Running a command in a new Mac OS X Terminal window

Question

I ve been trying to figure out how to run a bash command in a new Max OS X Terminal app window  As  an example  here s how I would run my command in a new bash process   bash -c  my command here    But this reuses the existing terminal window instead of creating a new one  I want something like   Terminal app -c  my command here    But of course this doesn t work  I am aware of the  open -a Terminal app  command  but I don t see how to forward arguments to the terminal  or even if I did what arguments to use

User · Accepted Answer

one way I can think to do it off the top of my head is to create a .command file and run it like so:

echo echo hello > sayhi.command; chmod +x sayhi.command; open sayhi.command

or use applescript:

osascript -e 'tell application "Terminal" to do script "echo hello"'

although you'll either have to escape a lot of double quotes or not be able to use single quotes

User · Answer

Partial solution   Put the things you want done in a shell-script  like so     bin bash ls echo  yey     And don t forget to  chmod  x file  to make it executable  Then you can  open -a Terminal app scriptfile   and it will run in a new window  Add  bash  at the end of the script to keep the new session from exiting   Although you might have to figure out how to load the users rc-files and stuff

User · Answer

In case anyone cares  here s an equivalent for iTerm      bin sh osascript  lt  lt END tell application  iTerm   tell the first terminal   launch session  Default Session    tell the last session    write text  cd    pwd     1 exit    end tell  end tell end tell END

User · Answer

I ve been trying to do this for a while   Here is a script that changes to the same working directory  runs the command  and closes the terminal window      bin sh  osascript  lt  lt END  tell application  Terminal      do script  cd    pwd     1 exit  end tell END

User · Answer

Here s yet another take on it  also using AppleScript    function newincmd         declare args       escape single  amp  double quotes     args                   args    args                printf   s     args      usr bin pbcopy      printf   q     args      usr bin pbcopy      usr bin open -a Terminal      usr bin osascript -e  tell application  Terminal  to do script with command   usr bin clear  eval      usr bin pbpaste          return 0      newincmd ls   newincmd echo  hello    world   newincmd echo   hello    world     see  codesnippets joyent com posts show 1516

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I made a function version of Oscar s answer  this one also copies the environment and changes to the appropriate directory  function new window       TMP FILE   mktemp   tmp command XXXXXX       echo     usr bin env bash   gt   TMP FILE        Copy over environment  including functions   but filter out readonly stuff     set   grep -v    BASH VERSINFO  EUID  PPID  SHELLOPTS  UID     gt  gt   TMP FILE        Copy over exported envrionment     export -p  gt  gt   TMP FILE        Change to directory     echo  cd   pwd    gt  gt   TMP FILE        Copy over target command line     echo       gt  gt   TMP FILE      chmod  x   TMP FILE      open -b com apple terminal   TMP FILE       sleep  1   Wait for terminal to start     rm   TMP FILE      You can use it like this   new window my command here   or  new window ssh example com

User · Answer

You could also invoke the new command feature of Terminal by pressing the Shift       N key combination  The command you put into the box will be run in a new Terminal window

User · Answer

Here s my awesome script  it creates a new terminal window if needed and switches to the directory Finder is in if Finder is frontmost  It has all the machinery you need to run commands   on run     -- Figure out if we want to do the cd  doIt      -- Figure out what the path is and quote it  myPath      try         tell application  Finder  to set doIt to frontmost         set myPath to finder path           if myPath is equal to    then             set doIt to false         else             set myPath to quote for bash myPath          end if     on error         set doIt to false     end try      -- Figure out if we need to open a window     -- If Terminal was not running  one will be opened automatically     tell application  System Events  to set isRunning to  exists process  Terminal        tell application  Terminal          -- Open a new window         if isRunning then do script            activate         -- cd to the path         if doIt then             -- We need to delay  terminal ignores the second do script otherwise             delay 0 3             do script   cd    amp  myPath in front window         end if     end tell end run  on finder path       try         tell application  Finder  to set the source folder to  folder of the front window  as alias         set thePath to  POSIX path of the source folder as string      on error -- no open folder windows         set thePath to        end try      return thePath end finder path  -- This simply quotes all occurrences of   and puts the whole thing between  s on quote for bash theString      set oldDelims to AppleScript s text item delimiters     set AppleScript s text item delimiters to         set the parsedList to every text item of theString     set AppleScript s text item delimiters to             set theString to the parsedList as string     set AppleScript s text item delimiters to oldDelims     return      amp  theString  amp      end quote for bash

User · Answer

I call this script trun  I suggest putting it in a directory in your executable path  Make sure it is executable like this   chmod  x   bin trun   Then you can run commands in a new window by just adding trun before them  like this   trun tail -f  var log system log   Here s the script  It does some fancy things like pass your arguments  change the title bar  clear the screen to remove shell startup clutter  remove its file when its done  By using a unique file for each new window it can be used to create many windows at the same time      bin bash   make this file executable with chmod  x trun   create a unique file in  tmp trun cmd  mktemp    make it cd back to where we are now echo  cd  pwd    gt  trun cmd   make the title bar contain the command being run echo  echo -n -e   033 0      007    gt  gt  trun cmd   clear window echo clear  gt  gt  trun cmd   the shell command to execute echo     gt  gt  trun cmd   make the command remove itself echo rm  trun cmd  gt  gt  trun cmd   make the file executable chmod  x  trun cmd    open it in Terminal to run it in a new Terminal window open -b com apple terminal  trun cmd

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A colleague asked me how to open A LOT of ssh sessions at once   I used cobbal s answer to write this script   tmpdir    mktemp -d   trap   DEBUG rm -rf  tmpdir   EXIT index 1    cat  lt  lt COMMANDS ssh user1 host1 ssh user2 host2 COMMANDS     while read command do    COMMAND FILE  tmpdir  index command   index     index   1      echo  command  gt   COMMAND FILE   chmod  x   COMMAND FILE   open  COMMAND FILE done sleep 60   By updating the list of commands   they don t have to be ssh invocations    you will get an additional open window for every command executed    The sleep 60 at the end is there to keep the  command files around while they are being executed   Otherwise  the shell completes too quickly  executing the trap to delete the temp directory   created by mktemp   before the launched sessions have an opportunity to read the files

[macos] Running a command in a new Mac OS X Terminal window

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