中文

macos-app-dual-open

A small Bash CLI for creating and managing secondary copies of macOS apps.

Features

• Create a -secondary.app copy from an original .app
• Read the original CFBundleIdentifier and rewrite it with a .secondary suffix
• Re-sign the copied app locally
• Provide a unified clone / launch / update / remove CLI
• Keep the source app untouched and avoid deleting user ~/Library data by default

Quick Start

bin/app-dual clone "/Applications/WeChat.app"
bin/app-dual launch "/Applications/WeChat.app"
bin/app-dual update "/Applications/WeChat.app"
bin/app-dual remove "/Applications/WeChat.app"

For apps under /Applications, typical macOS usage requires sudo for clone, update, and remove:

sudo bin/app-dual clone "/Applications/WeChat.app"
sudo bin/app-dual update "/Applications/WeChat.app"
sudo bin/app-dual remove "/Applications/WeChat.app"

Naming Rules

Given:

/Applications/WeChat.app
com.tencent.xinWeChat

The derived secondary copy becomes:

/Applications/WeChat-secondary.app
com.tencent.xinWeChat.secondary

Rules:

• the copied app name always appends -secondary
• the copied Bundle ID always appends .secondary
• clone, update, and remove expect the original .app path and reject an existing -secondary.app as the source input

Commands

bin/app-dual clone <app-path>

• validate the original app path
• copy the app bundle to -secondary.app
• rewrite the copied CFBundleIdentifier
• re-sign the copied app

Example:

sudo bin/app-dual clone "/Applications/WeChat.app"

bin/app-dual launch <app-path>

• derive the -secondary.app path from the original app path
• launch the secondary app through open -a
• keep path-first behavior: if the secondary copy exists, launch can still work even when the original app path does not currently exist

Example:

bin/app-dual launch "/Applications/WeChat.app"

bin/app-dual update <app-path>

• remove the old secondary copy
• rebuild the secondary copy from the original app
• keep user data directories untouched; do not clean ~/Library

Example:

sudo bin/app-dual update "/Applications/WeChat.app"

bin/app-dual remove <app-path>

• remove the derived -secondary.app
• do not remove ~/Library, Keychain, or other user data

Example:

sudo bin/app-dual remove "/Applications/WeChat.app"

Behavior Notes

• clone creates a new secondary app copy
• launch behaves similarly to manually opening WeChat-secondary.app
• update rebuilds the secondary app by removing the old secondary app (if it exists) and recreating it
• remove deletes only the copied app bundle and does not affect the source app

Safety Boundaries

• the source app bundle is never modified
• the source app Info.plist is never modified
• the source app signature is never modified
• the tool never deletes ~/Library, Keychain, or other user data
• not every macOS app can run as a second instance

Development / Testing

Run the tests with:

bash tests/run.sh

Current automated coverage includes:

• shared path and naming helpers
• clone behavior and copied Bundle ID rewriting
• launch behavior and the path-first contract
• update / remove behavior
• the safety guarantee that the source app is not modified

Contributing and Security

See CONTRIBUTING for contribution guidelines and SECURITY for vulnerability reporting.

License

See LICENSE.