A sample project that demonstrates how to move a running Mac OS X application to the Applications folder.

Builds and runs on Mac OS X 10.5 or higher. Does NOT support sandboxed applications.

Copy the following files into your project:

• PFMoveApplication.h
• PFMoveApplication.m

In your app delegate's "-[applicationWillFinishLaunching:]" method, call the PFMoveToApplicationsFolderIfNecessary function at the very top.

If your project has ARC enabled, you'll want to disable ARC on the above files. You can do so by adding -fno-objc-arc compiler flag to your PFMoveApplication.m source file. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6646052/how-can-i-disable-arc-for-a-single-file-in-a-project/6658549#6658549

If your application is localized, also copy the 'MoveApplication.string' files into your project.

Link your application against Security.framework.

Public domain

• 1.20

  • Support for applications bundled inside another application
  • Brazilian Portuguese localization slightly updated
  • Build warnings fixed

• 1.19

  • Slovak localization added

• 1.18

  • Catalan localization added

• 1.17

  • Tranditional Chinese localization added.

• 1.16

  • Deprecation warning that appears when minimum deployment target is set to OS X 10.10 taken care of

• 1.15

  • Swedish localization added

• 1.14

  • Hugarian, Serbian, and Turkish localizations added
  • Macedonian localization added

• 1.13

  • Polish localization added

• 1.12

  • Use country code based .lproj directories
  • Make it compile for projects that don't use precompiled headers to import AppKit.framework
  • Minor adjustment to Dutch localization
  • Warning fixes in example project

• 1.11

  • Objective-C compatibility

• 1.10

  • Fixed deprecation warnings that show up when building against the OS X 10.9 SDK.

• 1.9

  • Removed OS X 10.4 support
  • Properly detect if the running app is in a disk image
  • Fixed a bug where if the app's name contained a quote, the app could not be moved
  • After a successful move, delete the application instead of moving it to the Trash.
  • Other fixes and improvements

• 1.8

  • If the app is already there in the Applications folder but not writable, request authentication from user
  • Added Korean localization

• 1.7.2

  • Fixed an exception that could happen.

• 1.7.1

  • Refactoring

• 1.7

  • Only move to ~/Appilcations directory if an app is already in there.

• 1.6.3

  • Function calls deprecated in 10.7 no longer cause compile time warnings.
  • Added Simplified Chinese and European Portuguese localizations

• 1.6.2

  • Garbage collection compatibility added
  • Use a new method to check if an application is already running on Mac OS X 10.6 systems or higher

• 1.6.1

  • Use exit(0) to terminate the app before relaunching instead of [NSApp terminate:]. We don't want applicationShouldTerminate or applicationWillTerminate NSApplication delegate methods to be called, possibly introducing side effects.

• 1.6

  • Resolve any aliases when finding the Applications directory

• 1.5.2

  • Cleaned up the code a bit. Almost functionally equivalent to 1.5.1.

• 1.5.1

  • Fixed a bug with clearing the quarantine file attribute on Mac OS X 10.5

• 1.5

  • Don't prompt to move the application if it has "Applications" in its path somewhere

• 1.4

  • Mac OS X 10.5 compatibility fixes

• 1.3

  • Fixed a rare bug in the shell script that checks to see if the app is already running
  • Clear quarantine flag after copying
  • Compile time option to show normal sized alert supress checkbox button
  • German, Danish, and Norwegian localizations added

• 1.2

  • Copy application from disk image then unmount disk image
  • Spanish, French, Dutch, and Russian localizations

• 1.1

  • Prefers ~/Applications over /Applications if it exists
  • Escape key pushes the "Do Not Move" button

• 1.0

  • First release

• Andy Kim
• John Brayton
• Chad Sellers
• Kevin LaCoste
• Rasmus Andersson
• Timothy J. Wood
• Matt Gallagher
• Whitney Young
• Nick Moore
• Nicholas Riley

• Eita Hayashi (Japanese)
• Gleb M. Borisov (Russian)
• Wouter Broekhof (Dutch)
• Rasmus Andersson / Spotify (French and Spanish)
• Markus Kirschner (German)
• Fredrik Nannestad (Danish)
• Georg Alexander Bøe (Norwegian)
• Marco Improda (Italian)
• Venj Chu (Simplified Chinese)
• Sérgio Miranda (European Portuguese)
• Victor Figueiredo and BR Lingo (Brazilian Portuguese)
• AppLingua (Korean)
• Czech X Team (Czech)
• Marek Telecki (Polish)
• Petar Vlahu (Macedonian)
• Václav Slavík (Hungarian, Serbian, and Turkish)
• Erik Vikström (Swedish)
• Inndy Lin (Traditional Chinese)
• aONe (Catalan)
• Marek Hrusovsky (Slovak)