Box.com can bite me

How do you turn off box.com on startup? I have the answer.

I have customers that use box (a shared file service). We don’t use it much and I noticed that it was auto-launching on my Mac. I went to the preferences to tell the app not to launch upon start up. There was no option. A little research on box’s site revealed that although people have been complaining about this since 2015, there is no solution.

I was irritated, but also know there is more than one way to peel a potato. Here are two:

1. Remove the launch file

For macOS, some of the solutions mentioned will still load Box and then close it after startup. To prevent it from loading do this:

• Open a new Finder window
• Click Go in the top menu
• Press and hold the Option key. This will make Library appear
  • Click Library
• Open the LaunchAgents folder
• Delete the file “com.box.desktop.launch.plist”

2. Create an Automator App!

1. Open Automator and create an “app”
2. Add a “Pause” and “Quit Application” as illustrated below
   • Note that you can adjust the pause or more or less time. My first attempt didn’t give enough time for Box to launch before the app fired. In reality, I could probably adjust it to 15 seconds.
     

     Automator screen

3. Save the file someplace on your computer
4. Go to System Preferences
   1. Users & Groups (choose the User you want)
   2. Choose Login Items
   3. Click the “+” icon and find/add the app you created in steps 1-2.
   4. Marvel at your work.

Bite me box.