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Scheduled activities: 1 Scheduling by DAS

How macOS schedules tasks like making automatic Time Machine backups, from property list to transactions between DAS and CTS.

January 23, 2023 Macs, Technology

How macOS schedules background activities

The story of how Mac OS X went from cron, to launchd, and ended up with Duet Activity Scheduler, to schedule background activities like backups.

January 21, 2023 Macs, Technology

Running software automatically using launchd

How to set your Mac to run scripts, apps and other software automatically, and at regular intervals, using launchd and a property list.

September 13, 2021 Macs, Technology

Explainer: macOS scheduled background activities

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Prior to 10.4, Mac OS X used cron, then scheduling became part of the job of launchd. Later Apple added a new subsystem, Duet Activity Scheduler, which continues to evolve.

September 10, 2021 Macs, Technology

How macOS schedules and dispatches background tasks using CTS 3

What does it take for an app to have ‘activities’ managed for efficiency by CTS? Not a lot – but in return, the management is a black box.

October 15, 2020 Macs, Technology

How macOS schedules and dispatches background tasks using CTS 2

In the first article in this series, I explained how a great many background activities in macOS, including […]

October 14, 2020 Macs, Technology

How macOS schedules and dispatches background tasks using CTS 1

Rather than using cron or launchd, many background services in macOS are now run using Centralized Task Scheduling (CTS). This is how it works.

October 13, 2020 Macs, Technology

Reliability of macOS Sierra: scheduled and background activities

Scheduling background activities like making backups has moved from cron to launchd, and now to a more complex system. This has reduced the reliability of macOS and made it harder to support.

August 26, 2017 Macs, Technology

Two ways to run background tasks: comparing launchd and GCD

Background activities scheduled by third-party software currently use launchd, and run the risk of affecting the user. Would GCD be a better choice of dispatcher?

May 5, 2017 Macs, Technology

How timely are scheduled events in Sierra?

Schedule a periodic task as a Launch Agent. How close to the expected time does macOS actually run it?

March 23, 2017 Macs, Technology

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