Startup Sets in OSX Lion (for video editing)

May 7, 2012 5:06 AM

Remember back in the OS 9 (and earlier), how you could have start up sets? I know in these heady days of Lion, we don't need to manage extensions and fonts, except... I sorta do.

It seems I'm taxing my MacBook Pro running video editing programs, so I'm trying to figure out how can start-up without Time Machine, virus checker, Dropbox, and other stuff.

I know I could log in as different user, but I do want to keep access to photos, video, and music in my main user account.

Is there an easy way in these modern times to accomplish this? Thanks!

posted by largecorp to computers & internet (6 answers total)

If you log in while holding down shift, it'll temporarily disable all the things that normally start up at login. I'm not sure about Time Mahine, since it's a system service, but that should take care if everything else on your list.
posted by duien at 5:25 AM on May 7, 2012

duien: that's safe mode, which can be slower than usual.

How about using Concentrate - you can make app sets to start and stop.
posted by wingless_angel at 5:28 AM on May 7, 2012

The best I can come up with is for you to remove those items from your Startup Items menu. This, of course, would mean you would have to manually launch these things as you need them.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:06 AM on May 7, 2012

Most applications that start on startup will still let you quit out of them later and restart them at will. Takes a bit longer than just starting up without them entirely, but may not take longer than whatever jury-rigging you're trying to do here.
posted by valkyryn at 7:08 AM on May 7, 2012

wingless_angel, that's true if you hold shift while starting up the computer. However, holding shift while logging in just disables login items, which sounds like exactly what largecorp wants.

Apple's support site can be pretty tricky to find things on, but here's a doc for 10.4 that explains what all the different startup shortcuts do. Holding show shift during login and during startup have separate entries. I couldn't find the equivalent doc for more recent versions, but I don't believe the shortcuts have changed.
posted by duien at 7:24 AM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm surprised this isn't a problem for more folks... I'll try the log-in trick, and take a look at Concentrate, too.
posted by largecorp at 2:41 PM on May 7, 2012