Install terminal-notifier with Homebrew, MacPorts, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• terminal-notifier

Project history

The GitHub repository was created in July 2012, the year Apple introduced Notification Center on OS X Mountain Lion. The README explains the central packaging compromise: the tool was historically distributed as an application bundle because NSUserNotification did not work from a plain Foundation command-line tool.

The project grew around scriptable notification primitives: message text, title and subtitle, sounds, grouping and removal, opening URLs, activating apps, and setting sender or icon behavior. The README also documents a Ruby wrapper and a RubyGems installation path, which helped the tool circulate in Ruby-oriented automation as well as ordinary shell use.

A notable maintenance chapter came in 2016 and 2017, when features from alerter were merged into terminal-notifier 1.7 and then removed again for 2.0.0. The README and 2.0.0 release notes frame the split as a decision to keep terminal-notifier and alerter as smaller specialized tools, with terminal-notifier dropping sticky notifications and action buttons.

Adoption history

terminal-notifier's README has long documented Homebrew installation alongside prebuilt releases and RubyGems. The input package facts also list Homebrew, MacPorts, and Nix, showing that it crossed from a GitHub utility into several package-manager ecosystems.

The release history shows sustained maintenance through macOS platform changes: 1.5.0 in 2013 added piped message data, sender spoofing, sound support, and URL escaping; 1.6.x handled OS X 10.10 compatibility; 1.8.0 briefly changed distribution to a standard command-line app before 2.0.0 returned to the bundle model.

How it is used

Typical usage is to emit a desktop notification at the end of a long-running shell command, CI step, backup job, synchronization task, or local development workflow. The README examples show piped message data, custom icons, opening a URL when clicked, and activating a macOS app.

The `-group` option is especially package-nerd friendly: scripts can replace or remove prior notifications under a stable group ID instead of spamming the notification center. The `-list` output is tab-separated, making it parseable from shell scripts.

Why package nerds care

terminal-notifier matters in the Homebrew-era macOS CLI niche because it gave Unix-style scripts access to a native macOS UI affordance. It is the kind of package users install once and then wire into makefiles, deploy scripts, long compiles, package builds, and dotfile workflows.

Its maintenance history also reflects a recurring packaging tension on macOS: command-line users want a simple executable, but Apple's notification APIs and App Store rules pushed the project toward an app-bundle distribution with caveats.

Timeline

• 2012: GitHub repository created on July 15.
• 2013: Release 1.5.0 added piped input, sender, sound, URL handling, and help support.
• 2014: Release 1.6.1 added OS X 10.10 compatibility.
• 2016: Release 1.7.0 merged alerter features such as reply and actions.
• 2017: Release 1.8.0 made terminal-notifier a standard command-line app and deprecated OS X 10.8 and 10.9.
• 2017: Release 2.0.0 removed alerter features and returned to a smaller focused tool.

Related projects

• alerter is the closest sibling project, split out for sticky notifications and action buttons. terminal-notifier also overlaps with scripting wrappers and package-manager recipes that expose macOS Notification Center from shell and Ruby workflows.

Sources

• GitHub README: https://github.com/julienXX/terminal-notifier#readme
• GitHub releases: https://github.com/julienXX/terminal-notifier/releases
• GitHub repository metadata: https://api.github.com/repos/julienXX/terminal-notifier
• Input source_facts.package-manager