appify — create the simplest possible Mac app from a shell script

appify

#!/bin/bash

if [ "$1" = "-h" -o "$1" = "--help" -o -z "$1" ]; then cat <<EOF
appify v3.0.1 for Mac OS X - http://mths.be/appify
Creates the simplest possible Mac app from a shell script.

Appify takes a shell script as its first argument:

    `basename "$0"` my-script.sh

Note that you cannot rename appified apps. If you want to give your app
a custom name, use the second argument:

    `basename "$0"` my-script.sh "My App"

Copyright (c) Thomas Aylott <http://subtlegradient.com/>
Modified by Mathias Bynens <http://mathiasbynens.be/>
EOF
exit; fi

APPNAME=${2:-$(basename "$1" ".sh")}
DIR="$APPNAME.app/Contents/MacOS"

if [ -a "$APPNAME.app" ]; then
	echo "$PWD/$APPNAME.app already exists :("
	exit 1
fi

mkdir -p "$DIR"
cp "$1" "$DIR/$APPNAME"
chmod +x "$DIR/$APPNAME"

echo "$PWD/$APPNAME.app"

@mathiasbynens FTW!
Much better.

I tried to make it work using cp before but couldn't get it working for some strange reason. I forget the original issue I ran into.

Feel free to backport these changes into your original gist if you like! It’s still your script :) I’ll update my blog post accordingly.

Great script guys! Thanks!

Be sure to check out Appify UI also: https://github.com/subtleGradient/Appify-UI

I used this today to on a .sh script of mine. When launching the app it states: "You can't open the application...because PowerPC applications are no longer supported. I'm running Mountain Lion. My .sh script runs fine natively, it is small and just uses a couple curl lines to download some tar.gz files. Any ideas?

OS X 10.8.5:
You can’t open the application “My App.app” because it is not supported on this type of Mac

same error message as PacoH for me, unfortunately!

Same problem, the end result seems to be a PowerPC app. I guess it's just a matter of changing one of the triggers (?) but which one… If somebody has an idea, it would be great!

I got around that PowerPC issue by ensuring that #!/bin/bash was at the top of my script ;)

Running on mac OSX 10.10.2
I had trouble with the powerpc error.
I had to add the #!/bin/bash line to my shell script as noted above.
I had to modify my plist to be correct as noted previously.
In particular I had to change CFBundleSignature from ???? to a 4 character string.
It then worked for me.

Can someone post a simple .plist file that does the following...

1. Allows App to be a drag + drop target.

2. Passes dropped files into script $* to allow files to be dropped on App.

I'll also look around + if I find a good example, post it here.

Thanks.

I made it to work on OS X 10.10 by adding file $APPNAME.app/Contents/Info.plist containing <plist><dict></dict></plist>

See also forks https://gist.github.com/advorak/1403124 and https://gist.github.com/dwallraff/5d0e37b0dc969a8c5ff5 for more options

Neat idea. However, what directory does the script run in so that I can use relative paths?

-bash: /Users/--------/Desktop/appify.sh: Permission denied

@CosmicWebServices
chmod +x /Users/--------/Desktop/appify.sh

OS X 10.10.5: You can’t open the application “My App.app” because it is not supported on this type of Mac
😞

adding the Info.plist with next content didn't help:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
    <string>MyApp</string>
    <key>CFBundleGetInfoString</key>
    <string>MyApp</string>
    <key>CFBundleIconFile</key>
    <string>MyApp</string>
    <key>CFBundleName</key>
    <string>MyApp</string>
    <key>CFBundlePackageType</key>
    <string>APPL</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Any ideas how to make it work on Yosemite?

+1 any idea on how to make this work on OS X 10.10 or higher?
I'm not familiar with the OS X plists internals... could somebody please post a working example?

I worked for me after I ran this: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -f MyAppName.app

It started working (OS X 10.11.2) when I changed #!/bin/bash to #!/usr/bin/env bash at the first line of my .sh script

use this awesome utility for creating .app package no error related to power pc
http://sveinbjorn.org/platypus

Hey guys,

Just put the correct shebang on your .sh file and everything will work fine. For instance: #!/bin/bash.
Also, don't forget to add execution permission for your .sh file: chmod +x myFile.sh.
With these steps, there is no PowerPC error :)

Hi,
my script looks like this

#!/bin/bash
cd /Users/dr/Documents/Leo/leo-editor
python launchLeo.py

and i added the execution permission for my .sh file.

The applified application dies immediately and I see the following entry in the console log:

15/08/16 12:52:55,087 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000046.leo[12195]) Service exited with abnormal code: 1

os is 10.11.5

here's a hack to make it open in Mac Terminal:
https://github.com/labor4/ya-appify

I forked this and added option-parsing, overridable icons file, and some other bits: https://gist.github.com/oubiwann/453744744da1141ccc542ff75b47e0cf

Trying to run Electron without using electron-packager.

I can get open MyApp.app in the Terminal to work.

But not when I double-click from the Finder, or right-click and select "Open".

Here are the repro steps:

• Create MyApp.app/Contents/MacOS/MyApp
• Modify the shell script:

#!/bin/bash
cd $(dirname "$0")/../../..
./node_modules/.bin/electron .

• Call chmod +x MyApp.app/Contents/MacOS/MyApp
• Confirm open MyApp.app works as intended
• Confirm double-clicking in the Finder does nothing

Any help would be awesome.

Edit

Looks like it wasn't working because node_modules/.bin/electron spawns a child process.

This works as intended:

../node_modules/electron/dist/Electron.app/Contents/MacOS/Electron .

can any one help???
im only new to mac and command line entry im trying to see if any on can turn 2 commands into a ON / OFF switch/toggle? that i can just click to open from desktop or something with a status icon so you know it on or off

ON:
"sudo pmset -b sleep 0; sudo pmset -b disablesleep 1"

OFF:
sudo pmset -b sleep 5; sudo pmset -b disablesleep 0

Thanks so much for this!

I tried the Automater way of doing it, but it wasn't ideal. After removing the parameter variable from my command ("$@"), it worked fine...the applified app wouldn't launch with it there.

When you're troubleshooting problems, it might look like changes to the shebang line or such things could do the trick, but they do not. The problem is that macOS caches app information which might result in things not working even after you modified the bundle. If that is the case, just run "touch" on your application's bundle. That will make macOS re-read your Info.plist.

Adding plist and make sure that schell scripts and plist values have the same name as the app made it work fine.

All you need to do to make the app work is make sure you have #!/bin/bash at the top of your shell script (.sh). Also try making the shell script executable with Terminal:

chmod +x yourshellscript.sh

After doing that, this message will not appear because your computer recognises that the application is trying to run an executable shell script (and not some other random file):

You can’t open the application “My App.app” because it is not supported on this type of Mac

(Tested on Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.6)

You can grab out of my frameworks and just edit the script continained.
https://github.com/thedzy/Run-script-as-an-Applicaiton

How to add icon to this mac app generated?

You can grab out of my frameworks and just edit the script continained.
https://github.com/thedzy/Run-script-as-an-Applicaiton

Thank you for this. Much appreciated.