How do I make GPSLarp open when I log in?
There is one checkbox for it, and it is inside GPSLarp rather than anywhere in macOS. Open the app, find the Startup card in the sidebar, and tick Open GPSLarp when I log in. It is off on a fresh install and stays off until you tick it. Unticking it is the same click in reverse, and you can also switch it off from System Settings without opening GPSLarp at all.
Read section 02 before you decide, because the setting does less than most people assume: it opens the window, and it does not start the connection to your iPhone.
01Where the setting is
The Startup card sits in GPSLarp's sidebar, below the account details and above the device picker. It holds a single checkbox.
01Open GPSLarp
The card is drawn only after the app has asked macOS what the current setting is, so on a slow launch it appears a moment after the rest of the sidebar. If it never appears at all, that is section 04.
02Tick the checkbox
The label is Open GPSLarp when I log in. There is no Save button and no confirmation dialog — the change is made as you click it.
03Read the line underneath
A short note under the checkbox reports what macOS says the state is now, not what GPSLarp just asked for. With the setting on it reads GPSLarp opens when you log in. It still asks for an administrator password the first time you start the tunnel. With it off it reads GPSLarp does not open when you log in. Anything else is a message from macOS, and section 04 has each of them.
Why the app re-reads the setting instead of remembering it
GPSLarp keeps no copy of this preference. There is no line in its settings file and no entry in its own folder — macOS's own login-item database is the only place it is recorded. That is deliberate, and it has one consequence worth knowing: System Settings wins. If you switch GPSLarp off in System Settings › General › Login Items, the app will report it as off the next time you open it, because it asks rather than assuming. A setting the app remembered separately would eventually disagree with the one macOS actually acts on, and the reader would have no way to tell which was real.
02What it starts, and what it does not
It opens the GPSLarp window. That is the whole of it. No part of this makes your iPhone's location change by itself, and none of it removes a step you were doing before.
In particular, the administrator password prompt is unchanged. GPSLarp reaches your iPhone through a small background service that only macOS can start, and macOS asks for an administrator password before starting it — once per session, every session, whether the app was opened by you or at login. The note under the checkbox says so on purpose: GPSLarp opens when you log in. It still asks for an administrator password the first time you start the tunnel. GPSLarp is asking for my Mac's administrator password explains what that prompt is for.
So the list of what this setting does not do is longer than the list of what it does, and each item is a question people arrive with:
It does not start the connection to your iPhone
The background service is not registered to start at boot and is not installed as a permanent part of your system. Making that automatic would mean installing something with administrator rights that stays there — a different arrangement with a different cost, considered and declined. What you get at login is the window, waiting.
It does not re-apply a location you had set
A location GPSLarp set lasts only while GPSLarp is running and holding the connection — see How do I put my real location back? for the mechanism. Opening the app at login does not restore a previous session, does not reconnect a phone, and does not re-send a place. Your iPhone is on its real GPS at login regardless of this setting.
It does not install a background item, a helper or an agent
What gets registered is a request to macOS to open the application, which macOS records in its own login-items list and shows you in System Settings. Nothing new is written into your system folders, nothing runs while GPSLarp is closed, and removing GPSLarp removes it. See How do I remove GPSLarp from my Mac completely?
03Switching it off again
Two routes, and they end in the same place because there is only one setting behind them.
01From GPSLarp
Untick the same checkbox. The note underneath should change to GPSLarp does not open when you log in. If it does not change, read it — macOS may have refused, and the note carries the reason it gave.
02From System Settings
Open System Settings › General › Login Items and switch GPSLarp off there. You do not need GPSLarp open to do this, which matters if the app is what you are trying to stop opening. GPSLarp will report the new state next time you launch it.
03By removing the app
Dragging GPSLarp to the Bin takes the login item with it — there is no orphaned entry to clean up afterwards, because the entry is a reference to an application that no longer exists.
The switch is not behind signing in
You can turn this off whether or not your GPSLarp session is still valid. That is deliberate and it is the same rule that keeps the Stop button reachable: nobody should have to sign in to stop this app doing something to their machine. A lapsed session hides the modes, not the Startup card.
04If the checkbox is missing, or says something else
GPSLarp hides the Startup card entirely rather than showing a control that cannot work, and when macOS answers with a reason it prints that reason verbatim. Four of them are worth recognising.
01"registered but switched off in System Settings"
The full sentence is GPSLarp is registered but switched off in System Settings > General > Login Items. Turn it on there and it will open when you log in. This is macOS telling you it has the entry and is not honouring it — normally because somebody, or a managed-Mac policy, switched it off there. The fix is in System Settings rather than in GPSLarp, which is why the message says so rather than offering you a button that would do nothing.
02"needs macOS 13 or later"
Opening GPSLarp at login needs macOS 13 or later. The interface Apple provides for an app to register itself as a login item arrived in macOS 13. On macOS 12, which GPSLarp otherwise supports, it is not there. Everything else in the app is unaffected; see Will GPSLarp work with my Mac and my iPhone?
03"cannot open this copy of GPSLarp at login"
macOS cannot open this copy of GPSLarp at login. This is normal when running from source; an installed copy in Applications can. macOS registers an application bundle, and it has to be able to find the one asking. A copy started from a folder of source code is not one, and neither is a copy macOS declines to launch items out of. If you installed GPSLarp normally and see this, check the app is in your Applications folder rather than in Downloads or on a mounted disk image — the installer won't open, or I can't find the app covers where it should be.
04"cannot manage login items in this build"
GPSLarp cannot manage login items in this build, because the macOS bridge it needs is not installed. A component this copy of GPSLarp was built without. It affects this one setting and nothing else, and it is a problem with the copy rather than with your Mac. Installing the current published build is the fix.
05If that did not work
You ticked it and GPSLarp did not open at your next login. Open the app and read the note under the checkbox before assuming the setting did not stick. The most common answer it gives is the first message in section 04 — registered, and switched off in System Settings, which is a state the checkbox in GPSLarp cannot represent on its own.
GPSLarp opens at login and then sits there. That is what this setting does. The window is open, the connection is not started, and the administrator prompt is waiting for you the first time you ask for it. See section 02, and GPSLarp can't start its connection if the prompt is where things go wrong.
You want it to open without appearing. There is no hidden or menu-bar mode. GPSLarp opens as a window, and the checkbox offers no variation on that.
Something else opens at login and you are not sure it is us. System Settings › General › Login Items is the complete list for your account and it names every application in it. GPSLarp installs nothing that would appear under a different name.
The honest limit of this page: it describes a setting, the messages macOS returns about it, and where the switch lives on both sides. Nobody in this project has yet watched an installed copy register itself and open at a real login — every run so far has been from a source checkout, where macOS correctly answers that there is no application bundle to register, so the refusal in section 04's third message is the path that has actually been exercised. The setting is optional and reversible from macOS itself, which is the part that matters if it misbehaves.