Basic Terminal Tutorial

In the examples below, items in CAPS are filler content representing an actual file or folder on your computer. Items you type into The Terminal appear in light blue.

./

The current directory.

../

The parent of the current directory.

alias

Displays all keyboard aliases (shortcuts), usually in a file called .bash_aliases.

atom

Launches Atom, assuming the shell commands have been installed. Typing atom . opens the current folder in Atom and typing atom FILE opens FILE in Atom.

cat FILE

Displays the contents of FILE, then returns control to The Terminal.

cd

Changes directory to your home folder, ~/Users/YOUR_NAME. Typing cd FOLDER changes into FOLDER and typing cd ../FOLDER changes into a directory called FOLDER in the current directory’s parent.

clear

Clears the screen of any content, placing the cursor at the top of The Terminal’s window.

cp FILE.txt COPY-OF-FILE.txt

Copies the file FILE.txt to a new file called COPY-OF-FILE.txt

head FILE.html

Shows the first 10 lines of FILE.html

history

Displays a history of all the typed commands into The Terminal.

ls

Displays the files and folders in the current directory, excluding those that start with a dot. Typing ls -a lists all files and folders that start with and without a dot. And, typing ls -d .* lists only files and folders that start with a dot.

man COMMAND

Displays the manual for COMMAND.

mkdir NEW_FOLDER

Creates a new folder called NEW_FOLDER in the current directory. Using the -p flag creates intermediate folders. For example, to create folder C inside folder B inside folder A, none of which exists, you’d run mkdir -p A/B/C.

mv FILE FOLDER/

Moves FILE inside FOLDER. mv is also used to rename a file. For example, mv FILE FILE_WITH_NEW_NAME renames FILE → FILE_WITH_NEW_NAME

more FILE

Render the contents of FILE one screenful at a time. You will need to type q to exit.

open .

Opens the current folder in Mac OS X’s Finder. (This is a Mac-only command.)

rm FILE

Removes FILE. Some Linux and Mac OS systems don’t have a guard on the rm command, meaning that the user isn’t asked to verify the removal of a file. Because files removed with rm aren’t retrievable, use the -i flag so you can verify that, indeed, you want to remove a file. For example, rm -i FILE would ask if you want to remove FILE?.

To recursively remove a folder, run rm -r FOLDER; and, to forcefully and recursively remove a directory without interaction, run rm -fr FOLDER.

sudo COMMAND

Run COMMAND as the current user with privileged access.

tail FILE.html

Shows the last 10 lines of FILE.html

touch FILE

Creates a new, empty file called FILE. If FILE exists, touch does nothing.