How can a Cocoa application add itself as a global login item?

Question

I tried

LSSharedFileListRef globalLoginItems = LSSharedFileListCreate(NULL, kLSSharedFileListGlobalLoginItems, NULL);
if (globalLoginItems) {
    LSSharedFileListItemRef ourLoginItem = LSSharedFileListInsertItemURL(globalLoginItems,
                                                                         kLSSharedFileListItemLast,
                                                                         NULL, NULL,
                                                                         (CFURLRef)[[NSBundle mainBundle] bundleURL], 
                                                                         NULL, NULL);
    if (ourLoginItem) {
        CFRelease(ourLoginItem);
    } else {
        NSLog(@"Could not insert ourselves as a global login item");
    }

    CFRelease(globalLoginItems);
} else {
    NSLog(@"Could not get the global login items");
}

LSSharedFileListInsertItemURL() just returned NULL when I built and ran the application. Is there something else that I need to do? Some kind of authorization?

NOTE: The use-case here is for global login items, that is using kLSSharedFileListGlobalLoginItems and not kLSSharedFileListSessionLoginItems.

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 15 '13 at 09:07

I got this working. All I had to do was add these lines before I insert the app into the login items:

AuthorizationRef auth = NULL; 
AuthorizationCreate(NULL, kAuthorizationEmptyEnvironment, kAuthorizationFlagDefaults, &auth);
LSSharedFileListSetAuthorization(globalLoginItems, auth);

The docs for LSSharedFileListSetAuthorization say that we have to get the right system.global-login-items for this, but it worked nevertheless!

But this will fail if the user is not an administrator. For it to work then too, you'll have to do this:

AuthorizationItem right[1] = {{"system.global-login-items.", 0, NULL, 0}};
AuthorizationRights setOfRights = {1, right};
AuthorizationRef auth = NULL; 
AuthorizationCreate(NULL, kAuthorizationEmptyEnvironment, kAuthorizationFlagDefaults, &auth);


AuthorizationCopyRights(auth, &setOfRights, kAuthorizationEmptyEnvironment,
                              (kAuthorizationFlagDefaults
                               | kAuthorizationFlagInteractionAllowed
                               | kAuthorizationFlagExtendRights), NULL);

It's also advisable to refer to the docs for details.

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 26 '14 at 20:24

This works for me:

NSString * appPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath];

// This will retrieve the path for the application
CFURLRef url = (CFURLRef)[NSURL fileURLWithPath:appPath]; 

// Create a reference to the shared file list.
// We are adding it to the current user only.
// If we want to add it all users, use
// kLSSharedFileListGlobalLoginItems instead of
//kLSSharedFileListSessionLoginItems
LSSharedFileListRef loginItems = LSSharedFileListCreate(NULL, kLSSharedFileListSessionLoginItems, NULL);
if (loginItems) {
    //Insert an item to the list.
    LSSharedFileListItemRef item = LSSharedFileListInsertItemURL(loginItems,kLSSharedFileListItemLast, NULL, NULL,url, NULL, NULL);
    if (item){
        CFRelease(item);
    }
}   

CFRelease(loginItems);

Thanks, but kLSSharedFileListSessionLoginItems works for me too. I want this to work for all the users. Using kLSSharedFileListGlobalLoginItems, that is. — Plumenator, Mar 27 '11 at 12:37

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 27 '11 at 12:44

NSString * appPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath];

        // This will retrieve the path for the application
        CFURLRef url = (CFURLRef)[NSURL fileURLWithPath:appPath]; 

        LSSharedFileListRef loginItems = LSSharedFileListCreate(NULL, kLSSharedFileListGlobalLoginItems, NULL);
        if (loginItems) {
            //Insert an item to the list.
            LSSharedFileListItemRef item = LSSharedFileListInsertItemURL(loginItems,kLSSharedFileListItemLast, NULL, NULL,url, NULL, NULL);
            if (item){
                CFRelease(item);
            }
        }   

        CFRelease(loginItems);

Doesn't work this code? I replaced kLSSharedFileListSessionLoginItems with kLSSharedFileListGlobalLoginItems

How can a Cocoa application add itself as a global login item?

3 Answers3

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