Stop a Mac reopening windows and apps after a restart
· 6 min read
When you choose Restart from the Apple menu, untick Reopen windows when logging back in in the dialog that appears, then click Restart. macOS remembers that choice for every restart, shut down and log out after it, so this is a one-time change.
If apps still come back after that, a different switch is responsible. An app that reopens its old documents when you launch it is following the Close windows when quitting an application setting in Desktop & Dock, or its own session setting. An app that launches by itself at login is a login item. Each needs its own fix, covered below in that order.
The checkbox in the restart dialog
- Open the Apple menu and choose Restart.
- The dialog asks “Are you sure you want to restart your computer now?” with the checkbox Reopen windows when logging back in underneath.
- Untick it and click Restart.
Do not leave the dialog sitting there while you read it. If you do nothing, the computer restarts automatically in 60 seconds, with the box as it was.
The same checkbox appears when you choose Shut Down or Log Out, and all three share one setting, so unticking it in any of them covers the others. To turn reopening back on later, tick it again the next time you restart.
Two situations skip the dialog and use whatever you chose last:
- Holding Option while you open the Apple menu. On most versions, Restart loses its trailing dots and restarts straight away without asking.
- Restarts that happen without you, such as one at the end of an overnight software update. You are not there to untick anything, which is why people often discover the setting only after an update reopened everything.
After a forced shutdown (holding the power button, or a crash), the next login may say you shut down your computer because of a problem and offer to open the apps that were open. Click Cancel rather than Open for a clean session, which is exactly what you want if one of those apps was the cause.
Apps that reopen their old documents when you launch them
This is a separate behavior from the restart dialog, and the one that surprises people more: you quit Preview with three PDFs open, open it again on Friday, and all three are back on screen.
Turn it off in System Settings, Desktop & Dock. Scroll down to the window settings (headed Windows on macOS 15; the section names vary by version) and turn on Close windows when quitting an application. Apple’s description is plain: when it is on, open documents and windows are not restored when you reopen an app.
You can override it for a single quit. Open the app’s menu (the one named after the app, next to the Apple menu) and hold Option:
- With the setting on, Quit becomes Quit and Keep Windows, for the one time you want to come back to exactly where you were.
- With the setting off, it becomes Quit and Close All Windows, for the one time you want a clean start.
Option-Command-Q does the same from the keyboard.
This setting only governs apps that use macOS’s own window restoration, which covers Apple’s apps and most document-based apps. Apps with their own session logic ignore it.
Apps with their own memory
Browsers, code editors, terminal apps and many creative apps keep their own record of what was open, separate from macOS.
In Safari, the switch is in Safari, Settings, General: Safari opens with offers A new window, A new private window, All windows from last session, and All non-private windows from last session. Choose A new window if you want it to start empty whatever macOS is doing.
For other apps, look in the app’s settings for words like startup, session, restore or reopen. If an app still reopens with every window after you have changed both macOS settings, that is where the answer lives.
macOS keeps each app’s window state in a folder named after the app’s identifier, ending in .savedState, inside ~/Library/Saved Application State. Sandboxed apps keep theirs inside their own container instead, under ~/Library/Containers/, in the same Data/Library/Saved Application State path. You rarely need to touch these. The exception is an app that crashes every time it tries to restore a window. macOS usually notices and asks, on the next launch, whether to try to reopen its windows again; choose Don’t Reopen. If it keeps happening, save anything open in the app, quit it, and move that app’s .savedState folder to the Trash. It holds window layout and the list of what was open, not your documents. Reset app preferences on a Mac covers the same move-it-aside approach for settings files.
Login items are a different list
If an app opens at login even with the restart checkbox unticked, it is not being reopened. It is being started, because it is a login item.
- Open System Settings, General, Login Items & Extensions (just Login Items on earlier versions).
- The Open at Login list shows the apps that open automatically when you log in.
- Select the one you do not want and click the minus button.
For an app in the Dock, Control-click its icon and look under Options: Open at Login has a tick next to it if it is set, and choosing it again removes it.
Some apps have a “launch at login” option in their own settings and will add themselves back to the list if that is still on, so switch it off inside the app too. The Allow in the Background list further down is a different thing: helpers that run without a window, such as update checkers and sync agents. Turning those off does not stop windows reopening and can stop an app working properly, so leave them unless you know what each one does. Login items on a Mac goes through auditing both lists.
When it is worth leaving on
Reopening is a good feature for some people and some days.
Leave it on if you work across a lot of windows that take time to set up again: a writer with three drafts and a research folder, a developer with several terminal windows, anyone mid-way through a long task when an update restarts the Mac overnight. You come back to the desk as you left it.
Turn it off if:
- Other people see your screen when it starts. Presentations, shared Macs, and screen sharing at the start of a call. Clear recent files on a Mac covers the related problem of recent documents showing up in menus.
- Logins are slow. A dozen apps relaunching at once all compete for the disk and memory in the first minute.
- You restarted to fix something. If an app was misbehaving, bringing it straight back with the same window state can bring the problem back with it.
A middle setting works for many people: leave the restart checkbox on, so an overnight update returns you to your work, and turn on Close windows when quitting an application, so quitting an app on purpose still gives you a clean start next time.
Questions
Why did my Mac reopen everything after an update when I had unticked the box? Check the box was unticked on your most recent manual restart, since an update restart generally follows the last choice made in that dialog. If it was, the apps that came back are probably login items or apps with their own session setting.
Can I skip reopening for just one login? Untick the box in that restart’s dialog and tick it again next time. Holding Shift while you log in, until the Dock appears, has also long skipped login items and reopened windows for that one session, though the timing can be fiddly.
Is it safe to delete the Saved Application State folder? For one app, after quitting it, yes. You lose its remembered window positions and open-document list. Deleting the whole folder is unnecessary; deal with the one app that is misbehaving.