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I'm a web developer by day and a lot of the software I install on my computer (namely databases and web servers) come with an optional LaunchAgent to automate starting/stopping processes on boot. I'm wondering if there's a GUI for these types of services so I can use the LaunchAgent, then kill the services gracefully. Another great feature would be if I could turn off boot on launch and just use the LaunchAgent to start/stop a service as needed.

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  • Try booting in single user mode some time and firing up jobs by hand using launchctl. It's so much nicer than the old days and you can really learn how things work.
    – bmike ♦
    Aug 2, 2011 at 16:14
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    As of macOS Big Sur (11), you can kill them, but they'll come back at next boot, and essentially editing plists (or anything on the system volume) is made near-impossible. From Big Sur onwards, the system volume is sealed and it is no longer possible for any process to modify its contents (unless you boot to Recovery Mode, temporarily disable SIP, then unseal SSV... and beware if you unseal SSV to not prevent it being unable to be resealed.). This affects the ability to modify system agents and daemons (whether via command-line launchctl, LaunchControl, or anything else).
    – smci
    Apr 29, 2023 at 19:40
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    That's about editing system plists, for system LaunchAgents. You can still edit user plists, under ~/Library/Preferences
    – smci
    Apr 29, 2023 at 19:46

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
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This seems to be exactly what you are looking for: LaunchControl

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    Nice one. This seems to map directly to how launchd works. Compare the dropdown in the upper left of the GUI to the list of file locations in the docs.
    – Derek Morrison
    Jun 27, 2013 at 16:52
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Lingon (MAS link)

It provides a nice GUI for creating daemons/agents, without writing plist file by yourself. You can also use it to delete daemons/agents that you don't want.

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    But I don't think it stops and starts processes - see its suggestion to logout/reboot after making a change
    – mmmmmm
    Aug 2, 2011 at 9:10
  • It won't load and unload the jobs - but you can easily do that from terminal by dragging the name of the agent from Lingon to the terminal. The start launchctl command is also nice for testing.
    – bmike ♦
    Aug 2, 2011 at 16:13
  • The Mac App Store version looks out of date now - Lingon X seems to be the current version now - peterborgapps.com/lingon
    – Matt Sheppard
    Feb 6, 2018 at 16:53
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To accomodate people that find this thread and just want to quickly create a new job: This very simple launchd online editor does the trick: http://launched.zerowidth.com/

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  • Welcome to Ask Different! We're trying to find the best answers and those answers will provide supporting info as to why they're the best. Answers should be self-contained so explain why you think the answer you provided will solve the problem or is better/more complete than the others already provided. See How to Answer on how to provide a quality answer. - From Review
    – fsb
    Apr 19, 2020 at 12:36
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    hi @fsb, my answer is intended to accomodate people that search on Google for "launchd GUI" and come here. The problem is that the title of this question is ambiguous. My answer just tries to help people that land here due to this ambiguity. Instead of downvoting my answer I'd ask you to improve the question title, please, if you really want to improve relevance here.
    – Mario
    Apr 19, 2020 at 14:57
  • Your answer doesn't address the question which is why I downvoted. We can't control what Google links to but we can help to make sure answers deal with the question asked. Your answer is also considered a 'link only' answer which is frowned-upon here. I don't believe changing the title of a 9-year old post with several answers is the correct approach, either.
    – fsb
    Apr 19, 2020 at 15:56
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    Well, I guess time will tell whether Google and all the people that find this thread via Google search will agree with you.
    – Mario
    Apr 20, 2020 at 21:20
  • This answer was useful to me :)
    – Dag Høidahl
    Oct 11, 2022 at 7:47
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Lingon X will do what you want. Please note, an earlier answer suggested Lingon, which is a version of this app that doesn’t have as many capabilities and is available from the App Store. For full functionality you’d want Lingon X directly from the developer.

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I found this article: https://foliovision.com/2014/01/os-x-scheduling-tools

Lingon looked very slick.

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  • Lingon is awesome. Been a great program for many years now.
    – bmike ♦
    Dec 11, 2014 at 17:45
  • While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes.
    – grg ♦
    Apr 29, 2023 at 22:35
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launchAgents are there to run in the background in conjunction with their respective Daemon, i.e. they have no GUI but you can load & unload them using terminal using:

launchctl unload -S Aqua /Library/launchAgents/"launchAgent's name"

"lanuchAgent's name" : enter the file name of the Agent you want to load/unload. /Library/launchAgents in OS X that is the default folder for Agents to load just replace unload with load

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  • If in /Library they will probably need to run with sudo
    – mmmmmm
    Aug 2, 2011 at 8:20
  • if you are logged in as a privileged user you don't need to, you need to use sudo if you want to un/load the daemon
    – Samantha Catania
    Aug 2, 2011 at 8:30
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    The OP seems to be looking specifically for GUI to control loading and unloading - not how launchd works in the command line. Good information, but not relevant to this topic.
    – bmike ♦
    Aug 2, 2011 at 18:25
  • You wont need root for LaunchAgents. They run as unprivileged user!
    – Eun
    May 22, 2014 at 11:17

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