How do you make a script or app to run or stop running automatically when the system is booted, a user logs on, at a specific time, when a disk is attached, etc.?
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3Lingon is just an app to make creating the .plist files for launchd more user friendly. Also someone made a web based launchd plist creator: plist.spotmac.de– ChealionCommented Oct 9, 2010 at 1:14
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Boo! plist.spotmac.de seems to be gone. :-(– docwhatCommented Apr 16, 2012 at 15:47
5 Answers
Gui Method
If you want something to run when a user logs in, the easiest way is to use the GUI. You can
- Go to the
System Prefs > Accounts > Login Items
screen, and add the item there by- clicking the
+
symbol - dragging and dropping the
.app
onto the pane
- clicking the
- In the dock, bring up the context menu for an app, select
Options
, then selectOpen at Login
Launchd method
If you want to launch something that is not a .app
, or you want to have more control over launching it, such as:
- at a certain time or at a specified interval
- continuously re-launching if it crashes
- not related to user login
- as a function of network access
- only run when another process is running
- when a file is added to a folder
- etc.
then you want to use the technical solution that is launchd
.
The easiest way to set up a launchd
config file is to use a tool to help. At the time of writing the most popular method is Lingon (which has an older free version available from SourceForge), or the PList Website tool.
Hand Coding
If you don't want to use Lingon or the PList Website and only want to use the raw tools available on the system, you can write your own launchd
plist
by hand
Here is my launchd script to run SomeApp continuously after the system boots (independent of a user logging in). It is in /System/Library/LaunchAgents/ and called SomeApp.restart.plist. If it is run based on a user login, it could be stored in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
<key>KeepAlive</key>
<true/>
<key>Label</key>
<string>SomeApp.restart</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/path/to/SomeApp.app/Contents/MacOS/SomeApp</string>
</array>
<key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
<dict>
<key>Hour</key>
<integer>5</integer>
<key>Minute</key>
<integer>10</integer>
</dict>
</dict>
</plist>
Load it once with
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/SomeApp.restart.plist
- The
RunAtLoad
option will launch the application the first time launchctl runs this. - The
KeepAlive
option will re-launch the application if it crashes. - The
StartCalendarInterval
will run it at a certain time. Presumably this is mutually exclusive with the previous two, but is included to show what can be done withlaunchd
- Launchctl will run this after reboots.
There are many additional options that can be found by experimenting with Lingon or by reading the man pages for launchctl
, launchd.plist
, plist
, launchd.conf
, etc.
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Thanks, really useful. You can also use
launchctl load -w ...
to make the change persistent. Based on your feedback I updated my OSX poweruser configurator script– sorinCommented May 26, 2011 at 19:23 -
Seems that
launchctl load
is deprecated after Big Sur. You can runlaunchctl enable gui/$UID/SomeApp.restart
instead.– xjiCommented Nov 9, 2021 at 14:25
Lingon still works. I just used it last week to create a "scheduled task". After I downloaded it I had to use its auto-updater to get the latest version but it works fine.
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1
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1But to find the free, open source version you need to dig it out of Sourceforge. The lastest commercial version also doesn't work on Leopard (10.5). But 2.1.1 does - see sourceforge.net/projects/lingon/files/Lingon/2.1.1– nealmcbCommented Jul 16, 2011 at 20:44
If it's only necessary to run when the system is booted, just use the Login Items tab of your Accounts preference pane in System preferences.
If it's a script, use AppleScript Editor to save it as an application. If it's not an AppleScript script, you can still use AppleScript to run the script like this:
do shell script "your script here"
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Huh ? Are you sure about that ? It says in the UI of your screenshot "These items will open automatically when you log in" - isn't that different from when the system boots ? Also, your link seems to 404.– sscCommented Feb 17, 2015 at 9:37
Don't forget Loginhooks.
Although they run as root, you ought to be able to have it execute a $HOME/.loginhook script using something like this:
#!/bin/sh
home=`eval echo ~$user`
if [ -x "$home/.loginhook" ]; then
logger -t $0 "executing .loginhook of user $user"
su - $user -c "$home/.loginhook"
fi
Then just add whatever commands you want to the ~/.loginhook
Also, although 'launchd' is "the Mac way" crontab is still a perfectly viable option, and is much much easier to hand-edit than XML launchd files.
Personally, I happily paid $5 for Lingon.
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So the script in the code block should be saved as
/path/to/script
, andsudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /path/to/script
? And the point in running a script in the home directory is that each user can have a custom (or no)~/.loginhook
?– LriCommented Aug 6, 2011 at 13:44 -
@Lri - yes, precisely. Sorry that wasn't clearer. The block code could be /usr/local/bin/loginhook.sh and, since it is run by root, it will look for a $HOME/.loginhook when a user logs in, and run it as that user.– TJ LuomaCommented Aug 6, 2011 at 22:18
Running an app at a specified time can be done easily in iCal, as I have just found out thanks to another forum!
- Make a new event in iCal for the time you want the app to open.
- At 'Alert' choose 'Open File' - so, you can set a file to open, which will obviously also open the default application for that file type.
- To just open an app, rather than a file, change the 'iCal' dropdown to 'Other...' and choose the app you want to run!
One thing to be aware of is that if you have multiple Macs sharing stuff over iCloud, this event will also run on those apps, which you may or may not want. To make this only happen on a single Mac, you need to create the event in an 'On My Mac' calendar which you can do as follows...
- Hide all other iCloud or shared calendars on the left hand bar by hovering over the calendar name and clicking the 'hide' button which will appear.
- Now right click (or Option click if you're a complete cretin and still haven't realised that you have more than one finger and can change your mouse preferences so that it is slightly more useful than its default 'cretinous brick for cretins' state) and choose 'New Calendar'.
- Because all shared calendars are hidden, this new calendar will be created as 'On My Mac' and will be local to this Mac.
I've only just found this out myself, and was pleasantly suprised by both tips, so thought I'd share them here.
I got the info from these helpful people over here...so thanks you people!...
http://osxdaily.com/2013/04/15/launch-file-app-scheduled-date-mac-os-x/