I was cleaning my Mac when I found a background process called kextload in the login items. Beneath its name says “Item from unidentified developer.” Is kextload safe? Should I allows it in the background?
You can run the following command in Terminal to learn more about kextload:
man kextload
Here’s what I got from Terminal:
NAME
kextload – load kernel extensions (kexts) into the kernel
SYNOPSIS
kextload [options] [–] [kext …]
DEPRECATED
The kextload utility has been deprecated. Please use the kmutil(8)
equivalent: kmutil load.
DESCRIPTION
The kextload program is used to explicitly load kernel extensions
(kexts). For most kexts, kextload must run as the superuser (root).
Kexts installed under /System/ with an OSBundleAllowUserLoad property set
to true may be loaded via kextload by non-root users.
In addition to Terminal, you can also click the info button next to kextload to learn more about it.
Kextload is a kernel extension load utility responsible for loading drivers and other kernel extensions on Mac. It’s a safe process but is a deprecated method.
Apple doesn’t recommend them for macOS because kexts risk the integrity and reliability of the OS.
But some apps on your Mac may still require it. If you rarely use the associated app, you can turn off kextload in your login items to stop it from running in the background.