Programmers need the extra level of depth that the terminal offers to do their work, while the average user rarely does. That’s why lots of people tend to associate using the terminal with being a programmer. Many of these commands supplement things you can do with a mouse and keyboard, but once you get past those, you’ll run into thousands of features that aren’t possible without the terminal. This means you interact with the terminal by typing in keywords and phrases (i.e., commands) that tell the terminal what to do.

Unlike a traditional app (or GUI app), where you navigate by clicking buttons with the mouse, the terminal is a LUI app. That said, it’s far from dangerous to experiment with. In short: The Mac terminal is an app that gives you greater control over your Mac, but has a learning curve and the occasional risk. You can technically ruin your Mac by entering certain commands into the terminal (make sure you copy trusted commands from the internet on sites like StackExchange) but it’s unlikely that you’ll run into these commands during daily use. When I was first learning how the terminal worked, I remember worrying that I was going to enter the wrong command and completely brick my Mac.īut Apple doesn’t give you this kind of power easily. The Mac terminal is not a way to “hack” your computer, and it generally isn’t going to break your computer.

Kind of like lifting the hood of your car and poking around the engine, but for your Mac’s software. In simpler terms, you can think of it as an app that gives you access to a deeper level of your Mac’s operating system. The Mac terminal is the built-in shell environment on Mac that allows you to directly issue UNIX commands.

The fundamental Mac terminal commands: history, clear, *, and sudo,.

Know how to navigate your computer using the Mac terminal.

Commands are always executed in your current location.