cliclick Overview

cliclick (short for “Command Line Interface Click”) is a tool for executing mouse- and keyboard-related actions from the shell/Terminal. It is written in Objective-C and runs on macOS 10.15 or later.

Author: Carsten Blüm, www.bluem.net

Installation

If you don’t want to build cliclick yourself (see below), it is strongly recommended to install using Homebrew. Cliclick is also available on MacPorts, but at the time of writing this, MacPorts does not offer the most recent version. You could also choose a binary from the releases page, you will likely run into trouble running it (especially on a Mac with Apple Silicon processor), thanks to macOS’s security mechanisms.

In either case: it is necessary to give Terminal (or iTerm or whatever you use) the permission to control the computer. This can be done in System Preferences ➔ Security ➔ Accessibility. If you invoke cliclick and nothing happens, the permission is probably missing. Since cliclick 5.1, in this case a warning will be written to stderr.

Usage

To get a quick first impression, this is what you will get when you invoke cliclick -h:

USAGE
  cliclick [-r] [-m <mode>] [-d <target>] [-e <num>] [-f <file>] [-w <num>] command1 [command2]

OPTIONS
  -r          Restore initial mouse location when finished
  -m <mode>   The mode can be either “verbose” (cliclick will print a
              description of each action to stdout just before it is
              performed) or “test” (cliclick will only print the
              description, but not perform the action)
  -d <target> Specify the target when using the “p” (“print”) command.
              Possible values are: stdout, stderr, clipboard or the path
              to a file (which will be overwritten if it exists).
              By default (if option not given), stdout is used for printing
  -e <easing> Set an easing factor for mouse movements. The higher this
              value is (default: 0), the more will mouse movements seem
              “natural” or “human-like”, which also implies: will be slower.
              If this option is used, the actual speed will also depend
              on the distance between the start and the end position, i.e.
              the time needed for moving will be higher if the distance
              is larger.
  -f <file>   Instead of passing commands as arguments, you may instead
              specify a file from which cliclick will read the commands
              (or stdin, when - is given as filename).
              Each line in the file is expected to contain a command
              in the same format/syntax as commands given as arguments
              at the shell. Additionally, lines starting with the hash
              character # are regarded as comments, i.e.: ignored. Leading
              and trailing whitespace is ignored, too.
  -w <num>    Wait the given number of milliseconds after each event.
              If you find that you use the “w” command too often,
              using -w could make things easier. Please note that “w”
              is additive with -w. This means that invoking
              “cliclick -w 200 w:500” will wait for 700 milliseconds.
              The default (and minimum) value for -w is 20.
  -V          Show cliclick version number and release date
  -o          Open version history in a browser
  -n          Send a donation

COMMANDS
To use cliclick, you pass an arbitrary number of commands as arguments. A command consists of a command identifier (a string that tells cliclick what kind of action to perform) and usually one or more arguments to the command, which are separated from the command identifier with a colon. Example: “c:123,456” is the command for clicking (the “c” is the command identifier for clicking) at the position with x coordinate 123 and y coordinate 456. See below for a list of all commands and the arguments they expect.
Whenever a command expects a pair of coordinates, you may provide relative values by prefixing the number with “+” or “-”. For example, “m:+50,+0” will move the mouse 50 pixels to the right. Of course, relative and absolute values can be mixed, and negative values are possible, so “c:100,-20” would be perfectly valid. (If you need to specify absolute negative values in case you have a setup with a second display arranged to the left of your main display, prefix the number with “=”, for instance “c:100,=-200”.)

LIST OF COMMANDS

  rc:x,y  Will RIGHT-CLICK at the point with the given coordinates.
          Example: “rc:12,34” will right-click at the point with x coordinate
          12 and y coordinate 34. Instead of x and y values, you may
          also use “.”, which means: the current position. Using “.” is
          equivalent to using relative zero values “c:+0,+0”.

  m:x,y   Will MOVE the mouse to the point with the given coordinates.
          Example: “m:12,34” will move the mouse to the point with
          x coordinate 12 and y coordinate 34.

  kd:keys Will trigger a KEY DOWN event for a comma-separated list of
          modifier keys. Possible keys are:
            - alt
            - cmd
            - ctrl
            - fn
            - shift
          Example: “kd:cmd,alt” will press the command key and the
          option key (and will keep them down until you release them
          with another command)

  kp:key  Will emulate PRESSING A KEY (key down + key up). Possible keys are:
            - arrow-down
            - arrow-left
            - arrow-right
            - arrow-up
            - brightness-down
            - brightness-up
            - delete
            - end
            - enter
            - esc
            - f1
            - f2
            - f3
            - f4
            - f5
            - f6
            - f7
            - f8
            - f9
            - f10
            - f11
            - f12
            - f13
            - f14
            - f15
            - f16
            - fwd-delete
            - home
            - keys-light-down
            - keys-light-toggle
            - keys-light-up
            - mute
            - num-0
            - num-1
            - num-2
            - num-3
            - num-4
            - num-5
            - num-6
            - num-7
            - num-8
            - num-9
            - num-clear
            - num-divide
            - num-enter
            - num-equals
            - num-minus
            - num-multiply
            - num-plus
            - page-down
            - page-up
            - play-next
            - play-pause
            - play-previous
            - return
            - space
            - tab
            - volume-down
            - volume-up
          Example: “kp:return” will hit the return key.

  tc:x,y  Will TRIPLE-CLICK at the point with the given coordinates.
          Example: “tc:12,34” will triple-click at the point with x
          coordinate 12 and y coordinate 34. Instead of x and y values,
          you may also use “.”, which means: the current position.
          Note: If you find that this does not work in a target application,
          please try if double-clicking plus single-clicking does.

  ku:keys Will trigger a KEY UP event for a comma-separated list of
          modifier keys. Possible keys are:
            - alt
            - cmd
            - ctrl
            - fn
            - shift
          Example: “ku:cmd,ctrl” will release the command key and the
          control key (which will only have an effect if you performed
          a “key down” before)

  dm:x,y  Will continue the DRAG event to the given coordinates.
          Example: “dm:112,134” will drag and continue to the point with x
          coordinate 112 and y coordinate 134.

  c:x,y   Will CLICK at the point with the given coordinates.
          Example: “c:12,34” will click at the point with x coordinate
          12 and y coordinate 34. Instead of x and y values, you may
          also use “.”, which means: the current position. Using “.” is
          equivalent to using relative zero values “c:+0,+0”.

  dd:x,y  Will press down to START A DRAG at the given coordinates.
          Example: “dd:12,34” will press down at the point with x
          coordinate 12 and y coordinate 34. Instead of x and y values,
          you may also use “.”, which means: the current position.

  w:ms    Will WAIT/PAUSE for the given number of milliseconds.
          Example: “w:500” will pause command execution for half a second

  p[:str] Will PRINT the given string. If the string is “.”, the current
          MOUSE POSITION is printed. As a convenience, you can skip the
          string completely and just write “p” to get the current position.
          Example: “p:.” or “p” will print the current mouse position
          Example: “p:'Hello world'” will print “Hello world”

  du:x,y  Will release to END A DRAG at the given coordinates.
          Example: “du:112,134” will release at the point with x
          coordinate 112 and y coordinate 134.

  cp:str  Will PRINT THE COLOR value at the given screen location.
          The color value is printed as three decimal 8