How to open an application in Mac OS using Python

Question

I want to open an application like TextEdit or Firefox in Mac OS using Python and wait till the applications exits. I can\'t figure out exact command to open an app and wait.

Answer 1

I don't know how to do it in applescript, but you can do this by using the /usr/bin/open UNIX-level OS X command. This snippet will open TextEdit.app and block, waiting for it to quit before continuing:

import subprocess

subprocess.call(
    ["/usr/bin/open", "-W", "-n", "-a", "/Applications/TextEdit.app"]
    )

Look at the open man page (man open) and the python subprocess module documentation for more details.