Disable AirPort Base Station Agent
AirPort Base Station Agent runs in the background of Mac OS X whether or not you use an AirPort Base Station
Let’s assume you want to stop the agent running. You probably noticed the agent using something like LittleSnitch or lsof when it tries to access an outside server (typically Akamai) when it checks for software updates. With this in mind, you can disable the Airport Base Station Agent by stopping it from looking for updates, and also disabling the agents ability to monitor AirPort. Here’s how to do this:
- Open Airport Utility, located at /Applications/Utilities/
- Let it scan for Airport stations, which it won’t find if you don’t use the products
- Open the apps Preferences
- Uncheck all of the boxes in the Airport Utility Preferences
- Click OK and Quit Airport Utility
Now Airport Base Station Agent should not load on system boot, and the agent should no longer be running. It’s that simple. Again, it does no harm to let it run and keep it enabled, it generally only takes up a few MB of RAM and rarely uses any CPU or bandwidth.
um there is no OK button ? otherwise, thanks
brilliant little tip (as usual)
And what is the sense to disable it?? Any good or useful reason?
Thanks! I’ve got a swiss military son, arrested development at age 15, entering my macbook by this crap. better turned off.
What? Is that a plot to a movie?
A good reason to disable this is that if you have people plug in new airport hardware on your network, airport utility will pop up and annoy you, even if it’s not your airport hardware. The larger your network, the more likely this problem.
[...] a product that I don’t use. Following a quick Google search, I found this helpful how-to: Disable AirPort Base Station Agent. According to OSXDaily, you can permanently disable this background program by going into [...]
Thanks for the post. it is very helpful
Simple as that! Thanks guys.
Followed instructions for disabling AirPort…, it comes back anyway, and comes back immediately after forcing a quit.
The UNDEAD,
[...] have an airport? The Airport utility runs on start up, but if you don’t have one, you can turn off the AirPort Base Station Agent by going to Applications/Utilities/Airport Utility. Go [...]