I've found a couple apps that seem to be able to launch themselves on startup, despite that they don't appear in the usual places...
- Login Items (in the Users preference pane)
- /Library/LaunchAgents
- /Library/LaunchDaemons
- /Library/StartupItems
- /System/Library/LaunchAgents
- /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
- /System/Library/StartupItems
- ~/Library/LaunchAgents
- ~/Library/LaunchDaemons
- ~/Library/StartupItems
At least some of these apps (e.g. Day One and Pauses – both from the Mac App Store) seem to do so using their own sandboxed Library withbe launching an item from their own internal LoginItems folder. For example, Day One uses thisfolders:
/Applications/Day One.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/Day One Reminders.app
/Applications/Pauses.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/PausesLauncher.app
Day One is aAs good citizen and allowscitizens, both apps allow you to disable the launch-on-login behavior, but it's disconcerting that this behavior doesn't seem to be controllable from a system-wide preference, and I'd like a way to systematically identify/control these login items to retain control of what's happening. So, the (two-part) question is:
- What is actually controlling whether/how these app-specific launch items are being activated, and
- How can I get an inventory of all these login items?
[edited for clarity 2013-03-20 11:22 PT]