LexSchellings wrote:
Normally these startup/loginItems locations are and should be empty !
Usually quite true for the Startupitems folders, but not necessarily so for Login Items. As the info in that System Preference says, those items will open automatically at login, but that does not necessarily mean they will keep running or even if they do that they will use significant system resources or not provide some useful function.
Aside from the Canon software I already mentioned (which places a menu item in the menu bar but uses zero CPU time unless it is accessed), I have a TrackballWorksHelper.app that initializes my Kensington "Expert Mouse" trackball at login time with my preferences for it & insures that they work properly with CoreServices & other system level processes. It uses at most around 0.6% of one CPU core & <4 MB of memory.
Because the trackball is in constant use once I log in, it would be silly & quite annoying to have to start it manually, particularly since this is exactly the kind of thing Apple designed the Login Items function for to begin with.
There are quite a few other apps that use the same function for the same reason, & do so without violating any of Apple's developer guidelines. One I sometimes use is "IBetterCharge," which more than once has saved me from leaving home with a nearly dead iPhone battery.
My point here is simply that while a login item may cause some undesirable behavior, many do something that is quite useful. It makes no sense (to me, anyway) to suggest removing all of them instead of trying to figure out which (if any) of them is doing something unwanted.
