MacOS – Open applications in the background in OS X, I don’t want the focus taken from me. Respect the Focus!

applicationsmacosmultitaskingterminalunix

I'm running El Capitan 10.11.4 on a 2014 Mac Mini.

I'm often running 10-14 apps at one time as I work writing reports, word/excel/Adobe/Safari/iTunes/calendar/etc…

Frequently I want to open another app, I want it to open in the background and go back to word/excel and keep working, but the launching app takes away my focus, sometimes 2 or 3 times. once for the splash screen, once for the open dialogue window, and again after I click 'new document'.

Another situation, I update an app in the background, like 1Password (beta) and every step it takes my focus back to the app being updated.

Is there anything I can do with Unix/Terminal, etc. to force all app activity to be done in the background, or to keep OS to respect my focus?

Best Answer

To launch an app in Finder in the background (hidden) you can use a simple Automator service. Open Automator app, select a service that accepts files or folders in Finder and add a Run Shell Script action with following contents:

Automator service

for f in "$@"
do
    open "$f" --hide
done

Save the service as Open in background. Open System Preferences./ Keyboard / Shortcuts / Services, find your new service and assign a keyboard shortcut you desire. I chose a handy ShiftCmdB. Close System Preferences and test the service and the shortcut.

open in background

Nice thing about this is that it works with apps as well as documents.

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