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Mac Terminal Cheat Sheet

Short Cuts

Terminal Commands Definitions and Use
Ctrl + A Go to the beginning of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl + E Go to the end of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl + L Clears the Screen
Command + K Clears the Screen
Ctrl + U Clears the line before the cursor position. If you are at the end of the line, clears the entire line.
Ctrl + H Same as backspace
Ctrl + R Lets you search through previously used commands
Ctrl + C Kill whatever you are running
Ctrl + D Exit the current shell
Ctrl + Z Puts whatever you are running into a suspended background process. fg restores it.
Ctrl + W Delete the word before the cursor
Ctrl + K Clear the line after the cursor
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

Basic Commands

Terminal Commands Definitions and Use
cd Home directory
cd [folder] Change directory
cd ~ Home directory, e.g. ‘cd ~/folder/’
cd / Root of drive
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 Terminal its editor
pico [file] Opens the Terminal its editor
q Exit
clear Clear screen

File/Directory Management

Terminal Commands Definitions and Use
touch Create new file
pwd Full path to working directory
.. Parent/enclosing directory
rm Remove a file
rm -r Remove a directory and contents
rm -f Force removal without confirmation
rm -i Listing incl. hidden files
cp [file] [newfile] Copy file to file
cp [file] [dir] Copy file to directory
mv [file] [new filename] Move/Rename, e.g. mv -v [file] [dir]rivileges of the superuser (Super User DO)
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