Startup login item fails when app is not installed in /Applications (i.e. ~/Applications)

[gliwka]

Hi @alin23 — thank you for maintaining StartupFolder.

I install GUI apps via Homebrew and choose to store them in ~/Applications (not /Applications). After enabling StartupFolder to run at login, it errors on startup and doesn’t launch as expected.

Upon investigation, it looks like the launch job com.lowtechguys.StartupFolder tries to run:

• /usr/bin/open /Applications/StartupFolder.app --env login=true

…but the app is actually at:

• ~/Applications/StartupFolder.app

So launchctl logs:

• The file /Applications/StartupFolder.app does not exist. (from /tmp/com.lowtechguys.StartupFolder.err)

Workaround: symlink or move the app to /Applications:
ln -s ~/Applications/StartupFolder.app /Applications/StartupFolder.app

[alin23]

Thanks for the report! Unfortunately the API for registering the agent plist expects an existing plist in the bundle, I can't dynamically create it: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/servicemanagement/smappservice/agent(plistname:)

We'll have to go with your ln workaround for now.

[alin23]

This should be fixed in v1.2.0 by using the bundle identifier instead of the path. It seems to work on my end, but I'd appreciate another confirmation.