Running script upon login mac [closed]

Question

I am wondering if anyone is able to help me out with getting a .sh file to run when I log in to my account on my computer. I am running Mac OS X 10.6.7.

I have a file "Example.sh" that I want to run when I log onto my computer. I do not have a problem running it when I am already logged in, but I want this to run automatically.

People are saying to add it to the login shell file, but I do not know where that is. Some help please.

Answer 1

You can:

• start Automator.app
• Select "Application"
• click "Show library" in the toolbar (if hidden)
• Add "Run shell script" (from the Actions/Utilities)
• Copy&paste your script into the window
• Test it

• Save somewhere, for example you can make an "Applications" folder in your HOME (you will get an your_name.app)

  Update: For latest macOS, name your file your_name.command instead of your_name.app

• Go to System Preferences -> Accounts -> Login items

• Add this app
• test & done ;)

EDIT:

I've recently earned a "Good answer" badge for this answer. While my solution is simple and working, the cleanest way to run any program or shell script at login time is described in @trisweb's answer, unless, you want interactivity.

With automator solution you can do things like next:

so, asking to run a script or quit the app, asking passwords, running other automator workflows at login time, conditionally run applications at login time and so on...

Answer 2

1. Create your shell script as login.sh in your $HOME folder.

2. Paste the following one-line script into Script Editor:

   do shell script "$HOME/login.sh"

3. Then save it as an application.

4. Finally add the application to your login items.

If you want to make the script output visual, you can swap step 2 for this:

tell application "Terminal"
  activate
  do script "$HOME/login.sh"
end tell

If multiple commands are needed something like this can be used:

tell application "Terminal"
  activate
  do script "cd $HOME"
  do script "./login.sh" in window 1
end tell

Answer 3

tl;dr: use OSX's native process launcher and manager, launchd.

To do so, make a launchctl daemon. You'll have full control over all aspects of the script. You can run once or keep alive as a daemon. In most cases, this is the way to go.

1. Create a .plist file according to the instructions in the Apple Dev docs here or more detail below.
2. Place in ~/Library/LaunchAgents
3. Log in (or run manually via launchctl load [filename.plist])

For more on launchd, the wikipedia article is quite good and describes the system and its advantages over other older systems.

---

Here's the specific plist file to run a script at login.

Updated 2017/09/25 for OSX El Capitan and newer (credit to José Messias Jr):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
   <key>Label</key>
   <string>com.user.loginscript</string>
   <key>ProgramArguments</key>
   <array><string>/path/to/executable/script.sh</string></array>
   <key>RunAtLoad</key>
   <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Replace the <string> after the Program key with your desired command.

Save as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.loginscript.plist

Run launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.loginscript.plist and log out/in to test (or to test directly, run launchctl start com.user.loginscript)

Tail /var/log/system.log for error messages.

The key is that this is a User-specific launchd entry, so it will be run on login for the given user. System-specific launch daemons (placed in /Library/LaunchDaemons) are run on boot.

If you want a script to run on login for all users, I believe LoginHook is your only option, and that's probably the reason it exists.