OS X Terminal Tutorials [closed]

So, I am started to get settled into everyday life with my Mac now and want to be able to utilise the power of the Terminal.

Can you provide any good tutorials or sources which will help me learn?


Local files

  • /usr/share/doc/bash/bashref.html - Bash Reference Manual
  • /usr/share/doc/bash/bash.html - man bash

Guides or tutorials

  • mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide (from Greg's Wiki, for beginners)
  • tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html
  • tldp.org/LDP/abs/html - Advanced Bash Scripting Guide

Lists of commands and tips

  • commandlinefu.com/commands/browse/sort-by-votes
  • Got any tips or tricks for Terminal in Mac OS X? - Apple - Stack Exchange
  • What are useful Command-line Commands on Mac OS X? - Server Fault
  • leftcolumn.net/2009/02/15/40-useful-mac-os-x-shell-scripts-and-terminal--commands
  • michael-hogg.co.uk/os_x_terminal.php (overviews of the options and usage of a few commands)

Specific topics

  • tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/internalvariables.html
  • tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/parameter-substitution.html
  • skorks.com/2009/09/bash-shortcuts-for-maximum-productivity (readline shortcuts)
  • wttools.sourceforge.net/emacs-stuff/emacs-keybindings.html
  • grymoire.com/Unix/Find.html
  • grymoire.com/Unix/Sed.html
  • sed.sourceforge.net/sed1line.txt
  • Customizing Your Bash Command Prompt - Super User Blog
  • CodeSnippets: Searching with grep & Spotlight's kMDItemDisplayName
  • imagemagick.org/Usage

Searching for help

  • If you use less to view man pages, press h to show a list of keyboard shortcuts
    • q exits less
    • b and f scroll a page backward or forward
    • / starts a search
    • p and n go to the previous or next search result
  • Add stackoverflow.com/search?q=[shell]+or+[bash]+{query} somewhere like OmniBox or Alfred
  • help <builtin>

Well, there is always Apple´s official command line guide (PDF, free) but back when I learned my way around the Terminal, I found Unix for the beginning Mage (PDF, free) quite entertaining and educational (given it suits your humour).

If you´d rather go for a book, I´d highly recommend "The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix Under the Hood".


To quickly get better and do cool things with the command line, you should really go on : commandlinefu.com.

The site is filled with cool tricks and technics that work great (most of the time) on MAC, Linux and many other Unix systems.

Also, you may have fun going on this other great site : ss64.com. This one is more geared at the technicalities of the commands, but still very usefull!

Have fun!