Command Line Tool

Tower comes with its own command line tool, called gittower. It lets you open a repository in Tower right from your terminal — and even jump straight to a specific view, like History, Blame, or the Working Copy.

gittower .

This opens the repository you are currently in, even if you're in one of its subfolders: Tower finds the repository's root folder for you.

gittower is a launcher, not a Git client. It never commits, pushes, or changes your working files. To learn about everything it can do, have a look at Using the Command Line Tool.

Tower 18 Beta This page describes the Tower Command Line Tool as it works in Tower 18 for Mac, which is currently in Beta. To try it out, change the Release channel to "Beta" under Settings → Updates. In Tower 17 and earlier, the command line tool is a copy that has to be reinstalled after every Tower update.

Installing the Command Line Tool

1. Choose Tower → Settings from the menu bar, or press ⌘ + ,
2. Select the Integration tab
3. Find the Tower Command Line Tool row
4. Click Install
5. Enter your administrator password if macOS asks for it

Tower installs the command line tool at /usr/local/bin/gittower. It first tries to do this without a password. Because this folder usually belongs to the system, though, macOS will usually ask for your administrator password. This can only happen when you install, update, repair, or uninstall the tool — never when Tower starts.

To check that everything worked, open a new Terminal window and run:

gittower --version

The output should match the version and build number shown in Tower → About Tower.

If it shows an older version, the installed tool is still a copy from a previous version of Tower. Open Settings → Integration and click Update.

No Administrator Rights? If Tower can't install the tool because you don't have an administrator account, you can still set it up yourself. See Installing Without Administrator Rights below.

Staying Up to Date Automatically

The installed gittower command is a link that points into the Tower app itself, rather than a separate copy. This means it is always the same version as Tower, and it is updated automatically every time Tower is.

You never need to reinstall it after updating Tower.

If you installed the command line tool with an older version of Tower, the Integration tab will offer an Update button once. Clicking it replaces the old copy with a link — from then on, it looks after itself.

The Buttons in the Integration Tab

The buttons next to Tower Command Line Tool depend on what's currently installed on your Mac:

• Install appears when the tool isn't installed yet.
• Uninstall appears whenever the tool is installed — including when it needs an update or a repair. It removes the tool.
• Update appears next to Uninstall when a copy left behind by an older version of Tower is installed. It replaces that copy with a link that stays up to date.
• Repair appears next to Uninstall when the link no longer points to this copy of Tower — for example, because Tower was moved or renamed, or because the link doesn't lead anywhere anymore. It points the link back to your current copy of Tower.

Troubleshooting

Installing Without Administrator Rights

Installing the command line tool usually requires an administrator password, because the /usr/local/bin folder usually belongs to the system. If you're working on a Mac without administrator rights — a work or school computer, for example — Tower can't install the tool for you.

You have two options to get it working anyway.

Option 1: Ask an administrator. Someone with administrator rights can run the following commands in Terminal once. They create exactly the same link that Tower would have created:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
sudo ln -sfn /Applications/Tower.app/Contents/Helpers/gittower /usr/local/bin/gittower

If Tower isn't located in your Applications folder, replace /Applications/Tower.app with its actual location.

Only When Needed If you have administrator rights, simply use the Install button in Tower's Settings instead. It does the same thing, and also checks that it won't replace another program's gittower command.

Option 2: Install it in a folder you own. This doesn't need administrator rights at all. First, create the link in a bin folder inside your home folder:

mkdir -p ~/bin
ln -sfn /Applications/Tower.app/Contents/Helpers/gittower ~/bin/gittower

Then make sure your terminal can find it, by adding ~/bin to your PATH. If you're using macOS's default shell (zsh), you can do this with the following command:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc

Open a new Terminal window, and gittower --version should now work.

The Integration Tab Will Still Show "Install" Tower's Integration tab only looks at /usr/local/bin, so it doesn't know about a link in ~/bin and will keep offering to install the tool — this doesn't mean anything went wrong. For the same reason, Repair can't fix this link if you move Tower later. In that case, simply run the ln command above again with Tower's new location.

With both options, the installed command is a link into Tower — so it stays up to date automatically, just as if Tower had installed it.

Tower Is Running From a Disk Image or Your Downloads Folder

When you launch an app straight from a disk image or your Downloads folder, macOS runs it from a temporary, read-only location that changes every time. A link pointing there would stop working the next time you restart your Mac.

That's why Tower refuses to install the command line tool in this situation. To fix this, move Tower to your Applications folder (or any other folder), relaunch it, and try again.

Tower Was Moved or Renamed

The installed command points to wherever Tower is located on your Mac. If you move Tower to another folder, rename it, or delete and reinstall it somewhere else, the gittower command stops working.

Tower tries to fix this by itself the next time it starts. If it can't — usually because doing so needs your administrator password — it shows a notification instead. Click the notification, or open Settings → Integration, and click Repair. The command will be pointed to Tower's new location.

Another Program Already Uses the Name "gittower"

Other tools may also install a command called gittower — or you may have created one yourself.

Tower always checks what's already installed at /usr/local/bin/gittower and never overwrites a file it didn't create. If it finds something else there, it will explain the situation instead of installing.

If it finds a link that you created yourself, Tower will ask you first whether you'd like to replace it. Choosing Replace points the command to Tower, while whatever your link pointed to remains untouched.

If you'd rather keep your own gittower command, simply don't install Tower's.

Removing the Command Line Tool

To remove the command line tool, open Settings → Integration in Tower and click Uninstall.

We recommend using this button rather than deleting the file manually, so that Tower's Integration tab always reflects what's actually installed on your Mac.

Advanced Usage

Besides opening repositories, you can use the command line tool to deploy and manage licenses — for example, to create an offline activation for Tower installations in restricted environments.