead of uninstalling apps, they key leave critical, low-level components installed and running, completely out of control, forever. Those components will be literally baked into the operating system and you won't be able to remove them by any normal means.
I've managed to contain the issue significantly by setting the following parameters:
"Show previews" enables to get details on which login item is raising the notification.
Login items notifications pop-up when I log in, but do not pop-up back afterwards.
My best guess is that the processes which try to relaunch these login items runs when the computer is idle and disabling notifications when the display is sleeping or locked seems to block them.
One of the benefit of running MacOS is that the system is stable, and I don't need to login often. I've not rebooted or been logged out since I first changed these parameters last week. And I've not seen a single notification since that login!
It's a workaround I can live with until Apple fix this issue: when a login item is disabled, all notifications related to this login item should be disabled! Or there should be an option to disable them. If we disable a login item, it is for a good reason.
This finally worked for me:
Go into System Settings > Notifications and set previews to show always.
Well I think I finally solve my issues. I found the Cleanup Script for the Samsung App and deleted it. Then I re-installed the Google Chrome App and the notifications stopped. Have restarted twice and no notices. Yippee! It has been a frustrating affair. This has been far more help in identifying the source than Apple Support phone service. They could not even tell me how to identify which apps were causing it. A simple setting in notifications put the finger on the culprits. Thanks to this thread someone posted to turn on preview in the notifications. Thanks for the help.
Good to hear!
Applications or programs, especially not downloaded from the App Store, aren’t just removed from moving from the Apps folder to the Trash......as you’ve seen.
The best way, for the others here, is to utilize the un-installation instructions provided by the developer of the software, if available. However if the issues remain, the two locations you checked are where these apps store key components.
Other locations, particularly in the /Macintosh HD/Library is to check for the name of the app or developer in these locations, delete them and restart, (If of course deleting from /Applications, or using their uninstall instructions didn’t work:
Application Support
Extensions
Internet Plugins
Launch Agents
Launch Daemons
Scripting Additions
Staged Extensions
Startup Items
This is normally not needed, especially if truly uninstalled, and Mac is up to date, as well any any signed software, but I think the developers for these third party (Non-Apple) applications have to update their code to work with the ever-strict, but necessary Apple software.
In my opinion, it’s a small price to pay for this service. However I’m sure if Apple is aware of this notification type problem, and it isn’t completely necessary, they would fix it, however I like being notified when any Application starts running in the background every time I just log in. This gives the end user even more control and transparency.
If you truly would like to notify Apple of your concerns, I would contact them directly, they aren’t to get a hold of by phone:
Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support
Depending on the app, you may perhaps have some cache material still on your device...Often Google/Chrome products act in this fashion, even after "the app is deleted" AND it's deleted from the trash. I would recommend clearing your computer browser history, cookies, and cache. If you use Safari, I'd recommend
Open the Safari app
Bookmarks menu tab > scroll down and then click on > Edit Bookmarks
> opens Bookmarks Editor
> delete any Favorites or Bookmarks you may have associated with the app
> This includes any Reading List & Shared with You items
History menu tab > click on the first result > Show all History
> opens History Editor
> delete any listed web history that may have been associated with the app.
Safari menu tab > click Settings... > a new pop up window should appear
> Extensions menu tab.
> uninstall any extensions that may have been associated with the app
> Search menu tab
> under Smart Search Field click on Quick Website Search > Manage Websites
> delete the sites that were connected to your app.
> Security menu tab
> Disable Javascript(uncheck the box) (at least do this temporarily)
> Privacy menu tab
> Cookies and Website Data > Manage Website Data
> In this instance, I would click Remove All. You will have to log back in to all websites again the next time you visit, and certain sites might be a tad slower yielding search results or displaying certain images. this is normal. It is actually good practice to clean up your Mac History, Cookies, and Cache like this about every 2 months or so (depending on device usage). Apps and Websites use cookies and cache to perform better for you individually based on your usage. They unfortunately can be annoying i.e. sending a login/ startup notification.
Hopefully this helps?
Alain_D wrote:
What is really annoying is that there is no information in the notification related to the application which triggers it.
Apple should be able to at least add this information to this notification.
It’s there. You just have it turned off. Go into System Settings > Notifications and set previews to show always.
Good news. The Ventura 13.2.1 update solved the problem of unwanted notifications popping up on my iMac!
After a long session with tech with no good results, I'd no longer gotten off the phone when up pops Ventura 13.2.1 which instantly solved unwanted notifications problem. What a coincidence!
Hello olcayche,
Welcome to Apple Support Communities!
It sounds like an issue is causing this alert to pop up when it doesn't need to.
It sounds like you did, but we want to confirm you took these steps to check for Login Items:
"Login items are apps that open automatically when you start up or log in to your Mac. Occasionally, a login item may cause a blank blue screen at startup or other problems. You can test your login items to see if any are causing startup issues on your Mac.
Note: To print these instructions, press Command-P.
> System Settings, click General 
in the sidebar, then click Login Items on the right. (You may need to scroll down.)
. > Restart.If the issue continues, try a normal restart of the Mac to help refresh the software now that you've made these changes.
We hope this helps to resolve the issue causing the notification to appear.
Cheers!
I disabled all log in items. Mow it is the "Login Item" message coming up two at a time and adding up.
So, you turned off something you told to turn on when you installed it. It thinks you want it to run, so it tries to run what you told it to run but now can't. As you discovered, disabling the background process makes it worse.
The things that run background processes that cause the notification normally do not show up in that Login Items list, so turning those off does nothing to affect the app causing the notifications.
The way to stop the notifications is to uninstall the app you installed that is running the background process.
The app is trying to dutifully fulfill its function for which you installed it, but it no longer can. It continues to try to run the background process you told it to run. It has no knowledge of the setting you turned off because it was created long before that system was created.
Why "login items" notifications pop up while there's no app listed on startup or background?
