I love Xcode as an IDE for macOS and iOS development. But it has its own set of limitations. One feature I miss a lot is Opening a Terminal window from the Xcode into the same directory of the project. This will save lots of time.
Every time you want to run a git command or cocoapods or say any xcode build command – Opening a Terminal manually and changing the directory to the project directory takes at the least 30 seconds to a minute. Now what if I say you can do this
Now, What if I say you can open a Terminal window and get to the project directory in 1 second or say with a shortcut key?
YES! One shortcut.
This is how you do it. It’s a one time setup.
- Create a 2 line shell script and give the file execute permission.
- Go to Xcode Preferences.
- Add a Behavior in Xcode. Name it and give a shortcut key.
- On the right side details pane check the Run option.
- From the adjacent drop-down menu choose the script you just saved in step 1.
Here’s the video on how to do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMeu3xeXZxM
Script:
#!/bin/bashpwd
open -a Terminal ""
Command to give execute permission:
chmod +x /path/to/the/open_terminal.sh
If you are lazy like me here’s the gist, download and use it: https://gist.github.com/itsdamslife/9532d757676b1f3c9b25f3959128367c
Hope this is helpful.
Happy coding 
inspiration courtesy: The in-built Terminal of Visual Studio Code by Microsoft
-- Happy Coding :)
Top comments (9)
Thank you, I have managed to open the terminal but with a small change in the script. Single quotes are not visible in the script posted above. That is why I am attaching a screenshot of the script.
thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i...
Yes. Thanks for the comment.
Useful for me: to make it open in a new tab if already have a terminal instance running you can go to Dock preferences and set
Prefer tabs when opening documentstoAlways.Awesome 👏
Thanks for the hack 👍
Nice! but the script must be -> open -a Terminal "
pwd"Thank you :) It's very useful article!
Its not working. It is showing an error.
Failed to launch script /Users/susanto/Desktop/open_terminal.sh: The operation couldn’t be completed. No such file or directory
Also make sure the script is copied and placed inside a file
open_terminal.shand place it in the "/Users/susanto/Desktop/" folder of your machine.Hi Alexander
Please check the path to the script file.
You can also refer to the video here youtu.be/MMeu3xeXZxM