🛠️ Terminal Commands Guide

Essential macOS Terminal Commands

Unlock the power of the command line! Terminal gives you direct access to your Mac's Unix foundation.

Opening Terminal

• Applications → Utilities → Terminal
• Or: ⌘ + Space, type "terminal", press Enter

1. Navigation Commands

Print Working Directory - Shows your current folder location

List - Shows files in current directory

• ls -la - Shows all files including hidden, with details
• ls -lh - Shows file sizes in human-readable format

Change Directory - Navigate to Desktop

• cd ~ - Go to home directory
• cd .. - Go up one folder
• cd / - Go to root directory

2. File Operations

Make Directory - Creates new folder

Touch - Creates empty file

Copy - Duplicates a file

• cp -r folder/ newfolder/ - Copy entire folder

Move/Rename - Moves or renames file

Remove - Deletes file (permanent!)

• rm -rf foldername/ - Delete folder and contents (use carefully!)

3. Viewing Files

Concatenate - Displays file contents

Less - View file page by page (press Q to quit)

Head - Show first 10 lines of file

Tail - Show last 20 lines of file

4. System Information

Top - Shows running processes (like Activity Monitor)

Press Q to quit

Disk Free - Shows disk space usage

Disk Usage - Shows size of each item in current folder

System Profiler - Hardware information

5. Network Commands

Ping - Test network connectivity

Press Control + C to stop

Interface Config - Shows network interface info

Network Statistics - Shows network connections

6. Process Management

Process Status - Lists all running processes

Kill - Stops process with ID 1234

• kill -9 1234 - Force kill process
• killall Safari - Kill all Safari processes

7. File Permissions

Change Mode - Modify file permissions

• chmod +x script.sh - Make file executable

Change Owner - Change file ownership

8. Search Commands

Find - Search for files by name

Grep - Search inside files for text

• grep -r "term" folder/ - Search recursively in folder

9. Useful Shortcuts

Clear - Clears terminal screen (or: ⌘ + K)

History - Shows command history

Bang Bang - Repeats last command

Sudo - Run command as administrator

Will ask for your password

10. macOS Specific Commands

Open - Opens current folder in Finder

• open file.pdf - Opens file in default app
• open -a Safari - Opens Safari

Defaults - Show hidden files in Finder

Change TRUE to FALSE to hide again

Power Management - Shows battery status

Caffeinate - Prevents Mac from sleeping

Press Control + C to stop

11. Advanced Maintenance

Purge - Clears RAM cache (frees memory)

Periodic - Runs system maintenance scripts

Disk Utility - Lists all disks

Verify Volume - Checks disk for errors

12. Tips & Tricks

Tab Completion: Start typing and press Tab to auto-complete

Arrow Up/Down: Cycle through previous commands

Control + C: Cancel current command

Control + A: Move cursor to beginning of line

Control + E: Move cursor to end of line

Control + U: Delete everything before cursor

13. Combining Commands

Pipe - Sends output of first command to second

Redirect - Saves output to file

AND - Runs second command only if first succeeds

Useful One-Liners

Getting Help

Manual - Shows manual page for command

Press Q to quit manual

Help - Shows command options