Launchdaemons & Launchagents list

[TriggerHappy]

My mac is 3 years old now and I feel it's time for a thorough clean up of the various files that worm their way into the system startup script.

I generally keep on top of things elsewhere on my Mac with CCleaner and Onyx to keep things running smoothly, and there's only 4 programs currently in my loginitems, but this will be the first time I manually clear out those hidden files that try to run when you hit the power button (login time is almost instant, but startup is slowing a little).

Is there a comprehensive list or directory somewhere I can use to find out what a lot of these .plist files are? A lot seem to be listed as anonymous.

Obviously I'll be backing up before I touch the system/library/launchagents, system/library/launchdaemons, library/launchagents and library/launchdaemons. Is there anywhere else I need to be cleaning whilst I'm at it?

Startup is still OK - 2-3 minutes at a guess - but I know it could be better with a little attention and I'd rather address it early than allow it to grind to a halt.

 

[Chappers]

Run Console and see if anything is trying to load and failing. I found this with a couple of items and managed to track them down. Be careful though about deleting items that you are not sure of. If you find a daemon trying to launch and failing ,run a Google search as there is usually an entry in a forum somewhere that may help. I found I had a problem with spotlight trying to do something and was forever launching, failing and restarting

You could get a copy of App Delete. Whilst this is primarily designed to delete aps and their associated items I found it useful to look for orphaned files, that my system still had on board.

 

[TriggerHappy]

Run Console and see if anything is trying to load and failing. I found this with a couple of items and managed to track them down. Be careful though about deleting items that you are not sure of. If you find a daemon trying to launch and failing ,run a Google search as there is usually an entry in a forum somewhere that may help. I found I had a problem with spotlight trying to do something and was forever launching, failing and restarting

You could get a copy of App Delete. Whilst this is primarily designed to delete aps and their associated items I found it useful to look for orphaned files, that my system still had on board.

Thanks for your post.

Could you suggest what type of lines I might be looking for in console? It's not something I've looked at before.

I certainly know to tread carefully, which is why I hoped there was a comprehensive list somewhere and have run a backup before I get stuck in. I found such a thing a few years ago when I did the same on a Windows XP machine so I was hopeful there would be an OSX equivalent somewhere that I hadn't found with google.

Edit: I've had a run through Console and found it was getting spammed with "Failed to count the number of files in "/System/Library/StartupItems": No such file exists" or something to that effect so I used Terminal to create a new folder with that title in the /System/Library to at least stop the error occurring. Hopefully with that gone from the console it will be easier to browse to look for other things.

 

[Chappers]

The type of error you found is what I was referring to. I can't remember exactly what I had but it was well reported on several forums that I checked. There were two items if memory serves me. Both were trying to run a launch item that no longer existed, and kept restarting over and over again. It didn't really slow the mac down but it's an overhead you could well do without..

Also 2-3 minutes to start is a long time for a mac to start, mine is up much quicker.

 

[Chappers]

Just shut down and restarted mine. Standard 27" iMac with HDD.

Bong 7 Secs
Apple appearers in 17 Secs
Log in screen 58 secs

 

[TriggerHappy]

Just timed my startup and it's actually 57 seconds to the login screen so not as long as it seems but it's certainly slowed a little in recent months.