open

The open command opens a file (or a directory or URL), just as if you had double-clicked the file's icon. If no application name is specified, the default application as determined via 'LaunchServices' is used to open the specified files.

Documentation

• man 1 'open' [EN]

Syntax

open [PARAMETER ...] [FILE ...] [--args PARAMETER ...]

Parameters

-a <APPLICATION>

Specifies the APPLICATION to use for opening the file.

--args <ARGUMENTS>

All remaining ARGUMENTS are passed to the opened application in the argv parameter to main().

NOTE:

These arguments are not opened or interpreted by the open tool.

-g

Do not bring the application to the foreground.

-j

Launches the app hidden.

-n

Open a new instance of the application(s) even if one is already running.

-R

Reveals the file(s) in the Finder instead of opening them.

-W

Causes open to wait until the applications it opens (or that were already open) have exited.

Examples

Test if applications are installed

for app in 'Firefox' 'Joplin'; do
  if open -a "${app}" -R >'/dev/null' 2>&1; then
    echo "The application '${app}' is installed!"
  fi
done

Start multiple Firefox instances with different profiles using open on macOS

for profile in 'alex' 'marty'; do
  open -a 'Firefox' -n --args -private -P "${profile}"
done

Start multiple Chrome instances with different profiles using open on macOS

app_config_dir="${HOME}/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome"

for profile in 'alex' 'marty'; do
  open -a 'Google Chrome' -n --args --incognito \
    --profile-directory="${app_config_dir}/${profile}"
done