CODEWITHSUNDEEP
macosspotlight
theactiveactor
theactiveactor

Reputation: 7554

How to run a shell script using Spotlight?

Is there a way to run a shell script using Spotlight on Mac OS X 10.6? I would like to be able to invoke a shell script directly from Spotlight without opening up a terminal.

Upvotes: 49

Views: 19740

Answers (4)

fuzz
fuzz

Reputation: 141

Another approach that completely avoids opening a Terminal:

Open Script Editor on your Mac, make sure AppleScript is selected from the language dropdown and type

do shell script "touch ~/testfile"

replacing touch ~/testfile with your code of choice--as you can see it need not have a .command suffix nor even actually be a script.

Now go to File | Export and select Application from the File Format: dropdown. Make sure all the Options: are unchecked and Don't Code Sign is selected from the Code Sign: dropdown. Name it whatever you like, save it wherever you like. Now you can double-click your new AppleScript application or run it from Spotlight and your script will run without a Terminal window opening.

As a bonus since it's AppleScript it can interact with the Mac UI--show results in a display dialog, get user input, etc. https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptLangGuide/conceptual/ASLR_fundamentals.html

Upvotes: 11

craft
craft

Reputation: 2135

To make the Terminal window disappear when finished as of MacOS >= 10.0:

Terminal > Preferences > Select your default profile

Then Shell > When the shell exits select Close if the shell exited cleanly

Upvotes: 3

Shaolo
Shaolo

Reputation: 1170

I would also like to add, if you need the terminal window to disappear after running the command, you can set the terminal settings to do just that.

It's under settings >> shell >> when the shell exits.

This will still leave Terminal running but the script will at least clean up after itself.

I used this for writing a script to hide and show desktop icons.

Upvotes: 4

Paul R
Paul R

Reputation: 212969

Save your shell script with a .command suffix - this makes it double-clickable and you should also be able to run it directly from Spotlight too.

Upvotes: 67

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