Make Swift Cocoa app launch on startup on OS X 10.11

Question

I need to write a function that adds my application to Startup items on OS X 10.11. That's what I found at the moment:

func applicationIsInStartUpItems() -> Bool {     return (itemReferencesInLoginItems().existingReference != nil) }  func itemReferencesInLoginItems() -> (existingReference: LSSharedFileListItemRef?, lastReference: LSSharedFileListItemRef?) {      if let appUrl : NSURL = NSURL.fileURLWithPath(NSBundle.mainBundle().bundlePath) {         let loginItemsRef = LSSharedFileListCreate(nil, kLSSharedFileListSessionLoginItems.takeRetainedValue(), nil).takeRetainedValue() as LSSharedFileListRef?         if loginItemsRef != nil {             let loginItems: NSArray = LSSharedFileListCopySnapshot(loginItemsRef, nil).takeRetainedValue() as NSArray             if(loginItems.count > 0) {                 let lastItemRef: LSSharedFileListItemRef = loginItems.lastObject as! LSSharedFileListItemRef                 for var i = 0; i < loginItems.count; ++i {                     let currentItemRef: LSSharedFileListItemRef = loginItems.objectAtIndex(i) as! LSSharedFileListItemRef                     if let itemURL = LSSharedFileListItemCopyResolvedURL(currentItemRef, 0, nil) {                         if (itemURL.takeRetainedValue() as NSURL).isEqual(appUrl) {                             return (currentItemRef, lastItemRef)                         }                     }                 }                 return (nil, lastItemRef)             } else {                 let addatstart: LSSharedFileListItemRef = kLSSharedFileListItemBeforeFirst.takeRetainedValue()                 return(nil,addatstart)             }         }     }     return (nil, nil) }  func toggleLaunchAtStartup() {     let itemReferences = itemReferencesInLoginItems()     let shouldBeToggled = (itemReferences.existingReference == nil)     if let loginItemsRef = LSSharedFileListCreate( nil, kLSSharedFileListSessionLoginItems.takeRetainedValue(), nil).takeRetainedValue() as LSSharedFileListRef? {         if shouldBeToggled {             if let appUrl : CFURLRef = NSURL.fileURLWithPath(NSBundle.mainBundle().bundlePath) {                 LSSharedFileListInsertItemURL(loginItemsRef, itemReferences.lastReference, nil, nil, appUrl, nil, nil)             }         } else {             if let itemRef = itemReferences.existingReference {                 LSSharedFileListItemRemove(loginItemsRef,itemRef);             }         }     } } 

But LSSharedFileListCreate, LSSharedFileListInsertItemURL, LSSharedFileListItemRemove, kLSSharedFileListItemBeforeFirst, LSSharedFileListItemCopyResolvedURL, LSSharedFileListCopySnapshot, kLSSharedFileListSessionLoginItems were deprecated in OS X 10.11. How to make this work on latest version of Mac OS? How to change or rewrite this code?

Answer 1

In Swift 3.0 it looks like this:

In your main application AppDelegate:

func applicationDidFinishLaunching(_ aNotification: Notification) {     // Check if the launcher app is started     var startedAtLogin = false     for app in NSWorkspace.shared().runningApplications {         if app.bundleIdentifier == NCConstants.launcherApplicationIdentifier {             startedAtLogin = true         }     }      // If the app's started, post to the notification center to kill the launcher app     if startedAtLogin {         DistributedNotificationCenter.default().postNotificationName(NCConstants.KILLME, object: Bundle.main.bundleIdentifier, userInfo: nil, options: DistributedNotificationCenter.Options.deliverImmediately)     } } 

In the Launcher application AppDelegate:

func applicationDidFinishLaunching(_ aNotification: Notification) {      let mainAppIdentifier = "<main-app-bundle-id>"     let running = NSWorkspace.shared().runningApplications     var alreadyRunning = false      // loop through running apps - check if the Main application is running     for app in running {         if app.bundleIdentifier == mainAppIdentifier {             alreadyRunning = true             break         }     }      if !alreadyRunning {         // Register for the notification killme         DistributedNotificationCenter.default().addObserver(self, selector: #selector(self.terminate), name: NCConstants.KILLME, object: mainAppIdentifier)          // Get the path of the current app and navigate through them to find the Main Application         let path = Bundle.main.bundlePath as NSString         var components = path.pathComponents         components.removeLast(3)         components.append("MacOS")         components.append("<your-app-name>")          let newPath = NSString.path(withComponents: components)          // Launch the Main application         NSWorkspace.shared().launchApplication(newPath)     }     else {         // Main application is already running         self.terminate()     }  }  func terminate() {     print("Terminate application")     NSApp.terminate(nil) } 

Eventually, in the main application I added a user interface with a toggle button. The user can choose to launch the app at login or not. The choice is stored into the UserDefaults. In the View Controller:

@IBAction func toggleLaunchAtLogin(_ sender: Any) {     if toggleOpenAppLogin.selectedSegment == 0 {         if !SMLoginItemSetEnabled(NCConstants.launcherApplicationIdentifier as CFString, true) {             print("The login item was not successfull")             toggleOpenAppLogin.setSelected(true, forSegment: 1)         }         else {             UserDefaults.standard.set("true", forKey: "appLoginStart")         }     }     else {         if !SMLoginItemSetEnabled(NCConstants.launcherApplicationIdentifier as CFString, false) {             print("The login item was not successfull")             toggleOpenAppLogin.setSelected(true, forSegment: 0)         }         else {             UserDefaults.standard.set("false", forKey: "appLoginStart")         }     }  } 

I hope this can help somebody.

Answer 2

You have to use the Service Management framework now. You create a helper application that you add to your application bundle and its job is to run code to launch your main application. Some resources for you:

• Tim Schröder has an excellent blog post on how this is done
• Alex Zielenski has an open source project to aid with this
• I've made a video tutorial on creating it manually