You can also press clear at any point to wipe all the history and have a clean screen. We're going to move between directories, create files and folders, delete them, move them, copy and paste them, and edit files.
ALL MAC TERMINAL COMMANDS FOR FILES HOW TO
We're going to learn how to do a lot of the regular things you do on a computer with a mouse or keyboard shortcuts.
ALL MAC TERMINAL COMMANDS FOR FILES WINDOWS
On a Windows computer, this is represented by a > symbol.Ī terminal or command prompt is a program (command line interface) that runs a shell, which interprets the commands.
![all mac terminal commands for files all mac terminal commands for files](https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-14-at-4.03.23-PM.png)
I'm going to prove this by typing pwd into the terminal, then pressing enter. Just as I was "in" the taniarascia folder in Google Chrome and Finder, I'm currently "in" the same folder via the command prompt/terminal. This is simply a personal preference, which we can learn to change later. Yours might be white or blue or different depending on what you're using. I'm going to open Terminal.app by opening Spotlight search (command + spacebar) and type in Terminal. The same is true of the command line interface. If I open Google Chrome and I type in /Users/taniarascia, I'll be in the same place. I can access the same exact files through a web browser. On a Mac, if I open Finder, this is my home folder. It's the same computer you already know and love. You can do everything through the command line. Your entire computer can be accessed through the command line. Instead of dragging and dropping, pointing and clicking, you're typing. Take away the file explorer, the desktop, the icons, and all the other graphics, and you're left with the command line. This is known as a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Windows, macOS - whatever operating system you're using - is simply a visual representation of your computer.
![all mac terminal commands for files all mac terminal commands for files](https://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/xlarge/public/field/image/2016/03/01-show-hidden-files-terminal.png)
I promise this is the most important thing to understand, and it completely blew my mind when I finally understood it.
![all mac terminal commands for files all mac terminal commands for files](https://assets.digitalocean.com/articles/eng_python/OSXSetUp/MacOSXSetUp.png)
![all mac terminal commands for files all mac terminal commands for files](https://www.tech-otaku.com/wp-content/uploads/0940-03-dragging-an-item-from-the-finder-to-a-terminal-window.png)
I thought it was something only really advanced users knew anything about. I didn't know anything about it, and it seemed scary and overwhelming. You might be like me - I used computers for twenty years without ever touching a command prompt.