afconvert(1) - an audio file format converter, which includes Apple's superior AAC codec from the Core Audio framework
diskutil(8) - tons of tools for fixed and removable storage
open -n file.pdf : opens new instance of Preview application which is useful if you want to open the same file twice (for example to look at different pages at once).
caffeinate -d : prevents display turning off, useful if you want to look at display without moving mouse.
If you want the least useful macOS commandline utility, 'pdisk' is:
"...a menu driven program which partitions disks using the standard
Apple disk partitioning scheme described in "Inside Macintosh: Devices".
It does not support the Intel/DOS partitioning scheme[.]"
nc(1) - netcat, arbitrary TCP and UDP connections and listens
networkQuality - Speed test + network stress tool.
system_profiler(8) - Useful way to grab extensive system information in shell scripts.
wdutil(8) - wdutil provides functionality of the Wireless Diagnostics application in
command line form.
As they seem to have removed Bluetooth Explorer and all ways to get diagnostic info about the bluetooth system and/or change codecs and settings, does anybody know any good cmdline ways in later mac osxes to do the same?
For example I'm having a problem that comes and goes now and then where Bluetooth audio is 300 ms delayed compared to the video playback everywhere except in Youtube on Safari, very strange. It's good for a few months then suddenly it becomes unusable, then back to zero sync delay after a few months.
I was thinking this might be related to CODEC selections etc or some hidden setting that might get changed which we normally aren't allowed to determine :)
(btw I know there is a difference between latency and synchronization - latency might be unavoidable but video sync should always be able to compensate - I got curious on how exactly that works, where in the app / SDK / OS pipeline does the a/v sync happen on a Mac?)
Say you've got a directory that has scripts or data files related to some thing you do. For example I've got several scripts that I use when I scan books with my book scanner. I only need these when doing book scanning stuff so don't want to put them somewhere in $PATH. I want to be able to easily run them from scripts that aren't in that directory, but I don't want to hard code the path to that directory.
Solution: in the directory with the book scanning scripts I make a file named ID that contains a unique string. I currently use 16 byte random hex strings [1].
I have this script, named find-dir-by-ID, somewhere in $PATH:
#!/bin/zsh
ID=${1:?Must specific ID}
IDSHA=`echo $ID | shasum | cut -d ' ' -f 1`
mdfind $ID 2>/dev/null | grep /ID | while read F; do
FSHA=`shasum $F | cut -d ' ' -f 1`
if [ $IDSHA = $FSHA ]; then
dirname $F
exit 0
fi
done
exit 1
If some script wants to use scripts from my book scanning script directory, it can do this:
SCRIPT_DIR=`find-dir-by-ID 54f757919a5ede5961291bec27b15827`
if [ ! -d $SCRIPT_DIR ]; then
>&2 echo Cannot find book scanning scripts
exit 1
fi
and then SCRIPT_DIR has the full path to the scanning script directory.
The IDs do not have to be hex strings. If I'd thought about it more I probably would have made IDs look like this "book-scanning:54f757919a5ede59" or "arduino-tools:3b6b4f47bf803663".
[1] here's a script for that:
#!/bin/sh
N=${1:-8} # number of bytes
xxd -g $N -c $N -p -l $N < /dev/urandom
And for those of us who have to support macOS users:
sw_vers (to display the version/build of macOS),
dsenableroot (to enable the root user), and
say "phrase" (useful for freaking out users over a remote SSH connection)
plutil. Maybe not that useful to a lot of people but I have been going through and collecting bookmarks and Safari bookmarks are binary files. plutil is a means of converting the binary property file to a json or xml file.
I set a shell alias so I can just do `airport -s`. I've no idea why this is hidden away inside some framework and not in a directory which is in the normal path, but there you go.
What I'm really missing still is a cli to iCloud stored passwords. AFAIK 'security' cli can't access the credentials stored in the cloud. This would be helpful to store secrets outside of git but would still allow scriptable access to them similarly as 1password cli 'op' has.
Does anyone remember the shortcut that brings up a list of currently available keyboard shortcuts for the current app? It may not be built-in, in which case it was a free utility.
Looks like a lot of these have linux equivalents that could be aliased. I wonder if anyone's made a set of those for regular macos users who occasionally use something else.
> If you store your secrets in the Keychain (and you should!)
As part of the OS, Keychain suffers from the same sorts of sharp edges as using a built-in interpreter. An alternative is to use a password manager. Below is an example of the tools available in one.
I just remembered at a previous job where we were always paired and used team rather than individual iMacs for development that as a prank I ssh’d into the other iMac from my team and periodically would run open on a random URL which caused a Safari window to mysteriously pop up their system.
locate searches a database for all pathnames which match the specified pattern.
The database is recomputed periodically, (about once a week) and contains the path-names of all files which are publicly accessible.
pbcopy and pbpaste are among my top commandline utilities. If you are running linux in WSL, you can add the following to you path to recreate their functionality:
# pbpaste
#!/bin/bash
# Adapted from https://www.techtronic.us/pbcopy-pbpaste-for-wsl/
powershell.exe Get-Clipboard | sed 's/\r$//' | sed -z '$ s/\n$//'
exit 0
and
# pbcopy
#!/bin/bash
#Adapted from https://www.techtronic.us/pbcopy-pbpaste-for-wsl/
<&0 clip.exe
exit 0
There is also 'say' which is great if you need to step away from a long running command, in a similar fashion to ringing the terminal bell but with more context.
Useful built-in macOS command-line utilities
(weiyen.net)833 points by yen223 6 November 2024 | 232 comments
Comments
open -n file.pdf : opens new instance of Preview application which is useful if you want to open the same file twice (for example to look at different pages at once).
caffeinate -d : prevents display turning off, useful if you want to look at display without moving mouse.
(Uses built-in macOS capabilities for transcription from audio to text.)
Docs are at https://ss64.com/mac/diskutil.html
https://terminaltrove.com/categories/macos/
You might find one you've never heard of that is useful! :)
For me, increasing the number of icons in the launcher grid was very useful.
After running these three commands, the size of the Launcher will be set to 13x8 apps:
In general, a lot of parameters of different applications can be changed via command `defaults`https://macos-defaults.com/
To get a complete list of parameters, you can execute
To scare your teammates when you are logged in remotely optionally with
$ osascript -e "set volume output volume 100"
(shift+command+K) or Menu 'Shell' -> 'New Remote Connection...'
opens a SSH, S(FTP), TELNET connection manager window!
For example I'm having a problem that comes and goes now and then where Bluetooth audio is 300 ms delayed compared to the video playback everywhere except in Youtube on Safari, very strange. It's good for a few months then suddenly it becomes unusable, then back to zero sync delay after a few months.
I was thinking this might be related to CODEC selections etc or some hidden setting that might get changed which we normally aren't allowed to determine :)
(btw I know there is a difference between latency and synchronization - latency might be unavoidable but video sync should always be able to compensate - I got curious on how exactly that works, where in the app / SDK / OS pipeline does the a/v sync happen on a Mac?)
https://www.bresink.com/osx/0TinkerTool/download.php
/usr/bin/plutil -extract your.key.path raw -o - - <<< "$jsoninput"
(obviously, less useful now that `jq`is built in)
https://archive.is/kGmn6
Say you've got a directory that has scripts or data files related to some thing you do. For example I've got several scripts that I use when I scan books with my book scanner. I only need these when doing book scanning stuff so don't want to put them somewhere in $PATH. I want to be able to easily run them from scripts that aren't in that directory, but I don't want to hard code the path to that directory.
Solution: in the directory with the book scanning scripts I make a file named ID that contains a unique string. I currently use 16 byte random hex strings [1].
I have this script, named find-dir-by-ID, somewhere in $PATH:
If some script wants to use scripts from my book scanning script directory, it can do this: and then SCRIPT_DIR has the full path to the scanning script directory.The IDs do not have to be hex strings. If I'd thought about it more I probably would have made IDs look like this "book-scanning:54f757919a5ede59" or "arduino-tools:3b6b4f47bf803663".
[1] here's a script for that:
* atuin - TUI for shell history, backed by SQLite - https://github.com/atuinsh/atuin
* LSD (LSDeluxe) - rewrite of `ls` - https://github.com/lsd-rs/lsd
* ripgrep - https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep
* fzf - command-line fuzzy finder that enhances file search, command history search, and more - https://github.com/junegunn/fzf
Notes:
- To get pretty extra file/folder symbols with LSD, you'll probably need to install some special fonts.
- You can use `fzf` and `ripgrep` together.
$> long_running_command && say "Witness me, for I am done"
You can also change voices with -v. My favorite is "cellos" since it sings to you.
https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/
These are all guaranteed to work:
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/
(I may not have linked to the precisely correct version.)
https://keith.github.io/xcode-man-pages/plutil.1.html
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport -s
I set a shell alias so I can just do `airport -s`. I've no idea why this is hidden away inside some framework and not in a directory which is in the normal path, but there you go.
I use it most often for pulling lat lon data from photos.
https://ss64.com/mac/tmutil.html
But I don’t have uuidgen!
As part of the OS, Keychain suffers from the same sorts of sharp edges as using a built-in interpreter. An alternative is to use a password manager. Below is an example of the tools available in one.
https://developer.1password.com/docs/cli/get-started/#step-1...
networksetup was one of my favourites as well as du and caffeinate.
The 'security' command is new to me so thanks!
locate searches a database for all pathnames which match the specified pattern. The database is recomputed periodically, (about once a week) and contains the path-names of all files which are publicly accessible.
Very useful.
[1] https://github.com/BlueM/cliclick
might
Sigh. These are shell commands, not "Bash commands".