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