whereami

Shows where this Mac is: street address, what's around, coordinates and time zone. It calls CoreLocation directly through the objc2 crates, with no third-party location tools.

$ whereami

  whereami  1 Apple Park Way, Cupertino

  ⌂ Address    1 Apple Park Way
               Cupertino CA 95014
               United States
  ◍ Area       Santa Clara · California
  ★ Landmark   Apple Park
  ▦ Building   50+ businesses listed here · likely a shared office
               incl. Caffè Macs · Apple Fitness Center
  ⌖ Around     The Ring                       40 m  Landmark
               Visitor Center Café           310 m  Cafe
               Apple Park Visitor Center     320 m  Store
               Main Street Cupertino         900 m  Food market
               +12 more (--json lists all)
  ◎ Position   37.334900, -122.009020  ±35 m
               house number is approximate
  ◷ Time zone  America/Los_Angeles  UTC−7
  ↗ Maps       Open in Apple Maps

  fix just now · 2026-10-23T08:38:11Z

The example output above is illustrative. whereami keeps no history. Its only network calls are to Apple: the address lookup and the nearby places search. --offline skips both.

In a terminal it shows a live spinner while it locates you and looks up the address, then the styled view above. "Open in Apple Maps" is a clickable link in Ghostty. Colour is off with NO_COLOR or when output isn't a terminal.

Usage

whereami [--json] [--offline] [--no-nearby] [--radius METRES] [--timeout SECONDS]
whereami --status [--json]

• -j, --json prints JSON. This is the default when stdout isn't a terminal, as with speed.
• -n, --offline prints coordinates only and skips the address and nearby lookups, which both need the network.
• --no-nearby skips the nearby places lookup.
• -r, --radius sets how far to look for nearby places (default 150 m). MapKit returns at most 50 places, so in dense areas a larger radius doesn't reach further.
• -t, --timeout (default 15 s) applies to the location fix and, separately, to the address lookup. The permission prompt has its own 120 s allowance, so a first run doesn't time out while you read the dialog.
• --status shows whether Location Services is on and whether whereami is authorized, without requesting anything. After a rebuild it reports not_determined until the next real run (see Rebuilds below).

JSON

{
  "latitude": 37.3349, "longitude": -122.00902, "horizontal_accuracy_m": 35.0,
  "timestamp": "2026-10-23T08:38:11Z",
  "place": {
    "address": "1 Apple Park Way\nCupertino CA 95014\nUnited States",
    "name": "1 Apple Park Way",
    "street": "Apple Park Way", "house_number": "1",
    "neighbourhood": null, "postal_code": "95014",
    "city": "Cupertino", "district": "Santa Clara", "region": "California",
    "country": "United States", "country_code": "US",
    "points_of_interest": ["Apple Park"],
    "timezone": { "id": "America/Los_Angeles", "abbreviation": "PDT", "utc_offset_seconds": -25200 }
  }
}

• place.address is formatted the way addresses are written in that country, using CNPostalAddressFormatter. Formatting an address doesn't need Contacts permission.
• Missing fields are null. place, nearby and building are null when their lookup is skipped.
• nearby lists venues (cafés, shops, transit, landmarks and so on), nearest first, each with name, category, distance_m, coordinates, phone, url and in_building.
• building describes what's listed at your exact spot: listed (count), at_least (MapKit's cap of 50 was hit), likely_shared_office and a sample of names.
• If a lookup fails, its field is null, geocode_error or nearby_error explains why, and the exit code is 6.

Accuracy

Macs locate themselves from nearby Wi-Fi networks, typically within ±35 m. That is enough to get the street right, but the house number is only the nearest guess and can change between runs. The view adds a note when the house number is approximate, and another when accuracy is worse than 100 m.

What's around

Nearby places come from MapKit's points-of-interest search. Offices and coworking spaces list every tenant company at the same spot, and these would crowd out everything else. whereami handles this in three steps:

• It counts what's listed within 25 m. Ten or more businesses without a category is reported as "likely a shared office" in the Building row, with a few tenant names.
• Venues that are probably inside your building are tagged in_building and kept out of the Around list. These are listings that share exact coordinates with others, or anything within 20 m of a shared office.
• The Around list shows the 8 nearest places, at most 2 per category, with EV chargers, toilets and parking only filling leftover slots. JSON keeps everything.

Errors

Errors go to stderr: a one-line message (with a link to Location Services settings where relevant), or {"error": "<code>", "message": "..."} in JSON mode.

exit	error codes
1	location_error
2	usage
3	denied, restricted
4	location_services_disabled
5	timeout, authorization_timeout
6	geocode_error, nearby_error: the location is still printed, but a lookup failed

Build and install

Requires the Rust toolchain and Xcode command-line tools (codesign).

make install     # cargo build --release, assemble + ad-hoc sign the bundle, install
make lint        # cargo clippy -D warnings

This installs:

• ~/Applications/whereami.app: a minimal bundle (io.sezer.whereami, LSUIElement, NSLocationUsageDescription), ad-hoc signed and registered with Launch Services.
• ~/.local/bin/whereami: a two-line sh wrapper that execs whereami.app/Contents/MacOS/whereami.

Override locations with make install APP_DIR=... BIN_DIR=....

Why direct exec is enough (permission attribution)

locationd identifies location clients by the calling executable, not by the TCC "responsible process" (the terminal). When the executable lives inside a bundle, locationd resolves it to the bundle identifier. Verified with /usr/bin/log stream --predicate 'process == "locationd"':

• bundled binary → client io.sezer.whereami, prompt posted for bundlepath = ~/Applications/whereami.app
• bare target/release/whereami → client keyed by its executable path

Neither is attributed to Ghostty, so the wrapper uses plain exec rather than open -W --stdout/--stderr. That keeps stdin/stdout, exit codes and Ctrl-C working normally.

Rebuilds

Ad-hoc signatures have no stable signing identity, so every make install changes the code hash. The grant stays keyed to the bundle ID, but locationd checks it again on the next run, which may show the prompt again.

Testing the denied path

Denial can't be simulated without changing settings. To test it yourself:

1. System Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, switch whereami off.
2. whereami; echo $?. Expect {"error":"denied","message":"Location access was denied. Enable whereami in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, then run it again."} and exit 3.
3. Switch it back on.

To test the services-off path, turn off the main Location Services switch in the same pane. Expect location_services_disabled and exit 4.

Uninstall and revoke

make uninstall   # unregister from Launch Services, remove the bundle and wrapper

The permission entry is kept by locationd. To revoke it, switch whereami off in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services (or remove it there if your macOS version offers that). tccutil doesn't manage Location Services.

License

MIT