Is there a way to start the Terminal with a keyboard short cut?

Question

Sort of like the Windows+R command in the windows world? That actually just lets you run a command but you get the idea.

Answer 1

Assuming your running Snow Leopard ⌘+space will open Spotlight which can be used to run terminal.

Spotlight can be bound to another key combination but the default is similar to Windows+R.

Answer 2

As of Snow Leopard, this actually is built into the OS.

Launch Automator and create a service that receives no input from any application. From the Actions Library, add the 'Launch Application' action to the workflow. Select the 'Terminal' application in the drop-down list of Applications. Save your new service and then assign a keyboard shortcut to it in:
System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> Services

Answer 3

I would recommend installing QuickSilver. It's an application launcher that will remember the applications you launch most frequent and recommend them first. It's easy to launch any application with a few keystrokes.

QuickSilver is the first Application I install on every new Mac.

Answer 4

Not built-in to the OS, but I've been using a free utility called Visor. What you do with it is leave your Terminal running in the background, but Visor hides it and invokes it in a Quake-style console when you hit a (user-configurable) key combo. It's pretty customizable as to how your Terminal shows/hides. Super awesome.

http://visor.binaryage.com/

Answer 5

Alfred (free)

It's a launcher similar to Quicksilver and available the AppStore.

Answer 6

Solution suggested by @NReilingh is fine but it fails if Terminal.app is running and it has no opened window (I've tested it in OSX 10.7).

Replacing Launch Application action with Run AppleScript action and setting the following code to be run does the trick:

on run {input, parameters}
  tell application "Terminal"
    activate
    reopen
  end tell
  return input
end run

Here's the full post: http://www.claudiodangelis.it/2012/09/27/osx-launch-terminal-from-shortcut

Answer 7

DTerm is accessed via a user-configurable hotkey, and pops up a window in which you can execute a terminal command in the current directory. For example, if you're in Finder and want to tar some files, you just hit the hotkey and run tar, without the need to change directories. Pressing Shift+Enter instead of just Enter after typing your command will execute it in a new Terminal window, from which you can keep working.

Answer 8

I love Apptivate. Like Spark, Apptivate lets you "assign system wide shortcuts to any application, document or scriptfile." It just does this one thing, and does it pretty well. It's very small, and doesn't use much system resource.

One great feature of Apptivate is that if it detect the application, say Terminal.app, has already been running, Apptivate would hide it instead of launching it again.

Answer 9

I use Open Terminal. Check it out here.

Answer 10

I use Spark and have ⌘+⌥+§ (I have a UK keyboard layout; § is just below esc) to launch the terminal. I prefer it to using Services/AppleScripts because it's faster. Also it doesn't add any visible UI elements like other solutions (I'm very anal about keeping my workspace as streamlined as possible).

I think development for Spark has stopped but it works perfectly on Snow Leopard.

Answer 11

I'm using FastScripts to do this. It's free for up to 10 keyboard shortcuts, $14.95 to enable unlimited keyboard shortcuts (I'm not affiliated with Red Sweater Software, just a happy customer).

Answer 12

This is pretty close: CDTo.

"Fast mini application that opens a Terminal.app window cd'd to the front most finder window. This app is designed (including it's icon) to placed in the finder window's toolbar."

Ideally, you want a tool that mimics the built-in feature of MacOS 9:

Answer 13

Although I think the Automator / Keyboard binding to Services is better, I think I should mention Quicksilver, which gives you excellent keyboard services for the mac.

You should read this article about Quicksilver.