Learn essential terminal commands for both Windows and Mac. No prior experience required.
All commands are shown for both Windows PowerShell and Mac Terminal. Your operating system was detected automatically, but you can toggle between them.
The command line (also called the terminal or CLI) is a text-based way to control your computer. Instead of clicking buttons and icons, you type commands and press Enter.
You might wonder: why would anyone type commands when they could just click? Good question. The command line is faster for many tasks, easier to automate, and some things simply cannot be done any other way. Most AI tools are designed to be used from the command line.
Windows and Mac use different command line programs with different commands:
C:\Users\name/Users/nameThe command line is powerful. Commands run immediately with no "Are you sure?" prompts. A delete command will delete files instantly. Always double-check commands before pressing Enter, especially if they came from the internet.