Useful built-in macOS command-line utilities

Although not built in, we have a list of easy to install command-line utilities for macOS.

https://terminaltrove.com/categories/macos/

You might find one you've never heard of that is useful! :)

I found a tool of mine submitted by someone else on the site (pleasant surprise!) and I want to update the description and add a more recent/better image. How would I do that?

Send us a message, we will update it very quickly!

https://terminaltrove.com/about/

Kinda related: does anyone else regularly finds CLI tools, installs them and never ever even call them once?

Ha, when I search through my history I usually find I ran them exactly once, right after installing, and then forgot all about them. But there are some exceptions, I often use httpie instead of curl, MTR is great, I am liking doggo instead of dig...

This looks like a list of cross-platform command line tools. What about it is Mac-specific?

That's the difference between recall memory and recognition memory. The GUI took off because we can recognize a menu and easily figure out where we need to go, versus having to memorize obscure and cryptic commands. Honestly having a LLM spit out command line arguments is probably the best way forward if things don't have a GUI.

It happens but Ctrl-R has helped me get much better at finding commands I’ve used even just once before based on some tiny thing I remember about them.