#Open terminal on mac how to#

To launch Terminal on an Intel-based Mac, you need to boot your Mac into macOS Recovery modeВ by holding down Command + R keys until you see the startup screen at restarting.ДЇor M1 Macs, you need to shut down the computer first and press the power button until you see 'Loading startup options', then click Option > Continue.

#Open terminal on mac how to#

How to open Terminal from macOS Recovery mode? If you prefer to open Terminal on Mac with a keyboard only, you need to create a shortcut. If you plan to use Terminal often, you can pin it on the Dock by right-clicking on the Terminal icon and choosing 'Keep in Dock' from the Options menu. You can also find it in the Utilities folder under Applications in Finder. Then you can type in 'Terminal' and double-click the appeared Terminal. Click on the small magnifying glass icon at the top-right corner of your Mac or press Command + Space keys at the same time to launch Spotlight.

The easiest way to open Terminal is from SpotlightВ search. Otherwise, you can access it from the macOS Recovery mode. If your Mac works well, you can launch Terminal from Desktop through Spotlight or Finder. The Terminal app provides a command-line interface on Mac computers to allow you to control the operating system quickly and efficiently to perform tasks a graphical user interface is unable or requires more effort to deliver. Generally speaking, people use two interfaces to communicate with computers: GUI (graphic user interface) and CLI (command-line interface).

Let's start with some basics to help you dig deeper and work with complicated tasks in the future. It has the advantages of being more efficient with tasks, troubleshooting issues, and repairing disks through SSH or Mac Single User ModeВ when you lost access to the user account. It's actually quite useful for people who are used to command lines. We are all familiar with the GUI that we use daily to interact with our Macs, but not so much with the Mac command-line interface - Terminal.