Why "login items" notifications pop up while there's no app listed on startup or background?

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

vanessaarroyo wrote:

I agree, apple needs to provide a solution.

After trying many things, I thought uninstalling extensions would be my final attempt at this. Unfortunately the notifications continue to pop up every few minutes!

Please see my note above. This issue is extremely misunderstood. I mean really, really bad. Very little is known about this, and virtually everything anyone has said is wrong.

I solved mine by doing the following, until the Notifications stopped.

• Uninstalled (by moving apps to the Trash) many apps.
• I notice that after uninstall, the apps continue to show up in the Login Items Allow in the Background list, which I remove by following the steps in this article.
  • https://www.droidwin.com/remove-deleted-apps-from-background-login-items-in-ventura/

All my notifications are turned off. I have nothing in 'open at startup' but every time I open my Mac I get 10 - yes, ten - 'Login Items Notification'. I've tired everything below and nothing works. Is Apple reading this? After restarts I get 20+. This is REALLY annoying Apple - come on fix it! Never happened before Ventura!!!!!!!

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.

Jacobx wrote:

Is there an update here?

Not here. You will need to start your own question for your own, specific problem. And PLEASE be specific. If you are getting notifications, please tell us what they say. If these are popping up that frequently, then you should be able to get a screenshot.

And if you didn't already know, that new "Login Items" / "Background apps" user interface is Ventura is just awful in every way imaginable. If you have made any changes of any kind, if you ticked any checkbox, then you could actually be causing this problem, not fixing it. And in other cases, the cause could simply be old software that isn't aware of this new interface. But there is no way for anyone else to know unless you provide more details about YOUR problem.

I wanted to chime in say that I just upgraded to Ventura 13.1 and this issue is nightmarish. I've had to sacrifice 1/3 of my external monitors to these endless notifications that keep popping up no matter what I do. It's like a zombie movie where I keep shooting the bad guy, but it just won't die.

I use my mac for development and cannot just close the program triggering the notification, nor is it a good idea to go mucking around in unix binaries to try and find the offending line of code without touching anything else.

The fact that the suggestion here is 'deal with it, Apple unilaterally changed their API to ruin your experience, and you should learn to live with it' reminds me much more of a certain other OS that I ditched in favor of OSX years ago. You'd think they could recognize that 100+ of the same notification could easily be made one stationary stack in the UI.

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.

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.

1. On your Mac, choose Apple menu  > System Settings, click General  in the sidebar, then click Login Items on the right. (You may need to scroll down.)
2. Make a list of the login items in the Open at Login list—you’ll need to remember them later.
3. Select all of the login items, then click the Remove button .
4. Choose Apple menu  > Restart.
5. If this solves the problem, open Login Items settings again, add the login items one at a time, and restart your Mac after adding each one.
6. When the problem occurs again, follow the steps above to remove only the last login item you added."

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!

Well for me upgrading to Ventura 13.2.1 didn't change anything.

I still got notifications after my login for each of the app for which I had disabled "Allow in the Background" in the login items.

I had more notifications, for some these apps, when I opened the Login Items page in System Settings.

As far as I am concerned, this is not fixed!

Notifications for Login Items (including the items in the "Allow in the Background") should work as follows:

• when an app install a new login/background item, we should get a notification to confirm whether we want to disable this item (not always the case as far as I am concerned)
• we should not get notifications related to a item after it has been disabled
• when an item takes a long time and slow the computer, we should get a notification to ask whether we want to disable it
• Apple should require developers to include a description for each item explaining why it is useful, and the consequences of disabling it. If the description is missing, or not helpful, enable users to report the login item. Have a blacklist of login items which are disabled by default based on this user feedback (and review of the description).
• The most frequent case of Background Item is to check for application update. For these items, we should be able to manage the frequency of the check from this list
• Shell scripts appear with only their filename and "Item from unidentified developer", while they are actually part of an application package! they should be displayed as part of the application
• Applications may install several items, however there is no way to view the details. There should be a dropbox to enable to view items individually, and disable/enable them at the item level instead of application level.

This finally worked for me:

• I could not tell what app was causing this, so I did this:

Go into System Settings > Notifications and set previews to show always.

• Microsoft Edge was the culprit for ALL of my notifications. So I deleted the App. I don't even use it so I didn't need to reinstall.

• I used this link to completely uninstall Microsoft Edge after deleting the Application: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/uninstall-microsoft-edge-from-mac

• I turned off notifications from Microsoft Edge and Edge Updater in my notifications.

• I have yet to restart my computer, but the notifications have ceased.

Here is a screen shot of the notifications I keep getting. I have spent over 2 hours with Apple Support on this and they cannot figure it out either. Every effort to correct it has failed. When I click on the notice, it just open the Login Items section in General Settings tab. Nothing there. I will post a screenshot of that too.

I'm getting these stupid "Google Updater" notifications on my screen now, even during Keynote presentations--even though I have "Allow notifications when mirroring or sharing the display" is turned off. This is distracting from my presentations at work and annoying during the rest of the day. How can I turn these notifications off??

These notifications keep popping up from time to time. I've deleted all items in the Login Items list. I don't even know what these notifications are about because it doesn't say so in the notifications and when I click on one of the notifications, it simply takes me to the Login Items screen.

I was giving a lecture today and the stupid Google Updater login notice popped up twice. I was in full-screen presentation mode for Keynote, which is supposed to not show any pop ups, but it did anyway! How do I make this stop?