Update: DelayedLauncher 2.0 has been released.
Yesterday we received the following support email from Brian Kane:
When I put Mail (which is “espionaged”) in the login items, the folder doesn’t get unlocked in time and Mail acts like it is starting up for the first time. If I cancel the start up dialog and then wait a second or two and restart Mail, it starts up properly. Is there anyway to get the “espionaged” program to delay or something. I’ve had this happen with other “espionaged” programs in login items too. As it stands right now, I can’t put any “espionaged” programs in Login Items.
Brian brings up a very valid point, so I spent part of the day whipping out a temporary solution to this problem, a program called DelayedLauncher:
Instead of adding your “espionaged” programs to the login items, you add them to DelayedLauncher, and add DelayedLauncher to the login items. It will launch them after a delay you specify, and then automatically quit after 5 seconds. To stop either the auto-quit or auto-launch, just move the slider, or launch the program while holding down the command key.
A future version of Espionage will make DelayedLauncher unnecessary, but hey, for now it works and it’s a free program that you might find useful for something else! 
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4+
Update: DelayedLauncher 2.0 has been released.
Tags: delayedlauncher, Espionage, Free Stuff, greg
Neal Tobochnik
December 6th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Nice Program. One of my login items is a connect to server item. I was able to put the item itto delayed launcher but it did not connect. It would be nice if it did. Any ideas?
Greg Slepak
December 6th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
What sort of file is it? DelayedLauncher will open a file with the equivalent of a “double-click” from the Finder, so if it’s a script it won’t run but will probably open in an editor (same as Login Items), in which case you can use Platypus to create an application bundle out of it.
links for 2008-12-08 « Bread Butter ‘n’ Rock&Roll
December 8th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
[...] DelayedLauncher open app after delay (tags: software freeware) [...]
Lorenzo Orlandi
December 14th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Hi Greg, add something new to the loginitems I always fear to slow down the startup of my machine… I think I thought a thousand of times of an app like this one… and finally you made my dream come true!
thanks a billion, going to try the tiny app
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May 15th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
[...] das Thema gesprochen hatten – hatte Patrick seine stolze Anzahl von > 25 Login Items mal mittels DelayedLauncher umgebastelt. Das Programm wird nun via Login Item gestartet und regelt dann die zeitliche Steuerung [...]
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Peter
March 12th, 2013 at 5:27 pm
Works great on OS X with XBMC. Thank you very much