Extended Attributes are metadata components that can be unique to specific files and file types on Mac OS. Those extended attributes can be anything from identifying data about the file itself, to quarantine information, origin data, label information, amongst other types of metadata. Sometimes, advanced Mac users may review extended attributes for a file, or … Read More
Need to write an image file to an SD card? The command line ‘dd’ tool can do that for you, writing a disk image .img file to an SD card with minimal effort. A nice perk to using ‘dd’ for writing image files to an SD card is that it works for Mac OS as … Read More
The grep command line tool is wildly useful for searching through text data for lines and snippets that match a defined string, character, word, or regular expression. While most uses of grep are for sorting data for syntax matches, what if you want to exclude a word or string with grep instead? Excluding line matches … Read More
Advanced Mac users, administrators, and developers who wish to test Mac OS in 64-bit mode can do so with the help of a terminal command. Essentially this will only allow 64-bit applications and processes to run on the Mac, which can be helpful for discovering what (if any) apps, tasks, components, processes, and items may … Read More
If you’re an advanced Mac user who spends a considerable amount of time at the command line, you likely have Homebrew installed by now. So, how about sharing a list of some of the best Homebrew packages available for Mac users?
Want to horse around in the Terminal? If you have already finished watching Star Wars in ASCII from the command line, you have Rickrolled the Terminal dozens of times, and you’re done watching The Matrix style scrolling screens of text gibberish, and the scrolling screens of poop emoji is no longer cutting the mustard, perhaps … Read More
Do you frequently access the detailed printing options when printing from a Mac? If so, you’ll really appreciate this trick to always show the expanded print dialog window and settings screen.
The Apple SuperDrive is an external CD / DVD drive that reads and writes to optical discs, and while it works great with many Macs, there are some Mac models where the SuperDrive doesn’t work, like any Mac that happened to come with a built-in optical drive. For the computers that do not support the … Read More
If you’re a command line user, you can imagine that it’d be useful to have a Terminal window available instantly to you from anywhere on the Mac, whether you’re currently in the Finder, Safari, Xcode, or any other application entirely. Well there’s no need to imagine, with iTerm you can have an instantly available terminal … Read More
Advanced Mac users may appreciate using the Homebrew package manager, which greatly simplifies the process of installing command line software and tools on a Mac. For example, if you want to easily install favorite command line tools on a Mac like cask, htop, wget, nmap, tree, irssi, links, colordiff, or virtually any other familiar unix … Read More
Need to quickly compare two files for differences? The command line ‘diff’ tool offers a great choice for users comfortable with the Terminal. Diff allows you to easily compare two files, with the command output reporting back any differences between the inputted files. The diff command is available by default on the Mac, and it … Read More
Ever wished you had a native command line in iOS? You know, like a Terminal app for iPad and iPhone? Wish no more, the aptly named Terminal for iOS is here, and it’s free! Terminal is a sandboxed command line environment for iOS that has over 30 commands currently available, covering many of the most … Read More
Need to get the line count of a text file or document? Counting lines of any file is easy at the command line, and the command for line counting is the same in all modern Unix based operating systems, meaning this line counting trick will work the same on Mac OS and Mac OS X, … Read More
If you have a Touch Bar equipped MacBook Pro and you’re a frequent command line user, you may appreciate a trick that allows you to use Touch ID to authenticate sudo and su, rather than typing out your password in the Terminal like some kind of digital neanderthal.
Some Mac users may need to access iCloud Drive from the Terminal in Mac OS. But if you have tried to access iCloud Drive via command line on your own, you may have noticed it does not appear in the user Home directory. This is because iCloud Drive is actually locate elsewhere in Mac OS, … Read More
MacOS High Sierra includes the all new APFS file system, which is arguably one of the most significant new features introduced in the new Mac operating system update. Nonetheless it’s possible that some Mac owners with SSD volumes will want to not convert the existing HFS+ file system to APFS file system when installing macOS … Read More
Advanced Mac users may wish to shut down a computer from the command line. This can be helpful for remote administration with ssh, in situations where a Mac is booted into Single User Mode, or many other circumstances of troubleshooting and systems administration. There are several ways to shut down a Mac from the command … Read More
Have you ever wished you could access a mapping application from the command line? Now you can with Mapscii, which is sort of like Google Maps or Apple Maps but for the Terminal, with all of the mapping data rendered in ASCII text and characters.
