Terminal command to bring up shutdown dialog?

Question

I know how to shutdown a Mac from Terminal, but is there a way to actually bring up the shutdown dialog you get from Apple → Shut Down…?

See http://hintsforums.macworld.com/archive/index.php/t-103777.html. — lhf, Oct 03 '13 at 03:18

score 8 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:45

8

You can send loginwindow the kAEShowShutdownDialog Apple event:

osascript -e 'tell application "loginwindow" to «event aevtrsdn»'

The four letter codes for Apple events are listed in AERegistry.h. See this answer for more information.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:45

Community

1

answered Oct 03 '13 at 10:53

Lri

101,672
19
221
272

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 03 '13 at 05:24

This should work:

Applescript:

-- Open  Shut Down Dialog...
-- Save this text as file named shutdown.scpt
tell application "System Events"
    set uiScript to click menu bar item "Apple" of menu bar 1 of application process "Finder"
    set uiScript to click menu item "Shut Down…" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Apple" of menu bar 1 of application process "Finder"
end tell

You can run it from Terminal like:

osascript shutdown.scpt

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 03 '13 at 03:12

You can create an Automator script that you can later run from the command line with "open".

You could "Record" in Automator. I guess that would be the easy way, but there might be other problems. Because when you record, Automator actually records mouse pointer movements…

Terminal command to bring up shutdown dialog?

3 Answers3