Quick Links

You can use your Mac's Terminal to download files, test your internet speed, convert images, or even listen to Pandora. All this and more is just a couple of Homebrew installations away.

We've shown you a bunch of terminal tricks in macOS, all based on software that comes with the operating system itself. But you can do even more with the right free software, and thankfully, there's a great package manager called Homebrew that lets you install loads of useful command line utilities. Check out our guide to installing Homebrew, if you haven't already, then come back here to check out some of the best tools it offers.

Related: How to Install Homebrew on a Mac

Download Anything With wget

wget-homebrew-mac

The ultimate download tool, wget, is great for downloading individual files or even downloading an entire website. And it's easy to install with Homebrew. Just run:

        brew install wget
    

Then you can use wget to download whatever youwant. If you wanted to download the latest version of Wordpress, for example, you'd run this command:

        wget https://wordpress.org/latest.zip
    

But this doesn't stop at individual files. You can download entire directories, using a command like this:

        wget ‐‐level=1 ‐‐recursive ‐‐no-parent http://www.examplesite.egg/neatfiles/
    

We're really just scratching the surface here, but if you type

        wget --help
    

you'll learn a lot more.

Test Your Internet Speed With speedtest_cli

speedtest-cli-mac

We've shown you how to test your internet connection speed using your browser, but wouldn't it be faster just to open the Terminal and type a command? Yes, and installing this capability is simple:

        brew install speedtest_cli
    

You can run the test by typing

        speedtest-cli
    

or

        speedtest_cli
    

in the Terminal. You'll get the same results as the web version, just with a lot less visual clutter.

Check The Weather With ansiweather

ansiweather-mac-terminal

Get a weather forecast from the Terminal? Why not! Again, it's easy to install.

        brew install ansiweather
    

Using this one is a little tricky, because you have to specify your location. Here's what that looked like for me:

        ansiweather -l Hillsboro,OR -u imperial
    
  •         ansiweather
        
    is the name of the program
  •         -l
        
    lets me set the location, and
            Hillsboro,OR
        
    is where I live.
  •         -u
        
    lets me set which units to use, and I opted for
            imperial
        
    because I live in the USA and that's how they do things here.

You can read more details on the ansiweather GitHub page, if you're interested. This application probably isn't one you'll use every day, but could be awesome if you've set up GeekTool to customize your desktop.

Crunch Numbers With calc

calc-terminal-mac

Turn your Terminal into a complete calculator by installing:

        brew install calc
    

Launch

        calc
    

and you can start typing equations, as shown in the screenshot. If you need some help learning what characters to use, just type

        help intro
    

and read the resulting tutorial. The program is quite powerful once you learn it, so dive in.

Customize Your Dock With dockutil

dockutil-working-mac

We've shown you ways to customize your dock, but dockutil goes just a little bit further, and is quick to install.

        brew install dockutil
    

The tool can do many things, including add a dock icon for any website. Here's how that command looks for Facebook:

        dockutil --add http://www.facebook.com --label Facebook
    

A quick breakdown for you:

  •         dockutil
        
    is the name of the program
  •         --add
        
    tells the program to add an icon. The URL following this tells the program which website I'd like to point to; you can also point to applications or folders.
  •         --label
        
    lets me name the dock icon, which I've opted to call Facebook.

You'll need to reset your dock for the new icon to show up:

        killall Dock
    

Just like that, you'll see a Dock icon for launching Facebook.

facebook-dock-icon

You can also add applications, folders, and blank spaces. For information on all this and more, check out the dockutil page on Github.

Convert Images With ImageMagick

imagemagick-conversion

We've already explained how to convert and resize images with imagemagick in Linux, and everything works the same way for Mac users. First, install imagemagick using Homebrew:

        brew install imagemagick
    

Now you can start using the application to do all sorts of things. For example, if you wanted to convert a file from a PNG to a JPG, you'd run:

        convert example.png example.jpg
    

You can do a lot more than just convert files, too. Here at How-To Geek, for example, put a 1 pixel black border on our images, and I do it with this command:

        convert -border 1x1 -bordercolor black testing.png result.png
    

There's a lot of power to unpack here, so feel free to dive in--check out our original guide for tons of useful info.

Listen To Pandora With pianobar

pianobar-terminal-mac

Using the terminal to listen to music may seem like a gimmick, but it's actually awesome. Pianobar streams Pandora to your computer with great keyboard shortcuts, without the big Flash-y site, and without commercials. Again, you can install with one command.

        brew install pianobar
    

Launch

        pianobar
    

and you'll be asked for your Pandora account info, then you're ready to rock. You can pick from among your stations using numbers, and keyboard shortcuts let you do things like skip tracks and love songs. Press "?" to see a full list of shortcuts.

Toggle Dark Mode With darkmode

Mac users have been able to turn their menu bar black for a while now, a feature called "Dark Mode". This Terminal application lets you toggle that mode one and off quickly from the Terminal. Installation, again, is easy:

        brew install darkmode
    

Once installed, you can toggle your menu bar between dark mode and light mode with a simple command: 

        dark-mode
    

. Run that, and your menu bar will switch color schemes. It's a quick thing, sure, but someone with some scripting experience could put it to good use.

Play With cowsay, Which Is Mandatory

cowsay-hello

For some reason, no roundup of command prompt tools for beginners is complete without mention of cowsay. Type cowsay, followed by any sentence, and an ascii cow will say it back to you. Magical. Installing, once again, is easy with Homebrew.

        brew install cowsay
    

You can actually get so much more than cows from this. Here's how to get a list of all supported creatures:

        cowsay -l
    

You can make any of these creatures say your words by using the

        -f
    

variable. For example, if you want a dragon to say "hello", you can do that:

        cowsay -f dragon hello
    
dragon-hello

You know what? That's actually a fairly decent tutorial for learning the command line. No wonder every list like this seems to include this otherwise useless tool. Enjoy!