How to Open an App in Terminal on a Mac: Easy Steps

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Learn how to launch apps using your Mac’s command line

Written by Megaera Lorenz, PhD

Last Updated: March 2, 2026 Fact Checked

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Opening an Application

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Troubleshooting

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Video

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Q&A

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Tips

Your Mac's Terminal app gives you a text-based Unix command line inside the macOS environment. You can use the Terminal to run applications or open files in the program of your choice. In this wikiHow tutorial, you'll learn easy ways to launch applications from the Mac Terminal app, plus how to troubleshoot common problems you might encounter when opening apps in Terminal.

Launching Apps in Terminal: Fast Facts

To open an app in any location, type the command open -a “appname”. Make sure to capitalize the name of the app correctly.
You can also specify the path to the app (for example, open /Applications/Music.
To open a file in a specific app, use the open command followed by the full path to the file, then -a “appname”.

Section 1 of 2:

Opening an Application

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1
Open the Termina app. The Terminal app comes with macOS and allows you to interact with your Mac using a text-based command line interface. There are several different ways to open it:^{[1]
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- Open Finder and go to Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
- Click the
  Spotlight search icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen and search for terminal, then double-click on the first result.
- Click the Apps icon in the Dock (it looks like a grid of colorful squares with a search bar at the top). Search for terminal in the search bar, then click on the top result.
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Open an app from anywhere with the open -a command. The open command normally requires you to input the full file path from your current directory. However, adding -a followed by the name of an application instructs Terminal to open that Application, no matter where it is located. This command is case sensitive, so make sure you capitalize the name of the app correctly. When you’re finished entering the command, press Enter. For example:^{[2]
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- To open Music: open -a Music
- Use quotation marks if the application has a space in its name: open -a "App Store"
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Open apps at a specific path with the open command. If you know the exact name and location of an app, you can open it by entering open followed by the path to the app. You might need to look up the app’s path using the ls (“list”) command first. For example:
- See a list of all the apps in your Applications folder by entering the command ls /Applications.
- Locate the app you want in the list and copy down its exact name (e.g., “Firefox.app”).
- Enter the command open /Applications/[app name]. In this example, enter open /Applications/Firefox.app to launch Firefox.
  - If the app has multiple words in its name separated by a space, put quotation marks around the app’s name. For example, open /Applications/“Microsoft Teams.app”
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Open a file with a specific application. You can also use this command to override the default application for a file type. Just type in open, then the file path followed by -a and the application name. If you're not sure how to enter file paths, see the Troubleshooting section below. Most of the time, you can easily copy the file path by clicking the file to select it, then pressing Option + Command + C.
- For example, you can open a .docx file with TextEdit: open /Users/[username]/Downloads/Resume.docx -a TextEdit
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Launch apps as a superuser (or root) using the sudo command. If an app needs root privileges to run, the safest way to do that is to use sudo in the Terminal. You might need to temporarily disable System Integrity Protection to get this to work. Make sure to turn SIP back on when you’re done to protect your Mac from security issues.
- Log in to your Mac using an administrator account.
- Open Terminal.
- Enter the command sudo followed by the path to the app you want to open. The command should look something like this: sudo /Applications/YourAppName.app/Contents/MacOS/YourAppName.
  - Replace “YourAppName” with the actual name of the app. If the app’s name has multiple words with spaces in between, surround it in quotation marks.
  - If entering the path manually doesn’t work, right-click (or Ctrl-click) the app and select Show Package Contents. Open Contents > MacOS and find the app file, then drag it into the Terminal window after the sudo command.
- Press Return.
- Enter your administrator password if prompted, then press Return again. The app should launch with root privileges enabled. If it doesn’t work, disable SIP and try again.

Section 2 of 2:

Troubleshooting

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1
Find the application name. If Terminal displays the error message "Unable to find application named...," find the exact name of the application by browsing an alphabetical list:
- Click the
  Apple symbol in the top left corner of your screen.
- Hold down Option and click System Information in the drop-down menu.
- In the System Information window's left sidebar, click Software > Applications. It may take a couple minutes to load the list.
- You can also list all the applications in your Applications folder in the terminal with the command ls /Applications. This may not be a complete list since some applications are located in subfolders or other locations.
- Some apps have a “.app” extension at the end. You don’t necessarily need to include this when launching an app from Terminal (for example, you can open Safari with open -a Safari or open -a Safari.app).
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Enter the correct file path. If Terminal displays "The file ... does not exist," you did not type the correct file path. An easy way to avoid mistakes is to drag and drop the file from Finder directly into your Terminal command line (after typing "open" and a space, but before hitting Return.) This will enter the absolute file path, which will always point to that file.^{[3]
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- An absolute file path always begins with the symbol /. It describes the file path in relation to the root directory (usually "Macintosh HD").
- You can also copy the file path by clicking the file to highlight it, then pressing Option + Command + C.
- If you’re trying to open an application or file in your Home directory (which is your default location in Terminal), you might not need to enter the full absolute file path. For example, you can typically open an app in your current directory by simply entering open /Applications/[appname]. This is called a “relative file path” because it is relative to your current location.
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Find the correct file name. If you’re opening a file within an app, the file name must include the extension at the end of its name. If the extension is hidden, use any of these methods to find it:
- Select the file in Finder. Press Command + I. In the Info window, look for "Name & Extension" to see the whole name.
- Or enter the command ls followed by the path to the location where the file is located. For example, ls /Users/[username]/Downloads will list all the files in your Downloads folder (replace “[username]” with your username). Find the name of your file in the list.
- Or drag and drop the file into your Terminal window. This will show you the file’s path and full name.

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Why does Safari open automatically when I log into my laptop?

Mariam Atbouli

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Try right-clicking Safari in your dock. Choose options > Open at Login. If there is a tick, uncheck it.

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