AuthorDaniel Cartland
LinkedIn
Screaming Frog is awesome – no doubt about it. But it can be frustrating on Macs to not be able to open multiple instances of it by default.
But fear not, here at NOVOS we have some simple instructions to make your Screaming Frog dreams a reality!
How to open multiple instances of Screaming Frog on a Mac using command line
- Open the Terminal via your applications
- Type or copy across "open -n /Applications/Screaming\ Frog\ SEO\ Spider.app"
- Press enter
- This should open a new Screaming Frog instance every time the command is run
This is actually very easy to do, so easy that I had to create a 4th step just to make it seem like there was more to do. The only problem I found with this was that I would always forget what to type in the Terminal, leading to more frustration.
That’s when I did some research into how to create a keyboard shortcut to do the same job!
How to create a keyboard shortcut to open multiple Screaming Frogs on Mac
- Open Automator in your applications
- 2. Choose “Quick Action”
- Choose “Run Shell Script” and add “open -n /Applications/Screaming\ Frog\ SEO\ Spider.app” as shown below. Save the Automation.
- Next up is to add your keyboard shortcut to make it easy to open whenever you need it!
To do this open System Preferences>Keyboard>Shortcuts>Services – find and select your recently saved Automation, and add shortcut (NB – click “Add Shortcut”, perform your desired keyboard shortcut, then click “Add Shortcut” again).
5. Every time you use your assigned keyboard shortcut a new instance of Screaming Frog should open!
What to do next?
Now you’ve set up your shortcut, you can use it to open as many Screaming Frog windows as you want. I have found that this only doesn’t work if you already have Screaming Frog open as your main application, otherwise it works a dream.
I used this method to set up a keyboard shortcut for Screaming Frog on my Mac over 5 years ago and it still works like a dream today.
The only problem you’ll have now is trying to limit how many Screaming Frogs you have open…! Anything over 3 is too many in my opinion!
