What is iTerm2? ITerm2 is a replacement for Terminal and the successor to iTerm. It works on Macs with macOS 10.12 or newer. ITerm2 brings the terminal into the modern age with features you never knew you always wanted. How to use Terminal on a Mac We're getting ahead of ourselves, however. Using Terminal is straightforward: you type a command on the command-line and press Return to execute it.
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Alternatives to Apple’s Terminal app for the MacMost people can use their Macs without ever needing to dive under macOS’s graphic interface. If you need to, or just want to, get some command line action going on the first place to go is Apple’s own Terminal app. It’s hiding in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder on your Mac.If the Terminal app doesn’t get you all excited, check out these alternatives: iTerm2lets you slice up a single window into multiple panes, each with its own independent session. It also sports a robust search tool, auto-complete for commands, multiple profile support, and more. ITerm2 is a free download, and the developers accept donations.
ITerm2 for the Mac Hyperis a terminal app that also supports JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. The developers are always working on new features and you can create your own plug-ins, too. Hyper is a free download. Uptermcalls itself “A terminal emulator for the 21st century.” It’s both a terminal app and an IDE, or integrated development environment.
In other words, you can bang out terminal commands and code in the same app. Upterm used to be called Black Screen. It’s a free download. Terminatorlets you group together multiple terminal windows in a grid. In fact, you can make some ridiculously complicated layouts if you want. It also supports tabs, and you can even type in multiple terminal instances at the same time.
Terminator is a free download. Terminator for the Mac PowerShell Corelets you work with Microsoft’s PowerShell automation framework and work with the command line at the same time. The idea was to make a tool IT teams can use to automate routine tasks and configure systems, but it’s useful outside of that scope, too. PowerShell Core is a free download.
Alacrittyis a terminal app that gets a boost from your Mac’s GPU for better performance. It isn’t overloaded with features, but doesn’t cut out what you most likely need. The developers say its OpenGL support makes it the fastest terminal app around. Alacritty is a free download. ZOC for the Mac MacTermis billed as “a better Terminal” thanks to its tabbed window interface, 24-bit color support, powerful search support, macro support, session management, and more. MacTerm is free to download. Cathodeis a full-featured terminal app that looks decidedly old school with its retro CRT-like interface.
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You can customize how your terminal window looks and work in full-screen mode—a great way to really confuse people who like to look over your shoulder at coffee shops. The app is also a text editor, so it’s handy for people who don’t need to get at their Mac’s command line. Cathode is priced at $4.99 and is available for download at Apple’s. Getting Started with the Mac Command LineEven if you’re content with controlling your Mac from the graphic interface playing with the command line can still be fun, or at least educational. If you want to learn more about Terminal and getting started with the command line check out TMO’s list of the.
The terminal is left over from a time when all a computer could show was text. (And at the time, most computers were as big as a large refrigerator, so your personal screen and keyboard were only a low-powered 'terminal' connected to such a 'mainframe computer', at least until the 'Personal Computer' was made.)
Back in these days, a computer user would interact with their computers with a keyboard only, typing in specific commands and getting the results.
It turns out typing commands like this is still really useful today, so this technology and way of interacting with the computer lives on. Using the terminal is still common for programmers, who need to run 'low-level' or basic programs, which can be (arguably) more efficient on the command-line interface than with graphical interfaces.
How to find the Terminal program on your computer.On Windows
Open the Start menu, and type either 'cmd' for a very basic terminal, type 'Powershell' for a similar terminal that's a bit more advanced, or type 'bash' for an even more-advanced terminal. (You probably have 'Git Bash' installed if you have installed Git, otherwise you probably do not have bash on your Windows computer. Downloading Git for Windows is a good way to get bash on Windows.) Bash is a more Unix-style experience, even though Windows is not very similar to Unix 'under the hood' and many things will work differently in Windows than in macOS or Linux.
On a Mac
Open your App Launcher from the dock, or Spotlight (
Cmd + Space ) and type 'Terminal'. your terminal program is a powerful Unix-style shell running Bash.
On Linux
Open your application menu or application launcher, and type or click on any program with 'Console' 'Terminal' or 'Terminal Emulator' in the name. This will usually run a Bash shell, and just like on macOS, this will usually be a powerful, Unix-style shell.
Run a basic command
On macOS or Linux (or Bash on Windows), type
ls and hit Enter . This will show you a list of files located at whatever folder your Terminal program is running in.
in CMD or Powershell on Windows, type
dir to list the files in your current folder.
Now in any terminal or command line program, type
cd .. and hit Enter again. This moves your terminal session up to one folder above the previous folder.
Terminal programs will always run in a specific folder no matter what. Sometimes this is important to how a 'command' runs, since every command is understood to be run in the current folder unless you specify otherwise.
Learn more:
Here are three fine guides for beginning to use the Terminal:
And these are some more guides for each operating system:
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