Keyboard Maestro Wiki

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The Execute an AppleScript action executes a specified AppleScript, either from a file or text. For example, say “hello”.

The results of an AppleScript can be:

• Ignored.
• Displayed in a floating window.
• Displayed briefly in a Notification.
• Typed in to the current selection.
• Pasted in to the current selection.
• Saved to a variable.
• Saved to the system or a Named Clipboard.
• Asynchronously ignored — the action runs while the macro continues on.

AppleScripts are executed in the background via osascript. This means they are not allowed to do user interaction. You can work around this by asking an application like System Events to do the user interaction for you, for example:

tell application "System Events"
  activate
  display dialog "Hello"
end tell

AppleScripts can access variables by using environment variables (using system attribute) or by talking to the Keyboard Maestro Engine. Note that AppleScript’s system attribute is not safe for international characters, although it can use code like:

set v to do shell script "echo $KMVAR_Variable"