Terminal Cheatsheet for Mac (Basics)
Letters are shown capitalized for readability only. Capslock should be off.
SHORTCUTS
| Key/Command | Description |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + A | Go to the beginning of the line you are currently typing on. This also works for most text input fields system wide. Netbeans being one exception |
| Ctrl + E | Go to the end of the line you are currently typing on. This also works for most text input fields system wide. Netbeans being one exception |
| Ctrl + L | Clears the Screen |
| ⌘Cmd + K | Clears the Screen |
| Ctrl + U | Cut everything backwards to beginning of line |
| Ctrl + K | Cut everything forward to end of line |
| Ctrl + W | Cut one word backwards using white space as delimiter |
| Ctrl + Y | Paste whatever was cut by the last cut command |
| Ctrl + H | Same as backspace |
| Ctrl + C | Kill whatever you are running |
| Ctrl + D | Exit the current shell when no process is running, or send EOF to a the running process |
| Ctrl + Z | Puts whatever you are running into a suspended background process. fg restores it. |
| Ctrl + _ | Undo the last command. (Underscore. So it's actually Ctrl + Shift + minus) |
| Ctrl + T | Swap the last two characters before the cursor |
| Ctrl + F | Move cursor one character forward |
| Ctrl + B | Move cursor one character backward |
| Esc + F | Move cursor one word forward |
| Esc + B | Move cursor one word backward |
| Esc + T | Swap the last two words before the cursor |
| Tab | Auto-complete files and folder names |
CORE COMMANDS
| Key/Command | Description |
|---|---|
| cd | Home directory |
| cd [folder] | Change directory e.g. cd documents
|
| cd / | Root of drive |
| cd - | Previous directory |
| ls | Short listing |
| ls -l | Long listing |
| ls -a | Listing incl. hidden files |
| ls -lh | Long listing with Human readable file sizes |
| ls -R | Entire content of folder recursively |
| sudo [command] | Run command with the security privileges of the superuser (Super User DO) |
| open [file] | Opens a file ( as if you double clicked it ) |
| top | Displays active processes. Press q to quit |
| nano [file] | Opens the file using the nano editor |
| vim [file] | Opens the file using the vim editor |
| clear | Clear screen |
| reset | Resets the terminal display |
CHAINING COMMANDS
| Key/Command | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| [command-a]; [command-b] | Run command A and then B, regardless of success of A | ||
| [command-a] && [command-b] | Run command B if A succeeded | ||
| [command-a] | [command-b] | Run command B if A failed | |
| [command-a] & | Run command A in background |
PIPING COMMANDS
| Key/Command | Description |
|---|---|
| [command-a] | [command-b] | Run command A and then pass the result to command B e.g ps auxwww | grep google |
COMMAND HISTORY
| Key/Command | Description |
|---|---|
| history n | Shows the stuff typed – add a number to limit the last n items |
| Ctrl + r | Interactively search through previously typed commands |
| ![value] | Execute the last command typed that starts with ‘value’ |
| !! | Execute the last command typed |
FILE MANAGEMENT
| Key/Command | Description |
|---|---|
| touch [file] | Create new file |
| pwd | Full path to working directory |
| . | Current folder, e.g. ls .
|
| .. | Parent/enclosing directory, e.g. ls ..
|
ls -l .. |
Long listing of parent directory |
cd ../../ |
Move 2 levels up |
| cat | Concatenate to screen |
| rm [file] | Remove a file, e.g. rm data.tmp
|
| rm -i [file] | Remove with confirmation |
| rm -r [dir] | Remove a directory and contents |
| rm -f [file] | Force removal without confirmation |
| cp [file] [newfile] | Copy file to file |
| cp [file] [dir] | Copy file to directory |
| mv [file] [new filename] | Move/Rename, e.g. mv file1.ad /tmp
|
| pbcopy < [file] | Copies file contents to clipboard |
| pbpaste | Paste clipboard contents |
| pbpaste > [file] | Past clipboard contents into file, pbpaste > paste-test.txt
|
DIRECTORY MANAGEMENT
| Key/Command | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| mkdir [dir] | Create new directory | |
| mkdir -p [dir]/[dir] | Create nested directories | |
| rmdir [dir] | Remove directory ( only operates on empty directories ) | |
| rm -R [dir] | Remove directory and contents | |
| [command] | [command] | Allows to combine multiple commands that generate output, e.g. `cat data.txt | pbcopy` |
| less | Output content delivered in screensize chunks | |
| [command] > [file] | Push output to file, keep in mind it will get overwritten | |
| [command] >> [file] | Append output to existing file | |
| [command] < [file] | Tell command to read content from a file |
SEARCH
| Key/Command | Description |
|---|---|
| find [dir] -name [search_pattern] | Search for files, e.g. find /Users -name "file.txt"
|
| grep [search_pattern] [file] | Search for all lines that contain the pattern, e.g. grep "Tom" file.txt
|
| grep -r [search_pattern] [file] | Recursively search for all lines that do not contain the pattern |
| grep -v [search_pattern] [file] | Search for all lines that do NOT contain the pattern |
HELP
| Key/Command | Description |
|---|---|
| [command] -h | Offers help |
| [command] —help | Offers help |
| info [command] | Offers help |
| man [command] | Show the help manual for [command] |
| whatis [command] | Gives a one-line description of [command] |
| apropos [search-pattern] | Searches for command with keywords in description |
