Mac OS X: Launch Terminal from keyboard shortcut

OSX as is doesn't allow users to set keyboard shortcuts to launch applications, but there are a bunch of 3rd-party softwares and workarounds to achieve that.

If you don't want to use a 3d-party app then the best way to do that is creating a service that just launches an application, and then bind it to a given keyboard shortcut. Let's start:

1. Open Automator.app and choose new "Service" document

   

2. In the right tab, set "Service receives" to "no input", then drag and drop "Run AppleScript" action to the workflow:

   "Run AppleScript" is located under "Utility" section.

   

3. Set the content of the script to:

   on run {input, parameters}
   
     tell application "Terminal"
       reopen
       activate
     end tell
   
   end run

4. Save the document as "Open Terminal" (or whatever) and close Automator.app

5. Go to System Preferences->Keyboard->Keyboard Shortcuts->Services, then scroll until you find your new service under General section and assign it a shortcut.

   

Note

This works with all of the applications, you just have to replace Terminal with what you want.