HELP

Know what you’re looking at.

First launch

Open LaunchMon and select a service. Search and source filters narrow the inventory. Refresh with ⌘R. Copy Summary with ⇧⌘C. The interface follows your Mac’s light or dark appearance.

What the states mean

Running has a PID. Waiting is loaded without a current process; scheduled and on-demand services often wait. Not loaded has a plist but no registration in the inspected domain. Unknown means inspection failed; it does not mean the service is stopped.

Controlling a service

Start requests a launch. Stop sends SIGTERM; KeepAlive may restart it. Unload removes its registration for this session without deleting the plist. Kick-start replaces the running instance. Enable and Disable change a persistent load override; they do not themselves start or stop a service.

The helper

Choose Helper Setup, install, and approve in System Settings → General → Login Items. It is required to control third-party system daemons. Use Update Helper if its protocol version changes, or Uninstall Helper to remove registration. Apple services and LaunchMon’s own helper are read-only.

Full Disk Access

Only grant this if LaunchMon reports permission failures for files you want to inspect. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access, add LaunchMon, relaunch, and refresh. The helper is not a substitute for privacy permissions.

Logs and secrets

Open Standard Output or Standard Error when a plist defines a log path. Otherwise open Console and filter by process. Argument values are hidden because positional arguments may contain credentials; opening the original plist or logs may reveal sensitive data.

Monitoring limits

Polling pauses when the app is inactive. Restart warnings require observed changes, so very short-lived jobs may escape detection. Launch counts are shown for the selected service after refresh. Runtime-only entries may have no plist or executable details. Login Items settings may include items that have not registered with launchd.

License and updates

Paste your key into LaunchMon → License. You can activate on three Macs and deactivate from that window or the customer portal. License checks happen at most daily. After 14 days offline, the app asks you to reconnect; a paid license remains usable. Your purchase includes one year of updates; an optional renewal extends update eligibility without taking away your existing version.

Direct download only, not the Mac App Store. Need help? [email protected]