Start Google Chrome on Mac with command line switches

Question

I've read you can start Google Chrome in kiosk mode in Windows by using the argument --kiosk.

I know how to do this on Windows, but how can I do this on Mac OS X?

And how can I run Google Chrome with the --kiosk argument on startup?

Solution 1

This works with macOS:

/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --kiosk

Solution 2

It is probably even better to use the open command (in case the application is not located in the Application folder). E.g.: open -a "Google Chrome" --args --kiosk http://www.example.com

Solution 3

In AppleScript, paste the following text:

do shell script "/Applications/Google\\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\\ Chrome --kiosk"

Save it as an application and add it to your startup items.

Solution 4

You can create an alias to open websites or files via command line. To do this, you can include at the end of your ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile or ~/.aliases the following lines:

# Google Chrome Alias
google-chrome() {
    open -a "Google Chrome" "$1"
}

View more solutions

Comments

[Michael]

@YumYumYum ugh! It's 2017 and none of the answers work (anymore?)!

[Kristen]

You mean the argument doesn't work? The actual process of full screening Chrome is in the Mac version. Any hack to send a Cmd+Shift+F to get it to full screen? Thanks for your answer.

[Andrew]

Ok. Can you try "ls /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS" (or something like that) and post that?

[Kristen]

@Andrew I ran ls /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS and it printed 'Google Chrome' only. :S

[Andrew]

Finished and edited answer. Try now.

[Kristen]

@Andrew Thanks for that, and how would I run this on startup? Cheers.

[vynsynt]

It did back in 2012. Now, use the code that newer comments have mentioned, /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --kiosk --app=http://domain.com put that in a plain txt document, but add the following snippet above the call to Chrome to make it executable,#!/bin/bash and add it to your startup items, or doublbe click to launch.

[Pacerier]

@vynsynt, Is the binbash line really needed?

[user390303]

This is not how you deal with spaces in filenames. Learn to quote or escape special chars properly. Also, "$1" is not going to work right when you have more than one param to pass, especially if those params themselves have unquoted values.

[garciparedes]

Hi @Marcin! If you know how, could you improve my response? 🙂

[Jarno Lamberg]

It does work for macOS Mojave 10.14.

[Jarno Lamberg]

It does work for macOS Mojave 10.14.

[Angelo]

Good answer. Won't let me edit unless I put in at least 6 characters (to change "$1" to "$@" since you're using bash specifically here). Also probably best it's not in ~/.aliases really. An alias would be something like alias google-chrome='open -a "Google Chrome"'