diff --git a/app/build.xml b/app/build.xml
index 31f52adf2..cbab13552 100644
--- a/app/build.xml
+++ b/app/build.xml
@@ -103,6 +103,7 @@
 
     <junit printsummary="yes" dir="${work.dir}" fork="true">
       <jvmarg value="-Djava.library.path=${java.additional.library.path}"/>
+      <jvmarg value="-DWORK_DIR=."/>
       <classpath>
         <pathelement location="bin"/>
         <pathelement location="test-bin"/>
diff --git a/arduino-core/src/processing/app/BaseNoGui.java b/arduino-core/src/processing/app/BaseNoGui.java
index dd1e3527e..100db6a66 100644
--- a/arduino-core/src/processing/app/BaseNoGui.java
+++ b/arduino-core/src/processing/app/BaseNoGui.java
@@ -168,10 +168,14 @@ public class BaseNoGui {
     File path = new File(System.getProperty("user.dir"));
 
     if (OSUtils.isMacOS()) {
-      try {
-        path = new File(BaseNoGui.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI().getPath()).getParentFile();
-      } catch (URISyntaxException e) {
-        throw new RuntimeException(e);
+      if (System.getProperty("WORK_DIR") != null) {
+        path = new File(System.getProperty("WORK_DIR"));
+      } else {
+        try {
+          path = new File(BaseNoGui.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI().getPath()).getParentFile();
+        } catch (URISyntaxException e) {
+          throw new RuntimeException(e);
+        }
       }
     }