Periodically Launch an App in Background

I recently started using Outlook app on my Mac. If the app is closed, it won't send any notifications. When I accidentally close the app, until I re-open it, I won't get any notifications.

I want to ensure that it starts periodically so that I don't miss any notifications for meetings.

After trying out various methods, I ended up using open command with cron to launch the app every 15 minutes.

$ crontab -e

*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/open -a "Microsoft Outlook"

This will launch the app every 15 minutes. This is inconvenient as it will bring Outlook to foreground every 15 minutes.

To avoid this, I passed -g option to run it in background.

$ crontab -e

*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/open -g -a "Microsoft Outlook"

This silently launches the app in background without causing any disturbance. Since the app is running the background, it will send notifications for any meetings.

This will ensure that I don't miss any meetings, even if I close outlook accidentally.