Disable OS X application persistence

Terminal
One feature which seems to divide the masses is OS X’s ability to relaunch your applications on startup/reboot. This feature is know as Apple Persistence, which is personally a feature I am not really a fan of. It’s very rare for me to want the same applications on each use of my MacBook, asides from the obvious email and unified comms clients of course.

So – to disable to ‘persistent’ application mode simply follow these simple steps below

  1. Open the Utilities folder
  2. Open a terminal window
  3. Copy and paste the following line in:
    sudo defaults write -g ApplePersistence -bool no
  4. Enter your password and press enter

Now the next time you reboot, you’ll be greeted with your beautiful desktop wallpaper, and not the plethora of apps and browser windows.

If you decide you miss the feature, all you need to do is switch the boolean value back to yes:

sudo defaults write -g ApplePersistence -bool yes

Mike Hudson

Mike Hudson is a Lead Cyber Security Analyst living and working in Kingston Upon Hull. With extensive experience in Microsoft and Apple technologies, ranging from desktop OS’s to Server OS’s and hardware. By day working as part of an infrastructure team, and by night ridding the world of IT issues through blog posts..

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