Basic problem
I'm looking for a solution to enumerate all applications installed on a (Mac) OS X system, i.e. all application bundles registered with LaunchServices.
Simple approach that did not work
(Please note: lsregister
can be found under /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister
).
Currently I am using the output of lsregister -dump | grep -E '^.*[ \\t]*path:[ \\t]+(\/.*)$' | grep -Eo '\/.*'
, which has a few problems:
.app
bundles with newlines (\n
, which is valid on UNIX) are not handled correctly (This issue would be fixable by writing a proper parser)lsregister
doesn't handle correctly weird filename (e.g. containing the RTL mark).lsregister
just seems to ignore files with the RTL mark in their name. If you want to, you can create a file with RTL in its name by running the following command.python -c 'import shutil; shutil.copytree(u"/Applications/TextEdit.app", u"/Applications/ThisIsAWeird\u202EApp.app")'
After doing this,
lsregister -dump | grep ThisIsAWeird
will not reveal it. But when you right click on a text file and go to "Open With" you'll that LaunchServices and Finder still support that file.
Simply enumerating all files in /Applications
and other directories does not work because LaunchServices is aware of application bundles in arbitrary folders and I also need these apps.
Other approch that I didn't get to work
Apparently, there's a private API function called _LSFindApplications
which does exactly what I need to do but I can't get it to work and didn't find any inofficial documentation on the internet. (proof it exists: nm /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/LaunchServices | grep __LSFindApplications$
)
UPDATE: system_profiler method also doesn't seem to work
Until now I though the system_profiler
method as suggested by @Anoop works but today I found out that lsregister
still picks up more binaries. Some or missing on all machines, some seems to be only missing in system_profiler
when you have mounted an external volume with another installation of OS X. Here's a list what's missing in the output of system_profiler
(but is present in lsregister
) on one of my machines:
/Applications/Automator.app/Contents/Resources/Application Stub.app
/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/30.0.1599.69/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Resources/app_mode_loader.app
/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/30.0.1599.69/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Resources/crash_report_sender.app
/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/30.0.1599.69/Google Chrome Helper EH.app
/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/30.0.1599.69/Google Chrome Helper NP.app
/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/30.0.1599.69/Google Chrome Helper.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/AddPrinter.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/AirPlayUIAgent.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/AppleFileServer.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/AppleGraphicsWarning.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/AppleScript Runner.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/AppleScript Utility.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/CalendarFileHandler.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Certificate Assistant.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreLocationAgent.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreServicesUIAgent.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle
/System/Library/CoreServices/Database Events.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/DiskImageMounter.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Expansion Slot Utility.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/File Sync.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/FileSyncAgent.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Folder Actions Dispatcher.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Folder Actions Setup.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/HelpViewer.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Image Events.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Install in Progress.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Jar Launcher.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Java Web Start.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/KeyboardSetupAssistant.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Language Chooser.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/LocationMenu.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/MRTAgent.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Memory Slot Utility.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/NetAuthAgent.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Network Diagnostics.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Network Setup Assistant.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/ODSAgent.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Pass Viewer.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Printer Setup Utility.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/RegisterPluginIMApp.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Screen Sharing.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityAgent.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityFixer.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/SocialPushAgent.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/System Events.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/System Image Utility.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemUIServer.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/Ticket Viewer.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/UniversalAccessControl.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/UnmountAssistantAgent.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/UserNotificationCenter.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/VoiceOver.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/ZoomWindow.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/TMLaunchAgent.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app
/System/Library/CoreServices/rcd.app
/System/Library/Frameworks/PubSub.framework/Versions/A/Resources/PubSubAgent.app
/System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/QuickLookUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources/QuickLookUIHelper.app
/System/Library/Frameworks/QuickLook.framework/Versions/A/Resources/quicklookd.app
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DiskImages.framework/Versions/A/Resources/DiskImages UI Agent.app
/System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service
/System/Library/Services/ChineseTextConverterService.app
/System/Library/Services/ImageCaptureService.app
/System/Library/Services/OpenSpell.service
/System/Library/Services/SpeechService.service
/System/Library/SocialServices/Facebook.socialplugin
/System/Library/SocialServices/Twitter.socialplugin
/System/Library/SocialServices/Weibo.socialplugin