macOS includes a wealth of Darwin UNIX commands and system administration utilities for controlling GUI subsystems, daemons, and system services directly from the Terminal.
System Services & Daemon Paths
~/Library/LaunchAgents # Per-user agents provided by the user
/Library/LaunchAgents/ # Per-user agents provided by administrator
/Library/LaunchDaemons/ # System-wide daemons provided by administrator
/System/Library/LaunchAgents/ # macOS native per-user agents
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ # macOS native system daemons
List active services:
launchctl list
Finder & Dock Tweaks
# Hide / Show all desktop icons
defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool false && killall Finder
defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true && killall Finder
# Single-app mode for Dock (clicking an app hides all other windows)
defaults write com.apple.dock single-app -bool true && killall Dock
defaults delete com.apple.dock single-app && killall Dock
# Show hidden files in Finder
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true && killall Finder
Networking & DNS Cache
# Flush DNS resolver cache
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
# Configure SOCKS proxy via CLI
sudo networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxy Wi-Fi 127.0.0.1 1080
sudo networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxystate Wi-Fi on
sudo networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxystate Wi-Fi off
Spotlight Indexing (mdutil)
# Disable Spotlight indexing across all volumes
sudo mdutil -a -i off
# Disable indexing for a specific drive mount point
sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/ExternalDrive
# Exclude a directory from Spotlight indexing
touch /path/to/folder/.metadata_never_index
Essential macOS Command-Line Utilities
| Tool | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
open |
Opens files, URLs, or apps as if double-clicked | open -a "Google Chrome" https://example.com |
pbcopy |
Copies standard input to system clipboard | cat id_rsa.pub | pbcopy |
pbpaste |
Prints system clipboard contents to stdout | pbpaste > output.txt |
sips |
Scriptable image processing system | sips -Z 640 image.jpg |
screencapture |
Capture screenshots from CLI | screencapture -i screenshot.png |
textutil |
Batch converts text formats (HTML, docx, rtf) | textutil -convert html document.rtf |
tmutil |
Controls Time Machine backups | tmutil startbackup |
mdfind |
Searches files using Spotlight database | mdfind "kMDItemKind == 'PDF'" |