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Is there an easy way to force the Terminal to run a command every time it is launched on macOS?

I did some searching on here and most of the time this question is asked on here with regards to Ubuntu but I can't find a Mac solution. For Ubuntu, everyone says to use bashrc but that file isn't in my home directory.

Many thanks.

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2 Answers 2

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The most common way is to add the command to .bash_profile file in your home directory.

Quoting man bash which lists other options as well:

When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable.

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  • Thank you, your answer worked. However, I found it strange that I didn't have a .bash_profile in my home directory. I created it, added the command on there and restarted Terminal and voila!
    – Fares K. A.
    Dec 16, 2016 at 15:07
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If you want to run a command when Terminal.app opens a shell, not just for any interactive shell:

  1. Open Terminal → Preferences → Profiles.
  2. Select the profile you use, then switch to the Shell tab.

  3. Under Startup, enter the command you wish to run as the Run command.

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