And you thought I’d abandoned it. 
DelayedLauncher turned out to be more popular than I expected it to be.
Originally released as a solution to a problem in the 1.x series of Espionage, DelayedLauncher turned out to be useful for many people as a way of speeding up their system’s login time.
After receiving enough emails asking for the ability to specify delays for each of the items, it is finally here, DelayedLauncher 2.0, and yes, it’s still completely free. 
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4+
P.S. If you’d like to contribute an icon for it, just contact us. I think a rocket with a wrist-watch strapped around it would suit it nicely.
Update: Version 2.2 fixes bugs and has a new icon!
Tags: delayedlauncher, free, greg, update
Randy Harris
March 28th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Thanks for the update, this makes it even more useful than before.
Warren M
March 28th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Hey Greg, excellent update to this little utility. It keeps Entourage out of my way while logging in
Lance Lawton
March 31st, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Good stuff, Greg, only …. it’s not functioning as (I presume?) you intended. I expected it would launch the items marked for e.g. 30 sec delay first, then those marked for 1 minute delay 30 secs after that, then the 2 minute ones a minute later, … etc. Is that what you intended?
Well anyway, what’s happening is that the app sorts the items into some seemingly random order .. then counts down the set delay timeframe for the first item on the list .. then counts down the set time for the second item .. etc. (If you e-mail me back, I’ll send you a screenshot.)
The overall effect is probably the same, but it’s not as I imagined – and it might matter for some folks who need a certain item to launch before some other certain item.
Greg Slepak
March 31st, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Hi Lance, the behavior you’re describing is intended.
The sorting order is not random, but up to you. You can move the items by dragging them to whatever position you want, and using this you can guarantee that certain items launch before others.
The delays are all relative to the item before it, the launch animation is designed to highlight this.
Lance Lawton
March 31st, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Thanks for the explanation, Greg. Now I understand, and will change my settings accordingly. I guess I’d add the comment that “my way” might be more intuitive (but then I would think that, wouldn’t I … )
Steve Mayer
April 8th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
The checking for updates doesn’t seem to function properly and instead results in an error. Is this a new issue?
Greg Slepak
April 8th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
@Steve: No, it’s just that I was a bit lazy and did not setup the Sparkle feed on the server. Don’t worry, if/when a new version is released it should function properly.
Steve Mayer
April 8th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Great! Thanks for the response!
Clemens Hintze
April 19th, 2010 at 4:07 am
@steve: I was really glad to find your program as I would like to delay the startup of some of my items to get a certain order and a faster login.
Unfortunately I cannot get the application to work properly under 10.4.11 MacMini (Intel).
If I open the program, I nearly cannot add applications via drag and drop. I have to do this several times and then it will recognized eventually. But the list is not redrawn properly and the items most often seem to be invisible in the list (list seems empty – only the hide-checkbutton is there).
If then I close and reopen the app, it will crash at once and I am not able to re-open it afterwards.
The only possibility is to remove the app from my Mini and reinstall it.
Can you help me?
Thanks in advance and best regards,
Clemens.
Greg Slepak
April 19th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
@Clemens, right now I’m traveling and unfortunately I do not have access to a computer with 10.4 on it, however feel free to send me an email (it’s on the About page) about this to remind me to look into it, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I’m back home.
Valerio
June 13th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Many Many Many Thanks from Italy!!! I love it!!!
snowball
June 18th, 2010 at 12:04 am
Love this app! Precisely what I needed to solve the slow startup problem on a Mac.
))
Thank you, Greg!
The route to quicker booting on your Mac « MacBitz
June 27th, 2010 at 3:16 am
[...] Sure, you know all the applications that launch on startup can be found in your ‘Login Items’ under your account in the System Preferences, and common sense says that if you just remove them from the list then your Mac will boot quicker. Problem there is you then have to manually load the apps later, and if there are a lot then remembering them all is a pain. Similarly you could write an Automator script to do the job, but you don’t need to thanks to Delayed Launcher. [...]
John Madden
July 22nd, 2010 at 9:26 am
Greg, I love this little utility, and the ability to specify delay times individually in 2.0 is brilliant. I have one minor request: could you increase the maximum delay time on the slider to, say, 15 minutes? Thank you Greg!
John Madden
July 22nd, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Whoops, Greg, I just realized that in the new interface the delay for each item is not absolute (i.e. relative to launch of DelayedLauncher), but is actually relative to the launch of the previous item on the list: even more brilliant! Forget my previous suggestion — 5 minutes is plenty for the slider.
Greg Slepak
July 22nd, 2010 at 1:56 pm
@John:
Stefan
October 5th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
how do I uninstall delayed launcher or remove the delay of the startup items?
I found and removed some preference files in the library, removed the app but the previously configured apps are still loading with a delay… *help*
Greg Slepak
October 5th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
@Stefan, delete the app and remove it from your login items in the Accounts system preferences.
Guy
October 28th, 2010 at 3:34 am
Steve,
I placed an app in the list and set for 30 seconds and placed the delay app in the log in items list. It works great! Now, I want to delete the app from the delay start-up list and place a different app in its place. I cant seem to remove the original app from your delay list. I have deleted the delay app and removed it from the login items in account preferences as indicated above. I downloaded the app again and the original file with the original delay settings show up again. What am I doing wrong? Running on intel mac mini 10.5.8.
Greg Slepak
October 28th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Guy, select the app in the delay list and hit the backspace/delete key to remove it.
B. Jefferson Le Blanc
January 26th, 2011 at 6:30 am
I was looking for a non-public way to contact you, but there is no private option available for DelayedLauncher, so I’ll have to post my problem report here and hope you see it.
I just downloaded DelayedLauncher 2.2.1. Among the apps I tried to launch with it is Eudora OSE 1.0, the latest open source version of Eudora. The DL configuration window shows the correct path to the application, and Reveal In Finder selects it as well. But DL actually launches Thunderbird 3.1.7, which I have on my system for testing purposes. The only way I can get DL to launch Eudora is to put Thunderbird in the trash, effectively deleting it from my system, which is not an acceptable solution.
Thunderbird is actually the core app for Eudora, which uses the Penelope plug-in to apply a Eudora UI to Thunderbird. But the Eudora app and Thunderbird are in separate folders; there does no seem to me to be a plausible reason why DL would show the correct path and launch the wrong application. But it does. What’s up with that?
Randy Harris
January 26th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
Love Delayed Launcher, use it every time I boot.
Here is a suggestion, a checkbox next to each listed app to ‘skip this launch only’
Greg Slepak
January 26th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
@B. Jefferson: I’ve sent you an email response.
@Randy: Thanks for the suggestion! If I get the time I’ll implement it.
Christoph
March 7th, 2011 at 5:41 pm
Hey Greg! Thank you for your useful tool. Just thought “there should be an option for automatical quitting itself” and then it did so.
One thing: Despite the check in some of the Boxes, tools like “Just Notes”, “Text Expander” and “SizeUp” launch in the foreground. Did I miss some option?
Thank you again, Christoph
Greg Slepak
March 8th, 2011 at 12:46 am
Hey Christoph,
Thanks for letting me know! I’m a bit flooded with Espionage-related work at the moment so I might not have time to have a look at this immediately, but feel free to contact me via email (see the About page) if I don’t get back to you within 2 weeks to remind me.
Cheers!
Greg
Nic
March 13th, 2011 at 5:37 am
I just discovered this app and loving it so far! But I was wondering if there could be an option to disable the dock icon from showing. I’m quite a fan of minimalist docks, and this extra dock icon doesn’t seem to have any use.
Nonetheless, it’s a nicely created icon!
Greg Slepak
March 13th, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Hi Nic,
Thanks for the comment, the application should quit itself automatically and once it quits it should not remain in the Dock. If it does, just click and drag it out of the Dock to remove it.
Best,
Greg
Christian
March 24th, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Greg, in version 2.2.1 of the DelayedLauncher ZIP archive, there are two symbolic links within the DelayedLauncher.app/Contents/Frameworks/Sparkle.framework/Versions/A/Resources hierarchy which point to non-existent files within the archive: fr.lproj/fr.lproj and fr_CA.lproj. It looks as though fr.lproj/fr.lproj doesn’t need to exist, and that fr_CA.lproj should instead point to ../fr.lproj (at least until a separate Québécois localisation is available).
Greg Slepak
March 24th, 2011 at 9:24 pm
Christian, thanks for pointing that out. I had no idea as Sparkle is a third-party framework. Is this causing problems for you?
Olivier in London
May 21st, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Your application is brilliant ! I have been struggling for weeks to get a fast startup of my iMac with applications like Dropbox or Mackeeper which are just terrible to launch. Now I get an incredibly speedy startup. Thank you so much for such an excellent work !
Schmye Bubbula
May 22nd, 2011 at 3:35 pm
DelayedLauncher 2.2.1 doesn’t launch any app I’ve tried as hidden, despite its checkbox enabled.
Nick
June 13th, 2011 at 9:50 am
Hi Greg – great app! Thanks for creating and sharing it.
Can I be greedy and suggest two things?
1) A tick-option for each app. Ticked by default, but when un-ticked, that app never gets launched.
2) Some form of settings manager which allows you to store/recall the current setup. For example, I sometimes need to reboot a couple of times in a row to test things and if I could quickly re-open a “Test” setting I previously saved where only one or two specific apps loaded, that’d be great.
Either way, please keep up the great work
Greg Slepak
June 24th, 2011 at 7:28 pm
Nick !
Thanks for the suggestions and my sincere apologies for the astonishingly late reply!
At the moment I have my hands tied behind me, but I’m thinking of actually open sourcing this project… That may help me get some of these feature requests realized as right now my time is all tied up with Espionage related work!
Nick
June 27th, 2011 at 3:45 am
No problem and thanks for the reply at all
Sounds like a good move. I’m sure that a few more hands would help out!
Best wishes
len303
August 15th, 2011 at 3:40 pm
awsome app , very handy:)
Tom Fleck
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:22 am
I tried your software & it works!!!. I added several items to the list as test. Now I want to remove some of the items but I can’t figure out how. I tried dragging them out, but that didn’t work Then I tried some key combos.
Stumped,
Tom
Greg Slepak
September 10th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
@Tom: select the item and hit the backspace key.
len303
October 26th, 2011 at 7:24 am
wikid:)