Understand the Mac Terminal/Command Line

Learn to navigate the Mac terminal with cd to home directory, mkdir to create folders, ls to list contents, and open to open directories; dot represents the current directory.

Navigate the Mac terminal using cd, ls, open, and mkdir to move from home to practice and test, list contents, backtrack with .., and use tab autocomplete.

Create and edit a text file with emacs, save and exit to see your work in the terminal, and use rm to delete files permanently.

Learn how to view files in the Mac Terminal using the built-in file viewer less, including opening files, exiting with q, and using autocomplete to speed up viewing without editing.

Learn how to move files between directories using the mv command, understand its syntax, and see examples moving text files to the home directory and back to practice/test.

Learn to copy files with the cp command, using cp source destination, and note that copying preserves the original file while placing copies in home or project directories.

Use the mv command to rename files in the Mac terminal, since there is no rename command. Move a file to a new name and beware overwriting an existing file.

Master history and up/down navigation to re-execute commands, clear the terminal, and use man pages for command help.

Learn to interpret terminal permissions using ls -l, decipher user, group, and other access, and convert read, write, execute into numeric codes (4,2,1) for files and directories.

Learn to view and modify file permissions with chmod, interpreting user, group, and others bits (rwx and 7-5-5, 6-4-4), and avoid lockouts and overly permissive settings such as 777.

Switch between user accounts with su and a target username and password. Confirm your active user with who am i, note file permissions like 700, then exit to return.

Learn how to switch users by prefixing commands with sudo to execute as root, without logging into the root account, and why sudo is safer and used for single commands.

Change a file’s owner in the Mac terminal with chown, and use sudo to run as root when operation not permitted.

Master the wild card operator, an asterisk, to run commands on multiple files at once. Learn patterns that match endings or starts to move or copy files, with caution.