Advanced macOS Command-Line Tools

macOS is fortunate to have access to the huge arsenal of standard Unix tools. There are also a good number of macOS-specific command-line utilities that provide unique macOS functionality. To view the full documentation for any of these commands, run man .

caffeinate - set Mac sleep behavior
Running caffeinate with no flags or arguments prevents your Mac from going to sleep as long as the command continues to run.

caffeinate -u -t prevents sleep for the specified number of seconds.

Adding the -d flag also prevents the display from going to sleep.

Specifying an existing process with -w automatically exits the caffeinate command once the specified process exits.

Passing a command with caffeinate starts the given command in a new process and prevents sleep until that process exits.

pbcopy, pbpaste - interact with system clipboard
| pbcopy copies the output of the command to the clipboard.

pbpaste outputs the contents of the clipboard to stdout.

networkQuality - measure Internet speed
Run networkQuality to run an Internet speed test from your Mac.

Add the -v flag to view more detailed information.

Use the -i flag to run the network test on a specific network interface.

sips - image manipulation
sips -z resizes the specified image, ignoring the previous aspect ratio.

sips -Z resizes the largest side of the specified image, preserving the aspect ratio.

sips -c crops the specified image to the given dimensions (relative to the center of the original image).

sips -r rotates the image by the specified degrees.

By default, sips will destructively overwrite the input image. Use the -o flag to specify a different output file path (which must have the same file extension as the input image).

open - open files and applications
open -a opens the given file with the specified application.

open . opens the current directory in a new Finder window.

textutil - document file converter
textutil can convert files to and from Microsoft Word, plain text, rich text, and HTML formats.

textutil -convert html journal.doc converts journal.doc into journal.html.

The possible values for -convert are: txt, html, rtf, rtfd, doc, docx.

mdfind, mdls - search with Spotlight
mdfind performs a keyword-based Spotlight search with the given query.

mdfind kMDItemAppStoreHasReceipt=1 finds all apps installed from the Mac App Store.

mdfind -name searches for all files matching the given name.

The -onlyin

flag restricts the search to the given directory.

mdls prints all Spotlight metadata associated with the given file.

screencapture - take screenshots
screencapture -c takes a screenshot and copies it to the clipboard.

screencapture takes a screenshot and saves it to the given file.

Add the -T flag to take the screenshot after the given delay in seconds.

taskpolicy - control scheduling of processes
taskpolicy -b starts executing the given command in the background. On Apple silicon Macs, the process will only run on the efficiency cores.

taskpolicy -b -p downgrades an existing process to run in the background.

taskpolicy -B -p removes the specified process from running in the background. On Apple silicon Macs, the process may now run on the efficiency or performance cores. Note that this only works on processes that have been downgraded to the background, and not processes that started in the background.

taskpolicy -s starts the given command in the suspended state. This is useful to allow a debugger to attach to the process right at the start of execution.

say - text-to-speech engine
say announces the given message.

say -f input.txt -o output.aiff creates an audiobook from the given text file.

pmset - configure power management
pmset -g prints all available power configuration information.

pmset -g assertions displays information about power-related assertions made by other processes. This can be useful for finding a process that is preventing your Mac from going to sleep.

pmset -g thermlog displays information about any processes that have been throttled (useful when running benchmarks).

pmset displaysleepnow immediately puts the display to sleep without putting the rest of the system to sleep.

pmset sleepnow immediately puts the entire system to sleep.

networksetup - configure network settings
networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder prints a list of available network services.

networksetup -getinfo prints information about the specified network service.

networksetup -getdnsservers prints the DNS servers for the specified network service.

networksetup -setairportnetwork [password] joins the specified Wi-Fi network. (In most cases, the argument should be “en0”.)

qlmanage - manage Quick Look
qlmanage -p opens a Quick Look preview window of the given file.

qlmanage -m prints status information about the Quick Look server process.

qlmanage -r restarts the Quick Look server process.

qlmanage -r cache resets the Quick Look thumbnail cache.

softwareupdate - manage OS updates
softwareupdate –list prints out available software updates.

sudo softwareupdate -ia installs all available updates.

softwareupdate –fetch-full-installer –full-installer-version tries to download the full installer of the specified macOS version to /Applications.

system_profiler - view system information
system_profiler by default prints all available system information, which is usually overwhelming.

system_profiler only prints information about the given sub-system.

system_profiler -listDataTypes lists all available sub-systems to get information from.

Some particularly useful ones:

system_profiler SPHardwareDataType prints an overview of the hardware of the current machine, including its model name and serial number.

system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType prints an overview of the software of the current machine, including the exact macOS version number.

system_profiler SPPowerDataType prints power and battery information, including the current AC wattage and battery cycle count.

system_profiler SPDeveloperToolsDataType prints the currently active version of the Xcode developer tools and SDK.