How can I determine if my Cocoa Desktop application is on the list of apps to be opened at login?

Question

I am developing a SandBoxed Cocoa Application. I have successfully implemented the Launch at login feature by using the Core Foundation function:

SMLoginItemSetEnabled

I have based the implementation on This tutorial

But now I need a way to determine if my app is set to be launched at login, so that I can show the button in the appropriate position upon launch. I would expect a similar Core Foundation function to find out if a bundle identifier is on the list of login items, but I didn't find it.

Another problem is that, by using this Core Foundation approach, although it is recommended by Apple, my app is still inconsistent with the "Open at Login" tick in my application dock menu.

Answer 1

You can do it using the functions in the LSSharedFileList.h header, which is in LaunchServices.framework, which is in CoreServices.framework. As far as I can tell, Apple hasn't documented this stuff except in the header comments, but that's probably enough. The basic outline is that you first create a LSSharedFileListRef using the function LSSharedFileListCreate for the list type kLSSharedFileListSessionLoginItems . Then copy a snapshot of the list (which is a CFArrayRef ) using LSSharedFileListCopySnapshot . Then for any item in the array, you can get its URL using LSSharedFileListItemCopyResolvedURL . That last function requires Mac OS X 10.10 or later, while I think the others date back to 10.5.

By the way, the docs on SMLoginItemSetEnabled say that it's for setting an embedded helper app as a login item, but it sounds like you're talking about a freestanding app.

Apple's sandbox documentation says:

With App Sandbox, you cannot create a login item using functions in the LSSharedFileList.h header file. For example, you cannot use the function LSSharedFileListInsertItemURL.

But maybe you can still use the shared file list functions on a read-only basis.