How to programmatically open an application by name on macOS?
I don't know DOSBox or want it on my Mac, but in general, when you install an application on macOS it has a "property list" file, or plist
or "info.plist"
in it. In there, the developer is supposed to put a "bundle identifier" key called CFBundleIdentifier
. This must be unique across all applications, so for DOSBox it should be something like:
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string>com.dosboxinc.dosbox</string>
Get one of your users to find that, then you can use the bundle identifier to open it like this regardless of installation location:
open -b BUNDLEIDENTIFIER --args arg1 arg2 arg3
where arg1
, arg2
and arg3
get passed on to DOSBox.
You may be able to get the bundle identifier by running this in Terminal:
osascript -e 'id of app "DOSBox"'
Note, however, that if this command works, it means I have correctly guessed the app name "DOSBox"
, which means that you could just use the app name with open
, rather than the bundle identifier like this:
open -a DOSBox --args arg1 arg2 arg3