Delay Login Items and Applications for OS X 10.4 Including iDrive

Once you have had your mac for a while you are likely to have found dozens of applications that you love, and multiple items that you want to start when you log in.

So you add them all to your login-items and you’re done right? Wrong.

If you simply add them all to your login items then when you log in, they all try to start at once and it all ends in a massive delay before you can use any of them or even any of your other applications. It isn’t unheard of to see the rainbow spinner of death on some machines.

My solution was to create my own simple applescript that starts all the things I want, in the order I want and with delays between then to keep my mac in a usable state.

Creating applescripts is actually much simpler than most people think.
First open Applications -> AppleScript -> Script Editor

Now I am going to give you a large headstart here, so you can copy and paste in the following code:

delay 2

tell application "Quicksilver"
	launch
end tell

delay 2

tell application "Things"
	launch
end tell

delay 2

tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
	launch
end tell

The code above adds a delay of 2, then opens the application “Quicksilver”, it then pauses for another delay of 2 and opens the application “Things”. There is then another delay of 2 and we launch the “GrowlHelperApp”.

It is important that you get the application names correct. I suggest either copying them from “System Preferences -> Accounts -> Your account -> Login Items” or you could head on over to your Applications folder or Utilities folder and copy the applications name from there (without the .app on the end)

When you are happy with your list of delayed applications click on the compile button in Script Editor. If you receive errors, check you have no sytax errors. If you get stuck then copy the code from above again and start over. If you you don’t have errors we are ready to save it all ready for use. Select “File -> Save As”, select File Format: Application, uncheck all other options and give your new application a name, mine is called Appause (get it?). Be sure to save your application to the Utilities folder.

So now you can remove all the applications you just put in your home-made application delayer from your existing login items and add your new app to the login items.

Open Login Items, click each application you want to remove followed by the minus [-] button.
Then click the plus [+] and browse to your utilities folder to find where you put your new app.

You should end up with something like this:

The only application I have had a problem with so far is iDrive. iDriveMonitor annoyingly adds itself back to your Login Items as start up. I found a solution though which sits in my home made Appause application too. See how to still be able to use iDrive but stop iDriveMonitor autostarting.