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The Terminal app lets you control your Mac. In this article, we explain what is Mac Terminal, how to use it, and what it can do for you. In many macreports.com articles, we recommend our readers to use the Terminal app to troubleshoot various problems that our readers may be having with your Mac. Basically, Terminal is a command-line interface (CLI – or the language you type to interact with your computer) for macOS. It is an app included in the Mac operating system.
What is the Mac Terminal
Terminal is a utility app. It lets you enter commands in the command line. The Terminal app provides a command-line interface to let you control and customize your Mac. The command-line interface (CLI) is called bash (Bourne again shell).
Using PostgreSQL App. To run a server through the postgres app, the first step is to download the program. The app can be downloaded on postgresapp.com. Once the app is downloaded and moved into the applications folder, the app can be opened. Open the Postgres app: In order to start the server, click the start button. This will start the server. I wanted to have two separate instances of Chrome running, each using its own profile. I wanted to be able to start them from Spotlight, as is my habit for starting Mac apps.In other words, I needed two regular Mac applications, regChrome for normal browsing and altChrome to use the special profile, to be easily started by keying ⌘-space to bring up Spotlight, then 'reg' or 'alt', then Enter.
See also: macOS Won’t Go To Sleep? Fix
How to open Terminal on your Mac
There are a number of different ways to open Terminal. So you may do one of the following:
As I stated above Terminal an app that can be found in /Applications/Utilities. To open it:
- Open Finder
- Click Applications
- Click Utilities
- And Click Terminal
Another way to open the Terminal app is to use Spotlight (Spotlight not working?). Here is how:
- Open the Spotlight window (you may press the Command and Space keys together or you may use the search icon in the menu bar)
- Type Terminal
- When it is highlighted, click to open it.
How to backup mac photos app files. And a different way to open is to use Launchpad. Here is how:
- Click Launchpad in the Dock
- In the search field, type Terminal
- And the click Terminal
Now, you’ll see a small window open on your desktop, as you can see below. The window will say your username and the word bash in the title. The window will include your last login info. Now you can run commands. Simply type it and hit enter to execute. Let’s try.
To quit Terminal, you may go to Terminal > Quit Terminal.
To close a shell session, enter exit and hit enter.
See also: How Do I Password Protect My Files & Folders In macOS?
Basic Terminal Commands
If you look at the Terminal window above, it says:
Serhats-MacBook-Pro:~ fskurt$
This means that the user (fskurt – this is me) is logged in to a Mac named Serthats-MacBook-Pro. The ~ sing indicates that my current folder is my home folder.
If you want to use Terminal, you need to know the most important commands. In this article, we will not give a lot of details but we will give you a few examples to give you ideas:
Please note that be extra careful when executing the sudo command. This command requires you to be logged in with an administrator account.
Example 1:
Let’s use Terminal to lists files and directories within a directory. Enter the following code in Terminal and hit enter:
In this command, ls is short for list. -l is an option, short for long. This means that with this option ls command will list out files and directories in long list format. And ~ is object. ~ means home folder. So this command will list all of our files in our home folder in a long list format.
Example 2:
Let’s ping a website. Please note that we can also do this using Network Utility.
Enter the following command in Terminal:
Please note that completing this command may take a little longer.
Airflow app license mac. Similarly, you can also run a traceroute command:
Example 3:
Do you want your Mac talking? Here is how you can do this. Enter the following command:
and hit enter.
Now your computer will say hello macreports.com
Example 4:
You can restart your Mac. Simply enter the following command in Terminal:
Keyboard shortcuts
Here are some useful shortcuts that can help you save time when using Terminal:
- New window: Command-N
- New tab: Command-T
- Next Tab: Control-Tab
- Previous Tab: Control-Shift-Tab
- New command: Shift-Command-N
- Show or hide tab bar: Shift-Command-T
- Edit title: Shift-Command-I
- Edit background-color: Option-Command-I
- Make fonts bigger or smaller: Command-Plus (+) or (-)
- Close all: Option-Shift-Command-W
- Page up or down: Command-Page Up or Page Down
- Line up or down: Option-Command-Page Up or Page Down
- Scroll to top or bottom: Command-Home or End
- Make fonts bigger or smaller: Command-Plus (+) or Minus (-)
How to change the look of the Terminal window
You can customize your Terminal window. You can customize many elements such as colors, fonts, background styles, etc. Here is how:
- Open the Terminal app
- Click Terminal and Preferences (from the Terminal’s menu bar).
- Click the Profiles tab.
On the left pane, there are a number of pre-existing profiles. You can select one. And then customize it. The one you are using will say “Default” under it.
If you want to change it, select one then click the Default icon.
You can also further customize this profile if you want to do so. You can also create your own custom profiles by clicking the (+) plus sign. You can also remove any of the pre-set profiles by clicking the (-) minus sign. You can also rename a profile by double-clicking the name of the profile and entering a new name.
There are two main ways to install PostgreSQL on mac OS X.
- Downloading the app file from postgresapp.com.
Using Homebrew
Homebrew can be installed by running the following command in a terminal:
/usr/bin/ruby -e '$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)'
If Homebrew is already installed, make sure that it is up to date by running:
brew update
Then ensure there are no conflicts or errors using:
brew doctor
Homebrew is a powerful package manager with many uses, including installing and running postgreSQL. This can be done by typing the following command into a terminal:
Now that postgres is installed the default server can be started by running the command:
This will start up a postgres server hosted locally on port 5432. The server will be run out of the directory
/usr/local/var/postgres
.It can now be accessed by typing the following command:
This will connect to the server and access the postgres database. Once this is done:
- Schemas and tables can be created
- Data can be loaded and deleted from the database
- Queries can be run
Osx Terminal Launch App
The process should look like this:
This shows that the server has been started and can be connected to.
(Optional) Creating a Custom Data Directory
A custom data directory can also be used for a server. To do this, first create a directory to be used as the server location. For example, create a directory called myData in the home directory:
Once the directory is created, the server can be initialized. This means that we configure the directory and add the necessary files to run the server. To do this run the
initdb
command as shown:This will fill the myData directory with files necessary to run the server:
Now that the server is initialized and the log file is created, you can start the server from this directory. To do this use the command and substitute in for the specified values:
https://everlite595.weebly.com/blog/allow-downloded-apps-on-mac. The “Data Directory” refers to the directory that was just initialized (in this case myData). The “Log file” is a file that will record server events for later analysis. Generally log files are formatted to contain the date in the file name (e.g. “2018-05-27.log” or “myData-logfile-2018-05-27.log”) and should be stored outside of the database that they are logging so as to avoid unnecessary risks. Log files can be dense to read but are very useful for security and debugging purposes:
The command above will generate a log file like the one shown, start the server, and tie the log file to the server. Macos allow all apps el capitan. If a log file is not specified, events will be logged to the terminal:
The server will only start if the port is free. If the default server is running it must first be stopped using the
pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres stop
command:Once started, it can be connected to the same way as before using:
Using PostgreSQL App
To run a server through the postgres app, the first step is to download the program. The app can be downloaded on postgresapp.com. Once the app is downloaded and moved into the applications folder, the app can be opened.
Open the Postgres app:
In order to start the server, click the start button.
This will start the server. Details on the server can be found by opening the server settings:
This interface shows all the essential information regarding the server. It also allows the port to be changed very easily. This is useful because multiple PostgreSQL servers can
Note: To change the port in the terminal, the ‘postgres.conf’ file (which can be found in the data directory) must be edited. This looks like the following:
Using Terminal with the PostgreSQL App
Once the app has been downloaded, command line tools can be used as well. These tools can be accessed by typing:
Mac Launch App Via Terminal
For example, the ‘postgres’ database on the server can be connected to using the psql tool with postgres as an argument:
Terminal App For Mac
Rather than typing out the full path each time however, the path can be added to a file that will allow significantly easier access to the tools, allowing the tools be accessed from any directory on the computer. To do this, the following command can be run in the terminal:
Once this is done, the ‘postgres’ database can be accessed by simply typing:
Summary
- Homebrew:
- Download/update Homebrew
- Use Homebrew to install postgres
- (Optional) Create New Data Directory
initdb
- Start Server
- App:
- Download app and move to Applications
- Run App
- (Optional) Set different port for multiple servers
- Start Server
- (Optional) Add path so that command line tools are easy to access
References
Written by: Matthew Layne
Reviewed by: Blake Barnhill , Matt David
Reviewed by: Blake Barnhill , Matt David