How to run Aseprite without running Steam on Mac (a guide)

Guides
1

TL;DR;

To benefit from installation and automatic updates via Steam without launching Steam every time you run Aseprite:

  • Edit the executable file inside the Steam shortcut, the file is here:
    ~/Applications/Aseprite.app/Contents/MacOS/run.sh
  • Change the line:
    open steam://run/431730
    to this:
    ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/steamapps/common/Aseprite/Aseprite.app/Contents/MacOS/aseprite

Full guide

There are some pros and cons of installing Aseprite via steam:

  • easy automatic updates
    …and with the shortcut in ~/Applications you get:
  • ability to find and run Aseprite with Spotlight (CMD+Space)
  • Open With… Aseprite functionality in Finder
  • Image previews (quicklook) of files in Finder
  • Ability to use open -a Aseprite <options> from the command line

However, the huge downside is that your workflow is massively slowed down because it always runs Steam whenever you try to use it with any of the above mechanisms. You can get around this by not installing via steam, or otherwise manually managing the binaries (.app directory) and updates. Unfortunately creating an alias/shortcut (rather than an .app launcher) in ~/Applications or /Applications doesn’t provide the same benefits listed above.

Here is how to get all of the above benefits without it launching Steam whenever you use it:

  1. Make sure Aseprite is installed via Steam with the “Create an application shortcut” option. If it’s not already then you can achieve this state by uninstalling Aseprite, remove any manually installed binaries or uninstall via Steam, then re-install via Steam and select the option to create an application shortcut.
  2. Edit the file at:
    ~/Applications/Aseprite.app/Contents/MacOS/run.sh
    If you don’t know how to do this, open a terminal and paste this:
    open -a TextEdit ~/Applications/Aseprite.app/Contents/MacOS/run.sh
  3. Change the line:
    open steam://run/431730
    to this:
    ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/steamapps/common/Aseprite/Aseprite.app/Contents/MacOS/aseprite
  4. Save the file and close TextEdit.

That’s it. Now you can run Aseprite via Spotlight, or Open With, or double-clicking an .aseprite file (etc.) without running Steam.