stop programs from running on startup windows 10

Open Settings from the Start menu, then choose Apps and Startup. Stopping programs from starting up on Windows hasn’t always been particularly easy, but in the latest iterations of the operating system, there’s a dedicated screen for it. There, go to Preferences, open the General tab, and uncheck the Start Dropbox on system startup box.

Click the Dropbox icon in the system tray or on the menu bar, and from the emerging window, click your account profile picture. But if you only use Dropbox occasionally, you can stop it from starting automatically. Find the Open Spotify automatically after you log into the computer drop-down menu, and set it to No.ĭropbox and other cloud syncing services are good examples of programs you probably want running all the time to ensure you’re saving all of the changes to your files. There, click your account name (top right), and then go to Settings. We can’t cover every single piece of software out there, but the path to finding the right screen may be similar to that in Spotify’s desktop client. The former is a more precise way of tackling this problem, but finding the right setting on each program is not always easy and can take some time. You can prevent applications from starting up with your operating system through the app’s settings, or through the configuration options in Windows and macOS. And for those applications you don’t use at all anymore, it’s best to completely uninstall them, and free up some storage space. The fix is to take back control over the programs that start up with your computer, which is easy to do.

You might also find that, in general, you don’t have the processor power or free memory to handle the programs you actually need because so many others are lurking in the background unnecessarily. After all, you don’t want to forget to launch your cloud syncing tool, for example, and later find out the changes you made to your files are not synced.īut as more and more apps fire up upon restart-often without explicitly asking you-they can be a drag on your system’s resources, slowing the booting process to a crawl. It makes sense to have some applications loaded up and ready to go, especially if you use them constantly, or you need them to run in the background at all times. The list may include a music streaming service, an image editor, or your gaming library. You may have noticed a crowd of programs launching themselves as soon as your Windows or macOS computer boots up.

Stop programs from running on startup windows 10