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Asked: 2026-05-16T20:31:23+00:00

Hello fellow computer people :) I have a shell script that I will use

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Hello fellow computer people 🙂

I have a shell script that I will use as a watchdog timer. It checks to see if my other ‘main’ program is running. If it is not, it restarts it.

The question is: How do I get this installed on a Mac? Is there a folder/plist file scenario somewhere where the OS will automatically and periodically call the script, ensuring that my program never goes that long without running? I would ideally like to test every minute, but every hour or even a couple of times a day would be satisfactory.

Thank you!

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  1. Editorial Team

    The way to do this on Mac OS X is using Launch Services. It replaces the older system services such as init and crontab and provides a single, unified framework for managing system services.

    In your case, you probably don’t need a separate script – keeping an instance of your app running should be handled by the system. First you need to create .plist file that describes your daemon/script/application. You place it in one of the following locations, depending on the type of service:

    • ~/Library/LaunchAgents: Per-user agents provided by the user.
    • /Library/LaunchAgents: Per-user agents provided by the administrator.
    • /Library/LaunchDaemons: System wide daemons provided by the administrator.
    • /System/Library/LaunchAgents: Mac OS X Per-user agents.
    • /System/Library/LaunchDaemons: Mac OS X System wide daemons.

    Once you have defined the service, you can use the launchctl command to control launchd. For example, you can list running services, start/stop services, and so on.

    The full documentation is here:

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