Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@idleberg
Last active April 27, 2022 00:37
Show Gist options
  • Save idleberg/874790e8e3c8b1419e4439d0a48d2aa5 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Save idleberg/874790e8e3c8b1419e4439d0a48d2aa5 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
“Open in Atom” in macOS context-menu

Open in Atom

  • Open Automator
  • Create a new Service
  • Set “Service receives selected” to files or folders in any application
  • Add a Run Shell Script action
  • Set the script action to /usr/local/bin/atom -n "$@"
  • Set “Pass input” to as arguments
  • Save as Open in Atom

Add to Atom

Let's repeat the steps above for a second entry, this time to add files or folders to an existing Atom window

  • Open Automator
  • Create a new Service
  • Add a Run Shell Script action
  • Set “Service receives selected” to files or folders in any application
  • Set the script action to /usr/local/bin/atom -a "$@"
  • Set “Pass input” to as arguments
  • Save as Add to Atom

Keyboard Shortcuts

You can assign a global shortcut to run the services we just created

  • Open “System Preferences”
  • Select “Keyboard” then the “Shortcuts” tab
  • In the left pane, click on “Services”
  • In the right pane, scroll to “Files and Folders”
  • Select “Open in Atom” (or “Add to Atom”) and click “add shortcut”
  • Select a shortcut

Edit Context Menu items

You might want to rename or edit the items we just created

  • Activate Finder
  • Click on “Finder” in the Apple menu, select “Services” then “Services Preferences”
  • In the right pane, scroll to “Files and Folders” and scroll to the item you want to edit
  • Right click the item and select “Open in Automator”
  • Edit and save

Alternatively, you can edit the workflow (e.g. ~/Library/Services/Open in Atom.workflow) in your preferred text editor

@illuzionnl
Copy link

Trying to get this to work on my mac, but fails to get the atom action script to show up in the shell automation. I did install the shell commands through atom like si458 mentioned above. If I do it through atom I don't get a password question so I also installed it through command line sudo apm install atom-shell-commands. Any clues to why im missing the action?

Side note which atom work properly and atom opens atom like it should.

@pkamb
Copy link

pkamb commented Jun 23, 2020

Thought I would drop a note to say that my app Service Station can used to easily customize the right-click menu.

Atom is one of the default options for text files:

Screen Shot 2020-06-23 at 12 27 07 AM

Service Station is implemented via a modern Finder Sync Extension. I like this better than the Services menu as you don't have to dig through a submenu packed with multiple other Services.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment