Mac Treat #188: Open Your Favorite Apps Automatically

While it is not often necessary to shut down your computer, it is not a bad idea to do so from time to time. For example, I am flying to Ohio today and will be shutting my MacBook Pro down completely before I send it through the scanner. Also, for a number of reasons, we shut our computers down every night here at Small Dog.

This means that I need to re-open all the programs that I always leave open each time I start back up. While not an especially time consuming task, it is a little annoying to have to do this every time. Thanks to today’s Mac Treat, I will be annoyed no more.

In order to automatically open programs upon start-up (or when you log in to your user account), follow these steps:

  1. Go to the  (Apple) menu and select System Preferences.
  2. Click on Users & Groups in the System section.
  3. Click on Login Items.
  4. Hit the + (plus) button.
  5. Find the application you want to add (the Applications folder is probably where they all are), highlight it and hit the Add button.
  6. Repeat for all applications you want to add.