20 Awesome Command Line Tools for the Mac

Great tools for the Macintosh Terminal (yes it has one, in the Utilities folder)

Htop terminal client for the Mac

To use these, checkout Homebrew , the Macintosh package manager (after getting Homebrew, use the command "brew install <file name>" to download and install most of these apps)

Reprinted from my LinuxTech website …

Shells (think of it as the command prompt, sort of):

1. Fish — “Friendly interactive shell”, shell replacement for BASH (the standard Mac Terminal shell), provides command coloring, tab completions, themes and well awesomeness
2. Zsh / Oh my Zsh — Shell replacement for BASH if you need / want POSIX compliance (if you don’t know what POSIX is, we recommend Fish) — If you use this shell replacement, we recommend going here to get a ton of tips on using zsh

Tools:

1. Micro — As discussed above, a really cool text editor that provides syntax highlighting and more (otherwise we recommend Vim as an alternative)

• See our new article on Micro, and how to use it here

1. Ranger — A directory / file explorer providing an easier way to find files via the terminal — sort of like Windows Explorer for the console.
2. Ncdu — Must-have tool that easily figures out how much space is on a system, and where big files / directories are lurking — kinda like WinDirTree for Windows
3. Bat — a Linux “cat” command alternative, provides syntax highlighting and enumeration in a clean, efficient interface — we love this, and think you would too
4. MTR-tiny — A package that combines ping and traceroute into a single tool with superpowers to isolate networking issues
5. Lnav — As discussed above, a tool to explore and decipher all of those pesky cryptic log files you need to review in order to troubleshoot an issue
6. Rtorrent — terminal based BitTorrent client — for all that (ahem) legal downloading you do ;-)
7. Ned — because sed sucks — yes it does
8. MyCli — Console client for MySql / MariaDB databases that does auto-completion and syntax highlighting — As most services with a web interface have a database in the back-end
9. Glances — Console (and web) based server monitoring tool (like top on steroids) — See what’s going on “at a glance”, we use this often to monitor web services
10. Taskwarrior — Manage ToDo / task lists from the console — We like our Markdown GUI clients for individual lists, but this is mighty useful when you don’t have a GUI
11. Calcurse — Calendar and appointment tool for the console — Again, for when you don’t have a GUI to run Google Chrome / Firefox etc.
12. Htop — Top clone with syntax highlighting and mouse support — The go-to must-have command line tool to understand what a Linux system is doing
13. Pandoc — document converter — Have a MediaWiki or .doc file you need to turn into html? This will do it, as well as whole lot more.
14. FireJail — a Type of chroot jail to sandbox processes, services, and or apps so they have less of a chance of affecting the greater environment — This is one approach, another is to use a Docker container, in specific circumstances
15. Docker — the primary program to deploy services and or apps as containers — review the links and this cheatsheet for more, invaluable to development / DevOps
16. ELinks — as above, the best app for browsing the web via the command line — The web without a GUI is mighty boring, but sometimes you just need it
17. HTTPie — A curl-like tool to interact with HTTP servers — For those who use or interact with web servers

Games:

• Nudoku — Sudoko for the console / terminal (available also for the Mac via homebrew) — it’s not all about work
• Ninvaders — Play space invaders via the console (available also for the Mac via homebrew) — Because 80’s Atari games never ever get old…
• Bastet — A Tetris clone for the console — C’mon it’s Tetris, for the console … how isn’t this cool?