Check if a Mac OS X application is present

Question

I recall there being a Cocoa framework or AppleScript dictionary to check if an Application bundle with a specific name is installed at all, anywhere on the computer.

Ho

Answer 1

You can also use lsregister.

on doesAppExist(appName)
    if (do shell script "/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -dump | grep com.apple.Safari") ¬
    contains "com.apple.Safari" then return true
end appExists

That's pretty fast and you can do it from other languages like Python quite easily. You would want to play around with what you grep to make it most efficient.