🛑 How to stop Ollama auto-launching on Mac — even when it’s NOT in Login Items

If Ollama keeps opening at login but doesn’t appear in System Preferences → Users & Groups → Login Items, here’s what’s really going on:

1️⃣ Ollama uses a hidden launch agent inside its app bundle:

/Applications/Ollama.app/Contents/Library/LaunchAgents/com.ollama.ollama.plist

2️⃣ You can see it listed with:

launchctl list | grep ollama

3️⃣ And after logging out/in, the Ollama icon still shows in the menu bar.

How to fix it

1. Open Finder, go to Applications
2. Right-click Ollama.app → Show Package Contents
3. Navigate to Contents/Library/LaunchAgents/
4. Find com.ollama.ollama.plist
5. Rename it to disable auto-launch: com.ollama.ollama.plist.disabled. Rename it back to allow previous behavior 🔄.
6. Restart your Mac
7. Check with:launchctl list | grep ollama. No output? You’re all set!

No more Ollama popping up on login — even though it was hiding from System Preferences all along. 🧹🍏✨

P.s. You will need to repeat this every time you update Ollama 🙃