I want to be able to set the process name (as it appears in the Activity Monitor) of arbitrary binaries in MacOS. Preferably, this wouldn't require any manual reverse engineering.

To clarify, I'm not asking to change it at runtime. Rather, to set up a script which will change the code of another executable.

(similar to how you can change argv[0] in C code)

CodePudding user response：

You may achieve it for some apps, but with relevant consiquences.

First of all, let's think of what is going to be the name in Activity monitor. It is a name of a executable file for shell scripts, and it is a Bundle or displayed Bundle name for bundles.

So, to change the name you will basically need to change the name of file or the record inside Info.plist.

Both is not doable for Apple provided apps, until you disable SIP (if this could be the way for you - all is doable).

Speaking about non-Apple apps, you could change their names or Info.plist records, but it would result in non-valid code signature for them. You will need to manually allow such apps to run on your mac and get over all Apple popups about that.

There is no API you can use to achieve this goal. You are either going to use hacky ways, or need to change what you want to have.