I'm not very IT literate and would be very grateful for help. My machine is a Mac, OS Ventura 13.1.
I previously ran BOINC but for various reasons stopped about a year ago - well before the upgrade to Ventura - and tried then to uninstall BOINC. I thought I'd succeeded.
Recently however I noticed in my Login Items something called "Charlie Fenton". I can't find anything on my Mac called Charlie Fenton, so I disabled it at Login - but I can't actually locate and remove the item.
Since disabling it I've got several notifications a day saying "Background Items Added. Software from 'Charlie Fenton' added items that can run in the background. You can manage this in Login Items Settings."
An internet search suggests that Charlie Fenton may be associated with BOINC.
If that's correct, please can you advise on how to stop these notifications and completely remove Charlie Fenton from my computer?
Thank you in advance.

I've emailed Charlie and asked him to come help you out. I think even he will be intrigued about how he's become software.

When I run the BOINC Uninstaller, I do see the "Background Items Added. Software from 'Charlie Fenton'" notification. This notification will persist until you close it by clicking on the X that appears at its top left corner when you move the mouse over it. But once I close it, I no longer see it.

After running the BOINC Uninstaller, I briefly see the "Charlie Fenton" item in the System Settings -> General -> Login Items window; this is part of the uninstall process. Some users may need to log out and log back in after running the BOINC Uninstaller for the uninstall process to complete, and the "Charlie Fenton" item won't disappear until after that happens.

Please confirm that:
* You have run the Uninstall BOINC utility application in the extras folder that came with the BOINC installer.
* You have seen the Removal completed confirmation dialog from the uninstaller.
* If your Mac is set up with different logins for multiple users, each user has logged out and back in before you delete the /Library/Application Support/BOINC Data directory.

Please also check the directory /Users/{UserName}/Library/LaunchAgents for each user. The BOINC Installer and BOINC Uninstaller each add a file to this directory named edu.berkeley.boinc.plist, which should be automatically deleted shortly after that user next logs in. It is this file that causes the "Charlie Fenton" item to be added to finish the BOINC uninstall process for that user, and that item should disappear when the edu.berkeley.boinc.plist file is deleted. If for some reason that file is not deleted, that could be the cause of what you are reporting here.

Please post here whether this helps and what you find.

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Charlie Fenton
BOINC / SETI@home Macintosh & Windows Programmer

One more thought: the System Settings -> General -> Login Items window warns that "turning off a background item may prevent its task from being completed. The last thing the "Charlie Fenton" background item does is to delete itself, which causes the item to disappear from the Login Items list. If you turn the background item off before it has a chance to delete itself, that could cause the behavior you are reporting.

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Charlie Fenton
BOINC / SETI@home Macintosh & Windows Programmer

I upgraded to MacOS 13.2.1 and I longer see the "Background Items Added. Software from 'Charlie Fenton'" notification. As before, I briefly see the "Charlie Fenton" item in the System Settings -> General -> Login Items window but it disappears after a few moments, and is definitely gone if I log out and log back in.

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Charlie Fenton
BOINC / SETI@home Macintosh & Windows Programmer