Mac users already know the truth – that Macs are much faster to boot up than PCs and therefore a lot less waiting time once you’ve started up your machine. If there are certain programs that you always use and run immediately once you’ve turned on your Mac, here are some helpful hints on how to make these programs open immediately upon login.
For many of us, essential programs like web browsers, iTunes, chat programs and more are ones that we manually start up ourselves every time we start up our computer. Adding these programs to the list of Login Items will open them automatically upon start up and here’s how:
- Open your System Preferences (from the Apple menu)
- Click on “Accounts” in the “systems” menu line.
- Select “Login Items” at the top of the menu.
- You will now see a list of the programs that can be opened at login.
- To add items to this list, simply drag and drop icons directly onto this list of applications.
- Use the “+/-” tabs at the bottom of the list to modify and change this list.
- You don’t need to check the checkboxes next to the application names. The checked applications are “helper” applications that will be hidden and merely run in the background of your system while you work.
Some applications add themselves automatically to your Login Items (like Skype). You can use these instructions to remove any applications that you do not want to start up automatically by doing the following. Open your Accounts in the Systems Preferences area as instructed above. Once you have accessed your Login Items list, you can follow a similar procedure to remove items from this list, simply by highlighting the application and clicking on the “-” tab at the bottom of the list. This will ensure that only the applications you wish to run on start-up will do so.
