Cous Patcher

This utility allows you to patch a .app file to run under a different process name on macOS.

Warning

Apps that break under ad-hoc signing such as App Store apps, system apps protected under SIP, etc will not work.

Note

On first launch, macOS may block the app. Right-click, the app and select Open, then click Open on the dialog. You can also use the command line by running xattr -d com.apple.quarantine [file_path].

Prerequisites

This tool uses the macOS codesign utility, which is part of the Xcode Command Line Tools. If you don't have them already, install them with xcode-select --install.

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For those looking to compile it themselves, ensure you have make and clang, which is part of the Xcode Command Line Tools. You will require cmake, which you can get from brew or from the CMake website. This project uses Slint for UI, which requires Rust and Cargo to be installed and present in your path.

How it works

1. Make a copy of the .app directory
2. Finds the CFBundleExecutable.
3. Rename the executable
4. Remove the code signature of the executable.
5. Ad-hoc sign the executable.
6. Patch CFBundleName and CFBundleExecutable in Info.plist

Build instructions

This project uses the CMake build system. First build may take some time due to compiling dependencies.

cmake -B build
cmake --build build
cmake --install build --prefix build/install
open build/install/cous-patcher.app

You can also find a prebuilt release for macOS in the Releases tab (ARM only). For Intel users, please build from source with the instructions listed above. Builds may take more time when building in release mode.