LaunchAngels: What’s behind Apple’s new launch “angels”

In macOS 26 alias Tahoe, a new category of launch types has been added, about which Apple has so far remained silent: LaunchDaemons and LaunchAgents are met by the so-called LaunchAngels. A corresponding directory can be found in the folder /System/Library, as Mac & i author and macOS expert Howard Oakley discovered. Not much is known yet about what this is all about. The only thing that is clear is that the technology is currently used for three Apple-owned routines.

Three LaunchAngels discovered

While daemons are background processes that act independently, as root run before login, interact indirectly with user processes and launchd agents, although they run under the control of launchd, but are requested by the user and interact with processes and daemons directly. The administration is done via plist files. It’s the same with Angels.

Currently, there are three LaunchAngels in the system (macOS 26.0.1): GameOverlayUI, Posterboard and AccessibilityUIServer. The latter helps with accessibility and is directly related to the Accessibility process. GameOverlayUI has to do with the new game overlay system that Apple now indulges in playing. PosterBoard seems to have something to do with the configuration of the lockscreen, for example to place shortcuts there – but it still seems to be a test. The key “_ExperimentalNonLaunching” is set for this.

Protected Directory

Oakley also discovered that all three LaunchAngels had references to RunningBoard , a life-cycle management tool. These are not yet available for agents and daemons. It remains to be seen what Apple plans to do with the LaunchAngels in the future – and why the manufacturer has introduced a new category of launch tools for this purpose. There is currently no way to define your own Angels, the directory is protected.

It is also still unclear whether LaunchAngels work in the user’s library folder or only system-wide. The latter would have to be implemented if Apple opens up the technology to third-party apps as a new form of service. What advantages this would have for developers has also not yet been said. In any case, Angels cannot be abused by the protection so far.