How to set launch options for programs on OS X
Solution 1
In Unix systems (of which OS X is one), options to programs are given at the command line, normally preceeded by "-". So, to run firefox with, for example a private session, open a terminal and enter:
$ firefox -private
If you want to make this the default, every time you run firefox, you can create a BASH alias. Edit the file .profile
in your user's home directory and add this line:
alias firefox="firefox -private"
Once you save that file, everytime you run firefox you will run it with the desired options.
Finally, to get a list of the command line options available to firefox, run firefox -h
from a terminal. The following is the output on Linux:
$ firefox -h
Usage: firefox [ options ... ] [URL]
where options include:
X11 options
--display=DISPLAY X display to use
--sync Make X calls synchronous
--g-fatal-warnings Make all warnings fatal
Firefox options
-h or -help Print this message.
-v or -version Print Firefox version.
-P <profile> Start with <profile>.
-migration Start with migration wizard.
-ProfileManager Start with ProfileManager.
-no-remote Do not accept or send remote commands; implies -new-instance.
-new-instance Open new instance, not a new window in running instance.
-UILocale <locale> Start with <locale> resources as UI Locale.
-safe-mode Disables extensions and themes for this session.
-jsconsole Open the Error console.
-browser Open a browser window.
-new-window <url> Open <url> in a new window.
-new-tab <url> Open <url> in a new tab.
-preferences Open Preferences dialog.
-search <term> Search <term> with your default search engine.
-private Enable private browsing mode.
-private-toggle Toggle private browsing mode.
-setDefaultBrowser Set this app as the default browser.
Solution 2
From the command line, you can use the following:
open -a ProgramName --args your program arguments
Since OS X applications are packages as application bundle and their binaries aren't usually on the $PATH
, the usual "Unix way" of launching applications is usually too complicated unless you're willing to alias
or ln -s
everything. Compare (if you installed Firefox to the default applications folder):
open -a Firefox
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox
For passing command-line options as arguments without opening Terminal, see this post.
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naveenkumashi
Updated on September 18, 2022Comments
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naveenkumashi almost 2 years
Possible Duplicate:
How do I pass command line arguments to Dock items?On a Windows PC, if I need to provide any launch options to an application (say, Chrome browser), I can do that by creating a shortcut to Chrome.exe and adding the options to the end of the shortcut's Target property.
How can I do the same thing on a Mac? Specifically I need to pass some launch options to my Firefox/Chrome browser. I'm running Mac OS X 10.7.3.
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Pacerier over 6 yearsIs there a "nonglobal" way of achieving
alias
? -
terdon over 6 years@Pacerier this isn't global, it only affects your user. But on OSX, you should use
~/.profile
, not~/.bashrc
.