Terminal Cheatsheet for Mac (Basics)

This cheatsheet is available in many languages. Since the translation rely on volunteers, the content between the available languages may vary. Choose one below:

• English Version
• Version en Español
• Version Française
• Wersja Polska
• Versão em Português
• Versioni Shqip
• Phiên bản Tiếng Việt
• Türkçe Versiyonu
• Русская Версия
• Українська Версія
• 한국어판
• 中文版
• 日本語
• 繁體中文版
• Bahasa Indonesia

English Version

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. Also clears everything on current line
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
Option + →	Move cursor one word forward
Option + ←	Move cursor one word backward
Esc + T	Swap the last two words before the cursor
Esc + Backspace	Cut one word backwards using none alphabetic characters as delimiters
Tab	Auto-complete files and folder names

CORE COMMANDS

Key/Command	Description
cd [folder]	Change directory e.g. cd Documents
cd	Home directory
cd ~	Home directory
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	Clears the 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’
![value]:p	Print to the console the last command typed that starts with ‘value’
!!	Execute the last command typed
!!:p	Print to the console the last command typed

FILE MANAGEMENT

Key/Command	Description
touch [file]	Create a 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]	Paste 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
less [file]	Output file 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] [dir]	Recursively search in all files in specified directory for all lines that contain the pattern
grep -v [search_pattern] [file]	Search for all lines that do NOT contain the pattern
grep -i [search_pattern] [file]	Search for all lines that contain the case-insensitive pattern
mdfind [search_pattern]	Spotlight search for files (names, content, other metadata), e.g. mdfind skateboard
mdfind -onlyin [dir] -name [pattern]	Spotlight search for files named like pattern in the given directory

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

GIT

For Git related commmands you can check my git-basics-cheatsheet