Top tweaks for faster starts

1 Remove login items

Go to System Preferences>users & Groups, then on the ‘Login Items’ tab select each application and click the ‘–’ icon to stop it starting when your Mac boots up.

2 Trim the menu

If there are extra items in the menu bar, Alt+click or right-click on them and go to ‘Preferences’. Now untick ‘Start on system startup’. Run menu extras only when needed.

3 Find more items

Open a new Finder window and select the Mac’s disk in the sidebar. Expand the Library folder and look down the list for two folders called Launchagents and Launchdaemons.

4 Agents and Daemons

These two folders show apps that autostart. It’s best not to delete them. Instead, open the apps to see if they can be prevented from auto-starting in their preferences. Or uninstall.

5 More Launchagents

Hold down Alt, click ‘Go’ and select ‘Library’. There is another Launchagents folder with more startup items. Stop them in the app’s Preferences or uninstall them.

6 Get Etrecheck

There is a useful app for checking what’s slowing your Mac’s startup called Etrecheck. Download it (etrecheck.com) and run it. Enter the description and click ‘Start Etrecheck’.

7 View the results

Scroll down the results and look in the various sections to see what loads with macos. Other apps, internet plug-ins and Safari extensions should be scrutinised.

8 Use the uninstaller

If auto-starting apps cannot be stopped, uninstall them. Some apps cannot be removed by dragging them to the Trash, so you must use the uninstaller software if provided.

9 Use Apptrap

You can get the Apptrap System Preferences pane from onnati.net/apptrap, With this you can drag apps from Applications to the Trash and leftover files are deleted too.