Unwanted startup items (OS Sierra)

Hi!

You might want to check out this article: https://macpaw.com/how-to/remove-startup-items-in-osx

In short, you need to remove stuff also from the following folders:

• /Library/LaunchAgents
• /Library/LaunchDaemons
• /Library/StartUpItems

In this way I finally managed to prevent both the spammy Adobe Updated and the horrible TeamViewer window from opening on my Mac :-)

Cheers,

Guido

This may be the 'Reopen when logging back on' feature of the os. Unfortunately, the only way to change it is to actually log out.

Well, sort of. You don't have to completely log out, just bring up that prompt.

So go to the System Menu, choose 'Log out xxx...' and when you do, you'll see a popup that says 'Reopen windows when logging back in.' (See attached.) Uncheck that. It will remember that setting from now on. You can just cancel from here without actually logging the rest of the way out.

Here's a screenshot...

Britain (apparently) invented the long drop (no, you cant eat it) to avoid that difficult time when the miscreant has to struggle at the end of the rope, a time in which even polite conversation seems out of place.

Albert (or Alfred) Pierrepoint wrote an interesting book about British executioners and their changing methods, I always keep a copy on hand in the bathroom to pass the time (amongst other things).

As the longest serving Executioner in Britain he can claim to 'know a thing or 2 about the subject'

Rather dashing don't you think. (you may have to overlook the fact that he hanged 400 people though)

dialabrain,

I eagerly await your suggestion of an easy to use application for mac OS that allows a user at any skill level to review, disable, enable, or uninstall startup programs outside the control of System Preferences "Users and Groups" admin level dialog.

CleanMyMac 3 located all of the startup items shown at the bottom.
This list shows third party tools “leaching” system resources.
Some are desired, some probably not.
For example, the com.google.keystone startup item phones home to Google every few hours to see if a new version of Chrome is available.
Is that good or bad? (you decide..).

CleanMyMac 3 not only found all of these startup items, it presented them in a polished user interface.
Each of those items is shown with an icon for what program depends on them. For example the Adobe logo is shown next to several of them (that don't have the text "adobe" in them). Checkboxes are on the dialog are there to disable/uninstall/enable, etc.

For example, I have no clue what the “com.cleverfiles.cfbackd.plist” is.
CleanMyMac 3 shows an icon for “Disk Drill” (obscure disk drive recovery tool), a link to their website, and the buttons I mentioned to remove/disable/enable it.

So without CleanMyMac 3, a typical user (no Unix background)

1. Wouldn’t know /Library exists (hidden from Finder)
2. Wouldn’t know where launch agents were or that they exist
3. Wouldn’t have time to research what each one is.
4. Wouldn’t understand that you might need something called "root access" or "boot into safe mode" to deal with them, etc.

Here are all of the startup items I found on a friends mac. All are owned by root in the secret directories shown.

If I wasn't an experienced admin, I wouldn't even know they existed.

mini:/john$ find /Library/Launch*

/Library/LaunchAgents

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.google.keystone.agent.plist

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.malwarebytes.mbam.frontend.agent.plist

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.parallels.mobile.prl_deskctl_agent.launchagent.plist

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.qustodio.apptray.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.BlueStacks.AppPlayer.bstservice_helper.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.cleverfiles.cfbackd.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.google.keystone.daemon.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.macpaw.CleanMyMac3.Agent.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.malwarebytes.HelperTool.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.malwarebytes.mbam.rtprotection.daemon.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.malwarebytes.mbam.settings.daemon.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.parallels.mobile.dispatcher.launchdaemon.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.parallels.mobile.kextloader.launchdaemon.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.purevpn.macapp.HelperTool.plist

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.rogueamoeba.instanton-agent.plist

I replied to the original poster and shared a simple, effective solution: a third party tool (gasp!). My father, who is 80, and lives alone, is 250 miles away and is an avid Apple enthusiast. When his MacBook slowed down he had no idea what was going on. Using a remote desktop I saw dozens of files in LaunchAgents and LaunchDemons.

My third party tool found them, then did a "reverse lookup"using their the utility software company's dictionary of macOS startup items (lovingly maintained by somebody out there). The tool (which shall not be named):

• Launched a well designed dialog listing each item in the hidden folders in /Library.
• Anyone can list the item the items, but this tool found and displayed:
  • The developers name (Google, Spotify, etc)
  • A sweet company logo of the provided developer
  • An Enable/Disable toggle button for each.
  • A warning explaining the truth (not respected here) that some of these startup items are unnecessary and slow your Mac down, but others broaden the capability of your software. Apple is the one who created this feature.

It felt good to know that if the original poster used the software they could control their Mac to a greater degree than before. Hours later I checked back in to this thread.

Boy did the long knives come out. People slammed third party software and spent days "high-fiving"each other for repeatedly bashing the troll ("moi" -- to the guillotine!). They pointed out how third party apps (not in the App Store), can have malware! In most cases it can be shown that, otherwise innocent and useful apps (written by honest hard working developers) were "bundled" with malware and then offered on well know "download" sites without permission from the developer. We know and appreciate that Apple cares about making macOS safe -- Gatekeeper and the App Store will protect you from them (true). Do not install unsigned software on your Mac!

There were an estimated 5,500 developers at the WWDC last Summer. A survey showed that only 22% of them are posting their product in the App Store (which costs a 15% fee for the service). Are the other 4200 attendees (78%) evil Malware developers? Imagine the empty chairs at next year's WWDC Key Note presentation if these hard working people (representing 13 million macOS developers world-wide) weren't allowed to attend the Conference (a policy the "high-fivers" here are indirectly supporting.).

In almost all cases third party apps work fine. I don't know if I would buy a Mac without choices like Spotify, Pandora, Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Office, and the new Duet, etc. These are all written by third party developers. For each, I had to click-through a warning in order to install.

I am guessing less than 95% of Mac owners are like the original poster. They don't know the ins and outs of managing a Unix machine. There are good reasons you can't see ~/Library on macOS. At 75, my dad found a web site offering iTunes for (only) $35 (along with a "bundle" including Google Maps for $50 - a $70 value!). We cancelled his credit card and reversed the charges from a bank in Holland for a "company" in Australia. This kind of thing happens every day -- Safari probably would likely detect this now (and warn the user).

Beam me up Scotty. Kirk out!

(no more posts here)

-- Some softwares (e.g. CoconutBattery and more) have a preference setting to "launch at startup", and then mostly they do not appear in the Users&Groups Login Items, and mostly not even in the StartupItems in the Libraries....

-- Tap and Tun is from software you better not have on your mac at all.

Physioz2 wrote:

Thanks, Carolyn; but, in this folder (StartupItems) I only have two sub-folders labelled Tap' and Tun.

There are two other folders LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons which seem to have a lot of programs listed, all with the file extension .plist. Can I safely delete these from here?

Generally, you would want to use the program's Uninstaller to remove those things. However, it would normally be ok to delete them from those folders. As removing those items may make the dependent program non-functional, it is always better to just uninstall the program altogether.

Also, StartupItems do not load at all anymore. You can just delete those folders.

I would like to make a general comment here:

"Library/Startup" folders: these are what Barney is talking about.

These are not what coccoinomane talk about: LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons folders are not startup folders. And you should not remove anything that is connected to apps that you do not want to uninstall.

"Adobe Updated": I don't really know what here is meant, Adobe may cause some issues when not correctly managed;

"horrible TeamViewer": there is absolutely nothing wrong with Teamviewer, unless you do not understand what it is for or how to use it.

Lex

There are many places on your Mac where startup items (used by third party applications] are located out of site.

To look, Open Finder. Select Go--> Go to Folder...

Enter in each of these one at a time (browse to each folder)

/Library/LaunchDaemons

/Library/LaunchAgents

I would not recommend you edit or remove these items if you are not comfortable with being in admin mode.
Just look unless you know what you are doing. Removing items can cause unexpected behavior in third party software.

See anything familiar?
For example, if you use Chrome you will likely see this item:

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.google.Keystone.agent.plist

The Keystone agent is a program that from Google that checks every few hours to see if a new version of Chrome is available.

If you don’t stay on top of things you could have dozens of startup items out there.
Not all of these items are running all the time.
They may run on a schedule (like Keystone) or just at startup. Lookup each item in Google to learn what they are (and what they are doing).

I highly recommend a program called “CleanMyMac 3”.
It has a built in “Extensions” panel which lets you view (and enable/disable) hidden startup items like this.

FWIW, if CleanMyMac is not the worst thing you could possibly install on a Mac it's certainly in the top five. You only have to search ASC to see just how dreadful most experienced users feel it is. If you have it installed, uninstall it. If you don't, never install it.

BlutoForever wrote:

I highly recommend a program called “CleanMyMac 3”.
It has a built in “Extensions” panel which lets you view (and enable/disable) hidden startup items like this.

I agree, in the strongest possible terms, with dialabrain. CleanMyMac is pretty close to being malware. There is absolutely no good reason to put it on a Mac.

Every one of those startup items is essential for the apps they are associated with. Deleting them will break a lot of things.

And cleanmymac WILL delete them, which can render Mac OS unbootable, or unstable.

Open finder under favorites > Applications try to post the screen shot of all items in it , so that it would be easy to see what apps are installed in the computer .

Do you use cleaners , anti virus .. etc .

In system library and user library some folders are to be searched , its practically impossible to view each folder .

In system library : Application support , Caches , Extensions , Frameworks , input methods , internet plugins , LaunchAgents , LaunchDaemons , Logs , Preferences , PrivilegedHelperTools , Receipts , ScriptingAdditions , Startupitems .

In user library : ApplicationSupport , Caches , Cookies , input methods , internet plugins , Logs , Preferences , Saved Application state .

The app name could be anything , but their remnants reside in these folders , I never used uninstaller button .

Manual method is easy .

Again, please

1. Name a software utility that can show me all startup items and admin them without a command line or unhiding hidden Finder locations. Oh, and from the App Store especially.

2. Backup your wild claims. How about one reference to your "malware" claim that does NOT involve a third party bundling CleanMyMac into a downloadable ZIP file. Always download apps either from the mac OS App Store, or DIRECTLY from the vendor (as people have done for 7 years from MacPaw -- author of CleanMyMac 3. Half the software I use on my Mac is not available in the App Store (I wish it was). (If you have a problem with startup items I would bet you are using apps outside the App Store also.

Yep.. In 2013, Kaspersky Labs published a 68 page report showing a line item where someone bundled CleanMyMac with malware from the infamous download.com site. (now cnetdownload dotcom). The site offers hundreds of malware bundles.

The truth is CleanMyMac does not contain any virus, malware or crapware and never has -- provided that you download it from the official MacPaw website.

Apple does not condone installing software that is not vetted and available in the app store.

This is so you don't do exactly this -- download a wild Zip or software from a black hat.

Disclosure: No interest at all in MacPaw, inc.

I don't believe your disclaimer.

Reference your point 1., no one actually NEEDS a software utility that can show all of your startup items. Mac OS does an excellent job of managing them. And every one of them serves a purpose, sometimes an essential purpose.

CleanMyMac 3 is NOT available in the Mac App Store. Pretty telling, I think.

And MacPaw's "marketing" program seems to be to constantly spam Apple Support Communities, both directly and through shills. Which is why I don't believe your disclaimer.