Executing Shell Scripts from the OS X Dock

Question

How do I set up a shell script to execute from the Mac OSX dock  It seems that simply creating a shortcut will open the file in my editor  Is there  a flag I need to set somewhere to tell it to run instead of opening it for editing

User · Answer

On OSX Mavericks    Create your shell script  Make your shell script executable   chmod  x your-shell-script sh  Rename your script to have a  app suffix   mv your-shell-script sh your-shell-script app  Drag the script to the OSX dock  Rename your script back to a  sh suffix   mv your-shell-script app your-shell-script sh  Right-click the file in Finder  and click the  Get Info  option  At the bottom of the window  set the shell script to open with the terminal    Now when you click on the script in the dock  A terminal window will pop up and execute your script   Bonus  To get the terminal to close when your script has completed  add exit 0 to the end and change the terminal settings to  close the shell if exited cleanly  like it says to do in this SO answer

User · Answer

In the Script Editor   do shell script   full path to your script -with  all desired args    Save as an application bundle   As long as all you want to do is get the effect of the script  this will work fine  You won t see STDOUT or STDERR

User · Answer

As long as your script is executable and doesn t have any extension you can drag it as-is to the right side  Document side  of the Dock and it will run in a terminal window when clicked instead of opening an editor   If you want to have an extension  like foo sh   you can go to the file info window in Finder and change the default application for that particular script from whatever it is  TextEdit  TextMate  whatever default is set on your computer for  sh files  to Terminal  It will then just execute instead of opening in a text editor  Again  you will have to drag it to the right side of the Dock

User · Answer

Someone wrote        I just set all files that end in   sh  to open with Terminal  It works   fine and you don t have to change the name of each shell script you   want to run

User · Answer

You could create a Automator workflow with a single step -  Run Shell Script   Then File  gt  Save As  and change the File Format to  Application   When you open the application  it will run the Shell Script step  executing the command  exiting after it completes   The benefit to this is it s really simple to do  and you can very easily get user input  say  selecting a bunch of files   then pass it to the input of the shell script  either to stdin  or as arguments     Automator is in your  Applications folder

User · Answer

As joe mentioned  creating the shell script and then creating an applescript script to call the shell script  will accomplish this  and is quite handy     Shell Script   Create your shell script in your favorite text editor  for example   mono   Volumes Media  Users me Software keepass keepass exe    this runs the w32 executable  using the mono framework  Save shell script  for my example  StartKeepass sh    Apple Script   Open AppleScript Editor  and call the shell script  do shell script  sh  Volumes Media  Users me Software StartKeepass sh  user name   lt enter username here gt   password   lt Enter password here gt   with administrator privileges   do shell script - applescript command to call external shell commands  sh       - this is your shell script  full path  created in step one  you can also run direct commands  I could omit the shell script and just run my mono command here  user name - declares to applescript you want to run the command as a specific user   lt enter username here gt  - replace with your username  keeping quotes  ex  josh  password - declares to applescript your password   lt enter password here gt   - replace with your password  keeping quotes  ex  mypass  with administrative privileges -  declares you want to run as an admin    Create Your  APP   save your applescript as filename scpt  in my case RunKeepass scpt save as    your applescript and change the file format to application  resulting in RunKeepass app in my case Copy your app file to your apps folder

User · Answer

As long as your script is executable and doesn t have any extension you can drag it as-is to the right side  Document side  of the Dock and it will run in a terminal window when clicked instead of opening an editor   If you want to have an extension  like foo sh   you can go to the file info window in Finder and change the default application for that particular script from whatever it is  TextEdit  TextMate  whatever default is set on your computer for  sh files  to Terminal  It will then just execute instead of opening in a text editor  Again  you will have to drag it to the right side of the Dock

User · Answer

You could create a Automator workflow with a single step -  Run Shell Script   Then File  gt  Save As  and change the File Format to  Application   When you open the application  it will run the Shell Script step  executing the command  exiting after it completes   The benefit to this is it s really simple to do  and you can very easily get user input  say  selecting a bunch of files   then pass it to the input of the shell script  either to stdin  or as arguments     Automator is in your  Applications folder

User · Answer

If you don t need a Terminal window  you can make any executable file an Application just by creating a shell script Example and moving it to the filename Example app Contents MacOS Example  You can place this new application in your dock like any other  and execute it with a click   NOTE  the name of the app must exactly match the script name   So the top level directory has to be Example app and the script in the Contents MacOS subdirectory must be named Example  and the script must be executable   If you do need to have the terminal window displayed  I don t have a simple solution  You could probably do something with Applescript  but that s not very clean

User · Answer

I think this thread may be helpful  http   forums macosxhints com archive index php t-70973 html  To paraphrase  you can rename it with the  command extension or create an AppleScript to run the shell

User · Answer

Someone wrote        I just set all files that end in   sh  to open with Terminal  It works   fine and you don t have to change the name of each shell script you   want to run

User · Answer

If you don t need a Terminal window  you can make any executable file an Application just by creating a shell script Example and moving it to the filename Example app Contents MacOS Example  You can place this new application in your dock like any other  and execute it with a click   NOTE  the name of the app must exactly match the script name   So the top level directory has to be Example app and the script in the Contents MacOS subdirectory must be named Example  and the script must be executable   If you do need to have the terminal window displayed  I don t have a simple solution  You could probably do something with Applescript  but that s not very clean

User · Answer

You could create a Automator workflow with a single step -  Run Shell Script   Then File  gt  Save As  and change the File Format to  Application   When you open the application  it will run the Shell Script step  executing the command  exiting after it completes   The benefit to this is it s really simple to do  and you can very easily get user input  say  selecting a bunch of files   then pass it to the input of the shell script  either to stdin  or as arguments     Automator is in your  Applications folder

User · Answer

I know this is old but in case it is helpful to others   If you need to run a script and want the terminal to pop up so you can see the results you can do like Abyss Knight said and change the extension to  command   If you double click on it it will open a terminal window and run   I however needed this to run from automator or appleScript   So to get this to open a new terminal the command I ran from  run shell script  was  open myShellScript command  and it opened in a new terminal

User · Answer

If you don t need a Terminal window  you can make any executable file an Application just by creating a shell script Example and moving it to the filename Example app Contents MacOS Example  You can place this new application in your dock like any other  and execute it with a click   NOTE  the name of the app must exactly match the script name   So the top level directory has to be Example app and the script in the Contents MacOS subdirectory must be named Example  and the script must be executable   If you do need to have the terminal window displayed  I don t have a simple solution  You could probably do something with Applescript  but that s not very clean

User · Answer

As long as your script is executable and doesn t have any extension you can drag it as-is to the right side  Document side  of the Dock and it will run in a terminal window when clicked instead of opening an editor   If you want to have an extension  like foo sh   you can go to the file info window in Finder and change the default application for that particular script from whatever it is  TextEdit  TextMate  whatever default is set on your computer for  sh files  to Terminal  It will then just execute instead of opening in a text editor  Again  you will have to drag it to the right side of the Dock

User · Answer

In the Script Editor   do shell script   full path to your script -with  all desired args    Save as an application bundle   As long as all you want to do is get the effect of the script  this will work fine  You won t see STDOUT or STDERR

User · Answer

I think this thread may be helpful  http   forums macosxhints com archive index php t-70973 html  To paraphrase  you can rename it with the  command extension or create an AppleScript to run the shell

User · Answer

As long as your script is executable and doesn t have any extension you can drag it as-is to the right side  Document side  of the Dock and it will run in a terminal window when clicked instead of opening an editor   If you want to have an extension  like foo sh   you can go to the file info window in Finder and change the default application for that particular script from whatever it is  TextEdit  TextMate  whatever default is set on your computer for  sh files  to Terminal  It will then just execute instead of opening in a text editor  Again  you will have to drag it to the right side of the Dock

User · Answer

I think this thread may be helpful  http   forums macosxhints com archive index php t-70973 html  To paraphrase  you can rename it with the  command extension or create an AppleScript to run the shell

User · Answer

On OSX Mavericks    Create your shell script  Make your shell script executable   chmod  x your-shell-script sh  Rename your script to have a  app suffix   mv your-shell-script sh your-shell-script app  Drag the script to the OSX dock  Rename your script back to a  sh suffix   mv your-shell-script app your-shell-script sh  Right-click the file in Finder  and click the  Get Info  option  At the bottom of the window  set the shell script to open with the terminal    Now when you click on the script in the dock  A terminal window will pop up and execute your script   Bonus  To get the terminal to close when your script has completed  add exit 0 to the end and change the terminal settings to  close the shell if exited cleanly  like it says to do in this SO answer

User · Answer

I think this thread may be helpful  http   forums macosxhints com archive index php t-70973 html  To paraphrase  you can rename it with the  command extension or create an AppleScript to run the shell

User · Answer

You could create a Automator workflow with a single step -  Run Shell Script   Then File  gt  Save As  and change the File Format to  Application   When you open the application  it will run the Shell Script step  executing the command  exiting after it completes   The benefit to this is it s really simple to do  and you can very easily get user input  say  selecting a bunch of files   then pass it to the input of the shell script  either to stdin  or as arguments     Automator is in your  Applications folder

User · Answer

If you don t need a Terminal window  you can make any executable file an Application just by creating a shell script Example and moving it to the filename Example app Contents MacOS Example  You can place this new application in your dock like any other  and execute it with a click   NOTE  the name of the app must exactly match the script name   So the top level directory has to be Example app and the script in the Contents MacOS subdirectory must be named Example  and the script must be executable   If you do need to have the terminal window displayed  I don t have a simple solution  You could probably do something with Applescript  but that s not very clean

User · Answer

In the Script Editor   do shell script   full path to your script -with  all desired args    Save as an application bundle   As long as all you want to do is get the effect of the script  this will work fine  You won t see STDOUT or STDERR

User · Answer

As joe mentioned  creating the shell script and then creating an applescript script to call the shell script  will accomplish this  and is quite handy     Shell Script   Create your shell script in your favorite text editor  for example   mono   Volumes Media  Users me Software keepass keepass exe    this runs the w32 executable  using the mono framework  Save shell script  for my example  StartKeepass sh    Apple Script   Open AppleScript Editor  and call the shell script  do shell script  sh  Volumes Media  Users me Software StartKeepass sh  user name   lt enter username here gt   password   lt Enter password here gt   with administrator privileges   do shell script - applescript command to call external shell commands  sh       - this is your shell script  full path  created in step one  you can also run direct commands  I could omit the shell script and just run my mono command here  user name - declares to applescript you want to run the command as a specific user   lt enter username here gt  - replace with your username  keeping quotes  ex  josh  password - declares to applescript your password   lt enter password here gt   - replace with your password  keeping quotes  ex  mypass  with administrative privileges -  declares you want to run as an admin    Create Your  APP   save your applescript as filename scpt  in my case RunKeepass scpt save as    your applescript and change the file format to application  resulting in RunKeepass app in my case Copy your app file to your apps folder

User · Answer

In the Script Editor   do shell script   full path to your script -with  all desired args    Save as an application bundle   As long as all you want to do is get the effect of the script  this will work fine  You won t see STDOUT or STDERR

User · Answer

I know this is old but in case it is helpful to others   If you need to run a script and want the terminal to pop up so you can see the results you can do like Abyss Knight said and change the extension to  command   If you double click on it it will open a terminal window and run   I however needed this to run from automator or appleScript   So to get this to open a new terminal the command I ran from  run shell script  was  open myShellScript command  and it opened in a new terminal

[macos] Executing Shell Scripts from the OS X Dock?

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