How can I get a script to run every day on Mac OS X?

Question

Cron? Launchd? iCal??

If so, how?

Answer 1

For reference, all 3 options would work. The iCal option however has more limitations than the others.

(There are GUIs for editing cron and launchd as mentioned in other answers)

Cron is the most straight forward and well known and there are many tutorials available. The Coles Notes is to add the last line from below to your crontab (either by editing /etc/crontab or using crontab on the command line):

MM HH DD MM WKD -- Minutes, Hour, Day, Month, Weekday (eg. Sun, Mon)
MM HH * * * USERNAME /PATH/TO/SCRIPT
00 3 * * * chealion /myscript.sh "Runs at 03:00 every day"

In Mac OS X, cron has actually been replaced by launchd but launchd is backwards compatible with cron meaning you can still use cron but it's actually launchd doing all the work.

If you want to use launchd you'll want to check out other questions here on Super User as well: (eg. How do I run a launchd command as root?) as to where you want to save your configuration file (the plist file) as when it runs depends on what directory it is stored in and how it's loaded (eg. whether you used sudo or not) - similar to cron.

A sample run daily launchd plist (be sure the file and and the label are the same - minus the plist for the label) follows - this script is run everyday at 3 minutes past midnight:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>local.IDENTIFIER_HERE.SOMETHING</string>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <false/>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <false/>
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>USERNAME HERE</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/PATH/TO/SCRIPT</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>Argument_1</string>
        <string>Argument_2</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>00</integer>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>03</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

It's also worth noting that launchd tasks if they were scheduled for when the computer is asleep or off, they will run when the computer becomes available again (turning it on or waking it up) - though only once no matter how many days it may have been. Edit: I just was at an Apple document that said that if the machine is off, then you will lose any launch events during that time, (your script will not launch on startup), (sleep does launch script on waking up)

---

Another option is to use "at" (check manual page with "man at"). The script can reschedule itself with e.g.:

echo "sh $0 $@" | at `date +%H:%M` tomorrow

(use "+ 10 minutes" instead of "tomorrow" to run it every 10 minutes; to stop scheduling, just do "at -l" to list the scheduled job ids and then "at -r id" to remove the job)

You may have to start the corresponding daemon (atrun) first with (see https://superuser.com/a/43680):

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.atrun.plist

Advantages: quick fix, no sudo/root access needed, easy to do complicated schedule patterns Disadvantage: not standard scheduling method for OS X (which is launchd)

Answer 2

LaunchControl is another GUI for launchd/launchctl. While the alternatives mentioned by others are perfectly capable of launching a script on a daily basis, with LaunchControl you can configure complex schedules (like "once every weekday, on weekends every hour between 2PM and 8PM"). Also it is (AFAIK) the only tool which actually validates the job. If a job does not work as expected it will show you why.

It's free to try for as long as you want.

Answer 3

CronniX is a nice GUI frontend for scheduling cron jobs on the mac... Pretty decent if you don't want to go and delve into the cron documentation.

Answer 4

Here's a simple, free utility to generate plist XML:

http://www.gieson.com/Library/projects/utilities/launcha/

With this util there's no need to install a program, just save the results to your Library/LaunchAgents folder.

Answer 5

If you want to try out the FREE one, I would suggest Task Till Dawn

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/33283/task-till-dawn

Answer 6

An update: You can check out some apps in the Mac OS X App Store that do this:

• LaunchD Task Scheduler

• Plisterine

Lingon also appears to be available as well, depending on which OS you are running.

Answer 7

• For iCal you might want to read this article.
• You should find enough tutorials for cron if you google for it.

It depends on what you want: iCal scripts will only be executed if you are logged in, cron executes the script without being logged in. I don't know if iCal executes a script if the Mac was turned of at the time the script should have been executed. cron is doing this.

Answer 8

I always use Lingon for this, but it looks like it's out of development. You could try Crontooie, but I've never used it personally. Or just edit the crontab file in the terminal.

Answer 9

For those who are already users of the (paid) software Keyboard Maestro, you can use its cron trigger to trigger a macro on a schedule.

(I know this question is old, but the answers constitute such a useful list of alternatives that I wanted to add one more. I have no relationship to Keyboard Maestro other than being a happy user.)

Answer 10

If a calendar event meets your needs, the built-in Automator application also lets you create Calendar Alarms that are triggered by calendar events. You might use some of the built-in UI-based actions to do what you want, or you can also have it run some application or custom AppleScript, JavaScript, or shell script.

Answer 11

sp@mactop ~ $ crontab -l
*/5 * * * * /usr/local/bin/cinco.sh
sp@mactop ~ $ cat /usr/local/bin/cinco.sh
#!/bin/sh
....cut....
sp@mactop ~ $ 

...whatever command-lines you throw in for "....cut...." will get run every five minutes.

30 years of progress, and 'cron' is still my favorite scheduler.

-C