Open terminal here in Mac OS finder [closed]

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/420456

  •  05-07-2019
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Question

Is there something similar to the "Open Command Window Here" Windows Powertoy for Mac OS? I've found a couple plugins through a google search but wanted to see what works best for developers out there.

Was it helpful?

Solution

As of Mac OS X Lion 10.7, Terminal includes exactly this functionality as a Service. As with most Services, these are disabled by default, so you'll need to enable this to make it appear in the Services menu.

System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services

Enable New Terminal at Folder. There's also New Terminal Tab at Folder, which will create a tab in the frontmost Terminal window (if any, else it will create a new window). These Services work in all applications, not just Finder, and they operate on folders as well as absolute pathnames selected in text.

You can even assign command keys to them.

Services appear in the Services submenu of each application menu, and within the contextual menu (Control-Click or Right-Click on a folder or pathname).

The New Terminal at Folder service will become active when you select a folder in Finder. You cannot simply have the folder open and run the service "in place". Go back to the parent folder, select the relevant folder, then activate the service via the Services menu or context menu.

In addition, Lion Terminal will open a new terminal window if you drag a folder (or pathname) onto the Terminal application icon, and you can also drag to the tab bar of an existing window to create a new tab.

Finally, if you drag a folder or pathname onto a tab (in the tab bar) and the foreground process is the shell, it will automatically execute a "cd" command. (Dragging into the terminal view within the tab merely inserts the pathname on its own, as in older versions of Terminal.)

You can also do this from the command line or a shell script:

open -a Terminal /path/to/folder

This is the command-line equivalent of dragging a folder/pathname onto the Terminal application icon.

On a related note, Lion Terminal also has new Services for looking up man pages: Open man page in Terminal displays the selected man page topic in a new terminal window, and Search man Pages in Terminal performs "apropos" on the selected text. The former also understands man page references ("open(2)"), man page command line arguments ("2 open") and man page URLs ("x-man-page://2/open").

OTHER TIPS

This:

https://github.com/jbtule/cdto#cd-to

It's a small app that you drag into the Finder toolbar, the icon fits in very nicely. It works with Terminal, xterm (under X11), iterm.

An application that I've found indispensible as an alternative is DTerm, which actually opens a mini terminal right in your application. Plus it works with just about everything out there - Finder, XCode, PhotoShop, etc.

Clarification (thanks @vgm64): if you're already in Terminal, this lets you quickly change to the topmost Finder window without leaving Terminal. This way, you can avoid using the mouse.

I've added the following to my .bash_profile so I can type cdff in Terminal at any time. 

function ff { osascript -e 'tell application "Finder"'\
 -e "if (${1-1} <= (count Finder windows)) then"\
 -e "get POSIX path of (target of window ${1-1} as alias)"\
 -e 'else' -e 'get POSIX path of (desktop as alias)'\
 -e 'end if' -e 'end tell'; };\

function cdff { cd "`ff $@`"; };

This is from this macosxhints.com Terminal hint.

Check out Open Terminal Here. It may be the most similar to "Open Command Window Here." I used >cdto and this is very similar but this seems to be a little better at dealing with Spaces... but not perfect.

What it has that is very nice is the ability to "detect key-down events at the start of the application and used them to modify the behavior of the script" allowing the script to open a new tab in the front most terminal window when invoked by holding down ⌘ key. Neat trick.

Also note PCheese's answer; it is probably more useful for heavy terminal users!

There is an updated version of the very nice and slim Open Terminal Here posted by vgm64 and d0k. The change was made by james david low. He published the new version on his site. Just download OpenTerminalHere.zip, extract it, move the bundle to your Library/Scripts folder and drag it from there to your Finder toolbar.

What is special about it is that it always opens a new tab if a Terminal.app window is already open. Very useful! I also noted that the style of the button of the application better fits the Snow Leopard Finder.app style than cdto posted by redacted did.

Also, you can copy an item from the finder using command-C, jump into the Terminal (e.g. using Spotlight or QuickSilver) type 'cd ' and simply paste with command-v

I created a bundle with 3 apps for the finder toolbar. The other two apps do:

  • open Textmate with the current selection
  • open GitX with the current folder

For more information see here: http://nslog.de/posts/71

If you install Big Cat Scripts (http://www.ranchero.com/bigcat/) you can add your own contextual menu (right click) items. I don't think it comes with an Open Terminal Here applescript but I use this script (which I don't honestly remember if I wrote myself, or lifted from someone else's example):

on main(filelist)
    tell application "Finder"
        try
            activate
            set frontWin to folder of front window as string
            set frontWinPath to (get POSIX path of frontWin)
            tell application "Terminal"
                activate
                do script with command "cd \"" & frontWinPath & "\""
            end tell
        on error error_message
            beep
            display dialog error_message buttons ¬
                {"OK"} default button 1
        end try
    end tell
end main

Similar scripts can also get you the complete path to a file on right-click, which is even more useful, I find.

It's a bit more than you're asking for, but I recommend Cocoatech's Path Finder for anyone who wishes the Finder had a bit more juice. It includes a toolbar button to open a Terminal window for the current directory, or a retractable pane with a Terminal command line at the bottom of each Finder window. Plus many other features that I now can't live without. Very mature, stable software. http://cocoatech.com/

Ok, I realize that this is a bit late... maybe this alternative wasn't available at the moment of writing the post?

Anyway, I've found installing the pos package via Fink (a prerequisite in this case, maybe there is something similar for those who uses MacPorts?) to be the easiest solution. You get two commands:

  1. posd - which gives the current directory of the frontmost Finder window (for which you presumably make an alias cdf=cd posd)
  2. fdc - which switches the current directory of the frontmost Finder window to the Terminal pwd. This is slightly different from 'open .' which always opens a new finder window.

Yes, you have to switch to the Terminal window before writing cdf, but I suppose that's quite cheap comparing to clicking a button in the Finder toolbar. And it works with iTerm as well, you don't have to download a separate Finder toolbar button that opens an iTerm window. This is the same approach as proposed by PCheese, but you don't have to clutter your .bash_profile.

If like me you turn off the Finder toolbar, this Service adds an item to every folder's contextual menu: http://blog.leenarts.net/2009/09/03/open-service-here/

This also allows you to open any folder you see in Finder tree view.

I mostly use this function:

cf() {
  cd "$(osascript -e 'tell app "Finder" to POSIX path of (insertion location as alias)')"
}

You could also assign a shortcut to a script like the ones below.

Reuse an existing tab or create a new window (Terminal):

tell application "Finder" to set p to POSIX path of (insertion location as alias)
tell application "Terminal"
    if (exists window 1) and not busy of window 1 then
        do script "cd " & quoted form of p in window 1
    else
        do script "cd " & quoted form of p
    end if
    activate
end tell

Reuse an existing tab or create a new tab (Terminal):

tell application "Finder" to set p to POSIX path of (insertion location as alias)
tell application "Terminal"
    if not (exists window 1) then reopen
    activate
    if busy of window 1 then
        tell application "System Events" to keystroke "t" using command down
    end if
    do script "cd " & quoted form of p in window 1
end tell

Always create a new tab (iTerm 2):

tell application "Finder" to set p to POSIX path of (insertion location as alias)
tell application "iTerm"
    if exists current terminal then
        current terminal
    else
        make new terminal
    end if
    tell (launch session "Default") of result to write text "cd " & quoted form of p
    activate
end tell

The first two scripts have two advantages compared to the services added in 10.7:

  • They use the folder on the title bar instead of requiring you to select a folder first.
  • They reuse the frontmost tab if it is not busy, e.g. running a command, displaying a man page, or running emacs.

There is a bug in the AppleScript on OSX 10.6. (2 terminal windows open). I fixed this by adding the close command after activate. This close the first Terminal window.

on run
    tell application "Finder"
        try
            activate
            set frontWin to folder of front window as string
            set frontWinPath to (get POSIX path of frontWin)
            tell application "Terminal"
                activate
                close
                do script with command "cd \"" & frontWinPath & "\""
            end tell
        on error error_message
            beep
            display dialog error_message buttons ¬
                {"OK"} default button 1
        end try
    end tell
end run
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