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Mac 101: Launch at startup, the Login Items tab

by Mat Lu May 18th 2007 at 7:00AM



Everybody has programs that are pretty much always open (Mail, iTunes, Quicksilver, etc.), so it's good to have them launch automatically at startup. There are a couple of different ways to do this. If the program is already running you can hold down your (left) mouse button on its Dock icon and choose "Open at Login" from the pop up menu. However, the best way to manage these is in "Login Items" tab of the Accounts Preference Pane in your System Preferences. Here you can manually add login items. In fact, in addition to adding login items (just by clicking the plus sign), you can also remove anything you don't want (with the minus). It's useful to scan the list periodically and remove anything you don't commonly use (sometimes developers, e.g. Adobe, will put things in there without asking). Removing these unused items can free up system resources for more useful things. But be careful that you do not remove anything important (basically if you don't know what it is, don't remove it). In addition to adding applications to the login items tab, you can also add Volumes to mount on login, including network mounts. Just mount the network drive first in the Finder, then after hitting the plus sign select it and it will be placed on the list, as you can see for my WebDAV mount above.

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Everybody has programs that are pretty much always open (Mail, iTunes, Quicksilver, etc.), so it's good to have them launch automatically...
 

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ZipperSeven

You can also drag Automator apps or AppleScript apps into it as well. I have one that clears my DNS cache when I move from one network to another (my work network forwards to a local server for our webpage.) It's pretty handy.

May 29 2007 at 7:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ryan Maxwell

the app doesn't need to be open to get the "Open at login" menu item from the dock.

May 18 2007 at 6:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Lars

Oddly enough, ticking the box for Mail doesn't hide it at start up. Maybe they could fix that in .10 ;)

May 18 2007 at 1:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
David Chartier

For everyone wondering about whether you can automatically hide something you set to start up when you log in: in this Login tab in your Account System Preferences pane, there should be a 'Hide' column that offers a check box next to each thing you want to start up automatically. Checking that box should - in *most* cases - cause that application or drive to hide itself upon starting up.

May 18 2007 at 12:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kruch

If you know your way around UNIX you can use samba (comes with OS X) to make shares outside your home directory. If you don't you can use SharePoints (http://hornware.com/sharepoints/).

May 18 2007 at 10:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
iGO

What I'd like to know, post mounting that External Volume/Drive, is how to share the contents of that external volume/drive, available across the home network. Anyone?

May 18 2007 at 10:38 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jtr

Perfect! I'm new to the mac, and was wondering this very thing...

thanks.

May 18 2007 at 10:20 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jimmy Jazz

The option to mount volumes automatically is really handy, does anyone know of a way to make it work without OSX opening a finder window for each volume?

May 18 2007 at 9:28 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
racco

cheers paul :) that was exactly what was happening

May 18 2007 at 8:43 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Lars

I second Mary's comment. I'd like Mail to open, but just not show it's window.

May 18 2007 at 8:36 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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