Macos Gui Automation

Automate macOS GUI via screen capture and OCR text reading, mouse and keyboard control, window management, and app launching using cliclick, screencapture, t...

macOS GUI Automation Skill

Capabilities

• Screen Reading: Capture screenshots and OCR text
• Mouse Control: Click, double-click, right-click, move, drag
• Keyboard Input: Type text, press keys, shortcuts
• Window Management: List windows, focus, resize, close
• App Control: Launch, quit, bring to front

Tools Available

cliclick (Mouse/Keyboard)

bash

# Click at coordinates
cliclick c:x,y

# Double click
cliclick dc:x,y

# Right click
cliclick rc:x,y

# Move mouse
cliclick m:x,y

# Drag from to
cliclick dr:x1,y1:x2,y2

# Type text
cliclick t:"text"

# Press key (Enter, Tab, etc.)
cliclick kp:enter

screencapture + tesseract (Screen Reading)

bash

# Capture region to file
screencapture -R x,y,w,h /tmp/screen.png

# Capture full screen
screencapture /tmp/screen.png

# OCR from image
tesseract /tmp/screen.png stdout

# OCR with Chinese support
tesseract /tmp/screen.png stdout -l chi_sim+eng

osascript (AppleScript - Window/App Control)

bash

# List all windows
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of every process'

# Get window position/size
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to get bounds of window of front window'

# Click menu item
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to click menu item "Save" of menu "File" of process "TextEdit"'

Usage Patterns

Read Screen Text

bash

# 1. Capture screen
screencapture -R 100,100,800,600 /tmp/region.png

# 2. OCR
tesseract /tmp/region.png stdout

Click Button at Position

bash

cliclick c:500,300

Type in Field

bash

# Click field first
cliclick c:400,200
# Then type
cliclick t:"hello world"
cliclick kp:enter

Find and Click (OCR + Click)

bash

# 1. Capture and OCR
screencapture /tmp/screen.png
text=$(tesseract /tmp/screen.png stdout)

# 2. Parse coordinates from OCR result or use image recognition

# 3. Click
cliclick c:x,y

Limitations

• Coordinates are absolute (screen resolution dependent)
• No built-in image recognition (need to add OpenCV/sikuli for that)
• OCR accuracy depends on screen DPI and font
• Some apps may not be scriptable via AppleScript

Security Notes

• Requires Accessibility permissions in System Settings
• Run tccutil reset Accessibility if permissions issues
• Some apps (browsers, secure apps) may block automation