How to monitor and remove unwanted Launch Agents and Daemons in macOS

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Many macOS software installers add unnecessary background processes, such as auto-updaters, which can be intrusive or even spyware. These “helpers” typically install in the directories: LaunchAgents, LaunchDaemons, or PrivilegedHelperTools, found in /Library or $HOME/Library. To find and potentially remove them, you have to check these locations regularly.

I created a script for my .bash_profile or .zshrc (works both via bash and zsh) to track new, unwanted additions. It doesn’t automatically delete these items but provides removal commands every time I open a shell, which is frequently. Of course, you could also automatically remove them if you don’t want to manually double-check.

Notice: This script does not affect Login Items (accessible through System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items), where applications can be set to launch at startup and also install background daemons (often for AppStore-based Apps). Additionally, I created an alias to monitor these via the command line as well (show_background_tasks).

Enjoy!

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Remove unwanted helpers
process_agents() {
  local directory=$1
  shift
  local agents=("$@")
  local pattern=$(
    IFS=\|
    echo "${agents[*]}"
  )
  shopt -s nullglob
  for plist in "$directory"/{LaunchAgents,LaunchDaemons,PrivilegedHelperTools}/*; do
    if [ ! -s "$plist" ]; then continue; fi
    if ! echo "$plist" | egrep -q "^.*Library.*/($pattern)"; then
      local plist_name=$(basename "$plist" .plist)
      if [[ $directory = /Library* ]]; then
        echo "sudo bash -c 'launchctl disable system/$plist_name && true > \"$plist\" && chmod a-wx \"$plist\"'"
      else
        echo "bash -c 'launchctl disable gui/$(id -u)/$plist_name && true > \"$plist\" && chmod a-wx \"$plist\"'"
      fi
    fi
  done
}

# Define global and local agents to manage
global_agents=(
  at.obdev.littlesnitch         # Little Snitch
  com.docker                    # Docker
)
process_agents "/Library" "${global_agents[@]}"

local_agents=(
  homebrew.mxcl.ollama        # ollama
  jp.plentycom.boa.SteerMouse # SteerMouse
)
process_agents "$HOME/Library" "${local_agents[@]}"

# vim: filetype=bash: