When opening Anki.app, it launches macOS terminal app and seems to get stuck in a loop of terminal programs. Anki GUI never launches.
Step to reproduce
Open/Applications/Anki.app in Finder
Result
Terminal.app opens automatically.
Terminal shows Anki Launcher
Terminal title bar shows running programs that cycles endlessly through sed, env, bash, sort, cut
Anki GUI doesn’t appear
Tried posting a screenshot, but disallowed. Paste this link in browser to view https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/fcb5tymcmdq5vkubjias1/macos-anki-terminal.jpg?rlkey=umaab6nn4x2geph1cbk45ymb1&st=m6qya0bh&dl=0
Expected Result
Anki launches and can interact with Anki GUI.
Attempted Work Arounds
Restart computer
Reinstall Anki through homebrew
Delete Application Support files, then reinstall through homebrew
Tried Anki 25.08 Beta
Other Notes
Anki was working just fine about 2 weeks ago.
Unable to get Debug Info because unable to launch Anki
System Info
Anki 25.07.2 (installed through homebrew)
macOS Sequoia 15.5 (24F74)
I wonder if it’s related to that message. Are you opening the dmg from GitHub and running it directly/dragging it into /Applications? Or trying to invoke it from a terminal?
Do you have a a ‘pip’ in the path? I’m wondering if your issue might be related to Anki 25.08 Beta - #73 by beirne. But if you removed AnkiProgramFiles, I’d expect the version check path to not even run. Hmm…
Edit: do you have any of the following env vars set? CONDA*, PIP*, PYTHON*?
I have the same issue currently. Updated Anki and now my Mac is opening Terminal instead. I have tried restarting my Mac, deleteing and redownloading Anki, opening Anki from the Terminal application.
The popup states: “launcher” can’t be opened because (null) is not allowed to open documents in Terminal."
Has anyone figured out a solution to this issue yet?
Probably not the same issue, as your error message is unique/different from the OP. Could you also state your macOS version and what machine you’re using (i.e. Intel or Apple chip etc)? The Terminal opening is intended, however it seems like the launcher that is supposed to be displayed inside the Terminal is not opening correctly for you.
The only reference to this error message I could fine with a quick search is related to outdated versions of macOS Ventura, so it would be good to know if that is maybe the case for your machine or if we can exclude that as the cause.
Google results do point to this being a bug in an old macOS version. I tested on a fresh macOS 13.6 install, and couldn’t trigger this. Please ensure your macOS is up to date, then try again.
I was having the same issue as well, but have already solved it for me. I hope this works for others as well.
Machine: MacBook Air M1
OS: Sequoia 15.6
Anki installed directly from the .dmgfile
First, I deleted AnkiProgramFiles (though not sure if this served any purpose) as follows:
Locate the folders with sudo find / -type d -iname AnkiProgramFiles 2>/dev/null, then delete them with sudo rm -rf. (it would be best to give your terminal full access to your files)
Finally, open a terminal window and run /Applications/Anki.app/Contents/MacOS/launcher
In my case, after running this command, a bunch of python packages got updated and then the app initialized succesfully.
I really hope this helps. Big thanks for the amazing piece of software.
