Running script upon login in mac OS X

I am wondering if anyone is able to help me out with getting a shell (.sh) program to automatically run whenever I log in to my account on my computer. I am running Mac OS X 10.6.7.

I have a file "Example.sh" that I want to run when I log onto my computer. I do not have a problem running it when I am already logged in, but I want this to run automatically.

Follow this:

• start Automator.app

• select Application

• click Show library in the toolbar (if hidden)

• add Run shell script (from the Actions/Utilities)

• copy & paste your script into the window

• test it

• save somewhere (for example you can make an Applications folder in your HOME, you will get an your_name.app)

• go to System Preferences -> Accounts -> Login items

• add this app

• test & done ;)

EDIT:

I've recently earned a "Good answer" badge for this answer. While my solution is simple and working, the cleanest way to run any program or shell script at login time is described in @trisweb's answer, unless, you want interactivity.

With automator solution you can do things like next:

so, asking to run a script or quit the app, asking passwords, running other automator workflows at login time, conditionally run applications at login time and so on...

tl;dr: use OSX's native process launcher and manager, launchd.

To do so, make a launchctl daemon. You'll have full control over all aspects of the script. You can run once or keep alive as a daemon. In most cases, this is the way to go.

1. Create a .plist file according to the instructions in the Apple Dev docs here or more detail below.
2. Place in ~/Library/LaunchAgents
3. Log in (or run manually via launchctl load [filename.plist])

For more on launchd, the wikipedia article is quite good and describes the system and its advantages over other older systems.

---

Here's the specific plist file to run a script at login.

> Updated 2017/09/25 for OSX El Capitan and newer (credit to José Messias Jr):

<?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>Label</key>
   <string>com.user.loginscript</string>
   <key>ProgramArguments</key>
   <array><string>/path/to/executable/script.sh</string></array>
   <key>RunAtLoad</key>
   <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Replace the <string> after the Program key with your desired command (note that any script referenced by that command must be executable: chmod a+x /path/to/executable/script.sh to ensure it is for all users).

Save as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.loginscript.plist

Run launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.loginscript.plist and log out/in to test (or to test directly, run launchctl start com.user.loginscript)

Tail /var/log/system.log for error messages.

The key is that this is a User-specific launchd entry, so it will be run on login for the given user. System-specific launch daemons (placed in /Library/LaunchDaemons) are run on boot.

If you want a script to run on login for all users, I believe LoginHook is your only option, and that's probably the reason it exists.

1. Create a shell script named as login.sh in your $HOME folder.

2. Paste the following one-line script into Script Editor: do shell script "$HOME/login.sh"

3. Then save it as an application.

4. Finally add the application to your login items.

If you want to make the script output visual, you can swap step 2 for this:

tell application "Terminal"
  activate
  do script "$HOME/login.sh"
end tell

If multiple commands are needed something like this can be used:

tell application "Terminal"
  activate
  do script "cd $HOME"
  do script "./login.sh" in window 1
end tell