e Causes the file to be opened with /Applications/TextEdit Specifies the bundle identifier for the application to use when opening the file Specifies the application to use for opening the file
Opened applications inherit environment variables just as if you had launched the application directly through its full path. For example, the following command would open all Word files in the current working directory: You can specify one or more file names (or pathnames), which are interpreted relative to the shell or Terminal window's current working directory. If the file is in the form of a URL, the file will be opened as a URL. If no application name is specified, the default application as determined via LaunchServices is used to open the specified files. The open command opens a file (or a directory or URL), just as if you had double-clicked the file's icon. Some other useful variations and arguments are in the examples below. And feel free to jump right to the examples below to whet your appetite.įor this limited how-to, one interesting way to use the open command in this context is to use the option. I've printed most of the man page for the open command here for your perusal, but I'm not going to explore every argument.
Below is the manual page ("man" for short), shown by typing: man open The BSD UNIX command we'll be using is open. The terminal app is in the Utilities folder-which is found the Applications folder.
See, for example, " How to Find & Recover Missing Hard Drive Space." In that case, you must bypass the open command and drill into the Package Contents to run the app with sudo and admin privileges.
To open a file with specific software, you need to slightly adjust the command by adding the -a parameter followed by the name of the software that you want to use to handle the file. jpg files that are located in the Desktop folder. You can also open all files with the same file type by using the following command:īy using this command, you’ll open all.