Enable Zettelstore to start automatically on macOS

There are several ways to automatically start Zettelstore.

• Login Items
• Launch Agent

Login Items

Via macOS's system preferences, everybody is able to specify executables that are started when a user is logged in. To do this, start system preferences and select “Users & Groups”.

In the next screen, select the current user and then click on “Login Items”.

Click on the plus sign at the bottom and select the Zettelstore executable.

Optionally select the “Hide” check box.

The next time you log into your macOS computer, Zettelstore will be started automatically.

Unfortunately, hiding the Zettelstore windows does not always work. Therefore, this method is just a way to automate navigating to the directory where the Zettelstore executable is placed and to click on that icon.

If you don't want the Zettelstore window, you should try the next method.

Launch Agent

If you want to execute Zettelstore automatically and less visible, and if you know a little bit about working in the terminal application, then you could try to run Zettelstore under the control of the Launchd system.

First, you have to create a description for “Launchd”. This is a text file named zettelstore.plist with the following content. It assumes that you have copied the Zettelstore executable in a local folder called ~/bin and have created a file for startup configuration called zettelstore.cfg, which is placed in the same folder¹:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
	<dict>
		<key>Label</key>
		<string>de.zettelstore</string>

		<key>ProgramArguments</key>
		<array>
			<string>/Users/USERNAME/bin/zettelstore</string>
			<string>run</string>
			<string>-c</string>
			<string>/Users/USERNAME/bin/zettelstore.cfg</string>
		</array>

		<key>WorkingDirectory</key>
		<string>/Users/USERNAME</string>

		<key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
		<dict>
			<key>HOME</key>
			<string>/Users/USERNAME</string>
		</dict>

		<key>KeepAlive</key>
		<true/>

		<key>LowPriorityIO</key>
		<true/>

		<key>ProcessType</key>
		<string>Background</string>

		<key>StandardOutPath</key>
		<string>/Users/USERNAME/Library/Logs/Zettelstore.log</string>

		<key>StandardErrorPath</key>
		<string>/Users/USERNAME/Library/Logs/Zettelstore-Errors.log</string>
	</dict>
</plist>

You must substitute all occurrences of USERNAME with your user name.

Place this file into the user specific folder ~/Library/LaunchAgents.

Log out and in again, or execute the command launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/zettelstore.plist.

1. If you are not using a configuration file, just remove the lines <string>-c</string> and <string>/Users/USERNAME/bin/zettelstore.cfg</string>. ↩︎