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I frequently find that a terminal command to open a file in TextEdit would be very handy. Does such a command exist on Mac OS X?

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I'm trying to open Sublime Text from command line. I did "open -a /Applications/Sublime Text 2.app my_file.txt". It works but it creates a new window every time I want to open a file. Any fix? – Mohammad Moghimi Feb 13 at 22:22
If you want it with sudo, gota open TextEdit in root mode first – Cawas May 2 at 11:26

migrated from stackoverflow.com Sep 23 '11 at 23:53

4 Answers

up vote 31 down vote accepted

open -a TextEdit filename should do the trick.

The -a flag specifies any application you want, so it's applicable to any number of situations, including ones where TextEdit isn't the default editor.

Other relevant options

  • -t opens in the default editor (i.e. if you use BBEdit, TextMate, etc.)
  • -e will open the file specifically in TextEdit
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Probably the best solution. – daviesgeek Sep 24 '11 at 2:27
up vote 1 down vote

For those finding this post:

The solution was to use the command sudo open -t /path/file.txt

And the man pages for the open command also show how to do some other things like show the file in the finder.

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/open.1.html

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5  
Using sudo is unnecessary and undesirable. – Chris Page Sep 26 '11 at 13:29
Unless the file isn't accessible to the user otherwise. But in general, agreed. – Bobson Mar 2 '12 at 12:12
Actually, I just tried using this command with sudo to edit /etc/hosts on Lion and it just doesn't work (as expected). It doesn't allow me to edit the file. Only clone it. Might as well go without the sudo, in this case. The file will be marked as locked anyway. To really be able to do so, have to first open the TextEdit in root mode, or just use a different editor: apple.stackexchange.com/questions/20199/… – Cawas May 2 at 11:22
up vote 1 down vote

The open command can be used to open files (in their default apps, unless using the -a flag), URLs (in your default web browser), and directories (in Finder).

An example would be

open /Users/Example/Desktop/example.rtf
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up vote 0 down vote

This is not a programming question. But I did a quick google and found this site:

http://ss64.com/osx/

http://ss64.com/osx/pico.html pico: Simple text editor

http://ss64.com/vi.html vi: Text Editor

And this site explains how to use TextEdit from terminal.

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2754/os_x_edit_file_using_textedit_as_root_superuser/

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None of those links demonstrate how to open the file in textEdit. – weezybizzle Sep 22 '11 at 9:20
The last link does. – SynerCoder Sep 22 '11 at 9:21
It absolutely does, thanks for adding that, you are a much faster googler than I. – weezybizzle Sep 22 '11 at 9:24
Does that work? Cause I have no experience with Mac OSX (Windows fan boy ^^) – SynerCoder Sep 22 '11 at 9:26
yup, does exactly what I wanted, thanks! – weezybizzle Sep 22 '11 at 9:30

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