This is what worked for me on MAC OS 10.6.8 with Bitcoin-Qt 0.8.1-beta. I'm combining and editing the [Pygmy script][1] and Nick ODells answer, there were a few typos. Also note, I opened the application with right-click >> "Show Package Contents" and then edited the files with the finder, and TextWrangler. No Terminal required! 1) Create new directory in `Bitcoin-Qt.app/Contents/Resources` and name it `data` 2) Navigate up a level and then open the MacOS folder 3) In that folder, create a new file called `start.sh` 4) open that new file in a text editor and write: #! /bin/sh dir1=$(cd "$(dirname "$0")"; pwd) dir=`echo $dir1 | sed 's/"/\\"/g' | tr -d '\n'` data="$dir/../Resources/data" "$dir"/Bitcoin-Qt -datadir="$data" note that the last line contains the name of the only other file in the MacOS folder (Bitcoin-Qt). That's important! Because that is the program that will be executed a the end of the script you just wrote. Also, that fourth line has to link to the 'data' folder we created in step #1 5) Navigate back up a level to `Bitcoin-Qt.app/Contents/` and open the file called `Info.plist` 6) Find the lines that look like this: <key>CFBundleExecutable</key> <string>Bitcoin-Qt</string> Change it to: <key>CFBundleExecutable</key> <string>start.sh</string> [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/733824/how-to-run-a-sh-script-in-an-unix-console-mac-terminal