Output filename portion of file path
basename <path/file>
Output directory portion of file path
dirname <path/file>
Open a file
open <file>
Open the current directory in finder
open .
Open a file with the specified application (Mac OSX)
open -a /Applications/<app> <file>
Open file in the nano text editor
nano <file>
Show line endings for files (Unix: ASCII, DOS: ASCII + CRLF)
file <file>
Access remote mounts (such as Samba shares and external hard drives)
cd /Volumes
Copy a file (recursive copy / preserve symlinks)
cp <source> <destination>
cp -r <source> <destination>
cp -a <source> <destination>
Move or rename a file
mv <source> <destination>
Remove a file
rm <file>
Remove files and folders recursively without confirmation
rm -rf <dirname>
Symbolic link from source file to destination file
ln -s <destination> <source>
Requires rename via brew install rename
Rename files (-n or --dry-run to test rename output with making changes)
rename <transform> <file-glob>
Replace search string with replace string for matching files
rename -s <search> <replace> <file-glob>
Rename all txt files with a sequential number in the format text-1.txt
rename -e 's/.*/text-$N.txt/' *.txt
rename -N ...01 -X -e '$_ = "text-$N"' *.txt
Uppercase first letter of zip file name (-f to force rename on macOS when changing case)
rename -f 's/\b(\w)/\u$1/' *.zip
Create directories
mkdir <dir>
mkdir <dir1> <dir2> <dir3>
Create multiple directories and subdirectories in one step
mkdir -p dir1 dir2/subdir1 dir2/subdir2 dir3
Alternative syntax for multiple directories using array of items via {}
mkdir -p dir1/{subdir1,subdir2} dir2
Multiple directory syntax can be nested
mkdir -p tmp/{d1/{sd1,sd2},d2,d3/{sd3,sd4}}
Remove a directory
rmdir <dirname>
Create a sequence of files from a sigle copy
for FILE in {1..10}; do cp <file> <new-name>$FILE; done
Output the contents of the file
cat <file>
Join files together
cat <file1> <file2>
Create or overwrite a file and add content via the command line (end with CTRL + d on a fresh line)
cat > <file>
Append text via the command line to the file (end with CTRL + s)
cat >> <file>
Overwrite the contents of the file with text
echo "<text>" > <file>
Append the contents of file with the text
echo "<text>" >> <file>
Create an empty file
touch <file>
touch <file1> <file2> <file3>
Set modified date to current time
touch <file>
Set modified and accessed date to specific time (Time format: YYYYMMDDHHMM)
touch -t <time> <file>
touch -t 201001151445 <file>
Replicate modified date of source file and copy to target file
touch -r <source> <target>
Set creation date of file (SetFile requires xcode command line tools)
SetFile -d '<date> <time>' <file>
SetFile -d '01/15/2010 14:45:00' <file>
Output status information for file (use -f for selective metadata and output format)
stat <file>
Output file size followed by the file name
stat -f "%z %N" <file>
Display the first or last part of a file
head
tail
Paginate through a text file output directly in the terminal
more <filename>
Paginate through a text files output directly in the terminal (includes ability to go backwards)
less <filename>
Go to end of file
>
Go to end of file
<
Back one page
b
Forward one page
f