CODEWITHSUNDEEP
macososx-leopardlaunchd
Matt Roberts
Matt Roberts

Reputation: 26887

How can I make a program start up automatically in OSX?

I have a little program that I want to make open automatically when my mac is started up.

Because this program accepts command line arguments, its not as simple as just going to System Prefs/Accounts/Login items and adding it there...

From google, I read that I can create a .profile file in my user's home folder, and that will execute whatever I put in it... So I have a .profile page in ~ like this:

-rw-r--r--@ 1 matt staff 27 27 Sep 13:36 .profile

That contains this...

/Applications/mousefix 3.5

But it doesn't execute on startup! If I enter "/Applications/mousefix 3.5" manually into the terminal, it does work.

Any ideas?

Upvotes: 6

Views: 3066

Answers (7)

Dave
Dave

Reputation:

The .profile and .bash_profile only come into play when you open a new shell (ie. opening Terminal or entering through SSH). Also, I believe if bash detects .bash_profile it won't look for .profile
If you want it start upon login, I would look at the other suggestions about launchd

Upvotes: 1

Matt Roberts
Matt Roberts

Reputation: 26887

Thanks all. The launchd solution is pretty cool, yes its heavyweight for such a simple thing, but its good to know, and as a developer I'm happy to tinker about :)

Upvotes: 0

Chris James
Chris James

Reputation: 11701

You can use Applescript which can run terminal commands, then have that applescript launched at startup.

Upvotes: 1

DGentry
DGentry

Reputation: 16248

You can use Lingon to help construct a plist file for launchd.

Upvotes: 4

Mark Baker
Mark Baker

Reputation: 5705

The most general way of launching things on startup on MacOS is using launchd. You can create a plist file to tell it to launch your program on startup, which can include arguments.

Upvotes: 3

rpj
rpj

Reputation: 2370

From here and into the future, look into launchd for what you want to do. All other methods have been deprecated or are now unsupported. This is probably a bit more heavy-weight than what you want, though.

It could also be a problem with your version of the bash shell not correctly executing your .profile. Try putting the command into .bashrc in your home directory, and see if that helps.

Upvotes: 11

Mark Baker
Mark Baker

Reputation: 5705

You could always write a wrapper script that runs it with the arguments you want

Upvotes: 0

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