Terminal: an interface where the user types and executes text based commands.

I’ll admit that when I first opened the terminal in 2014, I disliked it. At the time, I strongly believed that using a Graphical User Interface, such as Finder on Mac, was much faster for things like deleting, copying, and creating files and folders. The tutorials and articles I would read kept insisting that the terminal was 🔑, though, so I kept going.
I’m glad I pushed through and kept learning to use the terminal! Eventually, with practice and consistency, the understanding and speed came. Now I barely use the GUI for managing my file system.
That said, the road wasn’t all smooth. There were a lot of terminal commands thrown at me during my journey. How was I supposed to memorize all of them??!!? At once?!?!

To prevent you from going through the same anxieties. I compiled a list of my Top Fave ❤️ Terminal shortcuts. 😁

ls List files and directories (Folders)

cd Change directory
pwd Print Working Directory (Shows the full pathname of the current working directory)

touch Create a new file

mkdir Create a new directory

cp Copy files or directories

mv Move (rename) files or directories

rm Remove files
rm -r Remove Directories & files in
Note: Therm command is really powerful. It deletes files/directories without recovery. (It doesn’t go to the trash bin)

Ctrl + A Gets the cursor at the beginning of the line
Ctrl + E Gets the cursor to the end.

Cmd + k (Mac) `Ctrl + L (Linux/Mac) Clears the Terminal Screen

And now for my absolute favorite ❤️: Tab auto-completion!

If you’re trying to remember a command, type at least one letter and hit tab twice and it will show you all the commands available based on the typed characters. If you type enough characters and only one match is left then it’ll auto-complete it for you. This works with all UNIX commands and even your file system.

Now go on and jump into your terminal, start playing with it & work your way towards becoming the terminal-ator. 😎

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This article originally published on the Color Coded Medium publication