Commandline Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Use tmutil to take control of Time Machine in Mountain Lion

by Mike Schramm (Nov 7th, 2012)

Time Machine works best when you use it as it's designed: You simply let it run in the background and do its thing, only bothering it when you have to go back and get an old version of a document out. But if you ever want to do anything a little crazy with Time Machine ("adopting" a backup ...

Mac 101: Encode media from Automator or the command line in Lion

by Kelly Hodgkins (Nov 22nd, 2011)

There's an easy way in OS X 10.7 Lion to convert video or audio from one format to another, using a fixed suite of conversion settings. One approach uses Automator and can be launched from the Finder. The other uses the Terminal application and the afconvert (for audio) or avconvert (for video) ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: DTerm

by Samuel Gibbs (Aug 2nd, 2011)

The Terminal is a Mac power-user's best friend. When you need to get something specific done, access the underlying system, modify files or change some settings, command line is often the best and only way to get it done. Instead of having to go to it, DTerm brings the command line to ...

Five Dropbox tips for Mac Unix nerds

by TJ Luoma (Dec 14th, 2010)

Dropbox is already a very powerful utility for Mac OS X, but if you're knowledgable in Unix, you can make it even better. Here are five ways that you can use Unix to get more out of Dropbox. 1. I wanted to update my copy of the HTML processing tool Tidy today. I was happy to find instructions for ...

Terminal Tips: Unfreeze your Mac

by TJ Luoma (Jul 12th, 2010)

Look, it's nothing to be ashamed of, it happens to everyone: your Mac has frozen up and won't respond. I know, I know, for years we Mac folks used to love poking fun at Windows because it freezes up. Apple even made a commercial about it. As someone who has used both, I will say that I have seen ...

Use networksetup to change AirPort networks from the command line

by TJ Luoma (May 6th, 2010)

The other night I needed to change Wi-Fi networks on a computer that I was connected to via ssh. Just about every page that I found via Google led me to try the exact same thing (type "airport -A") with one minor problem: it didn't work. Let's back up a little bit. You may know that there is a ...

Rudix, a lightweight way to add new Unix utilities

by TJ Luoma (May 4th, 2010)

Rudix offers a collection of Unix utilities which do not come with OS X by default. When setting up a new Mac I always install these Unix utilities: wget, ncftp, lynx with SSL support, and the GNU Core Utilities. I compile them manually whenever possible, despite options like MacPorts or Fink. I ...

msmtp, a free tool to send email from Terminal

by TJ Luoma (May 4th, 2010)

I fully expected that my article on mailsend would lead to several "Why don't you use use XYZ instead?" replies, and it did. Suggestions included Ruby, Python, iPhone push notifications, and configuring postfix/sendmail. But one suggestion was to use msmtp, and that turned out to be the golden ...

Fix iPhone EXIF rotation from the command line

by TJ Luoma (Feb 17th, 2010)

My iPhone is the camera that i use more than any other, but there's one thing that has consistently annoyed me about it. Apple uses an EXIF tag to rotate images. This can be a problem when you share images with others. Safari will rotate the image correctly, but no other browser will. Adding to ...

Homebrew, the perfect gift for command line lovers

by Brett Terpstra (Dec 25th, 2009)

If you're an OS X user who spends as much time on the command line as you do in the GUI, you're probably familiar with the MacPorts and Fink package management projects, making open source software easier to compile and run on Mac OS X. You may also be well-aware of the shortcomings of these ...

Mac 10.6 comes with license to kill

by TJ Luoma (Sep 3rd, 2009)

The name's Leopard... Snow Leopard... and how I wish it was 10.7 instead of 10.6 so I could extend these hokey James Bond allusions further. That said, it is closer than the truth than you may think. Apple has given Snow Leopard a license to kill... but this doesn't have anything to do with ...

3.0 firmware release expected at 10am PT/1pm ET, quick Terminal tip to check

by Erica Sadun (Jun 17th, 2009)

Hey, iPhone 3G owners: Please do not download the 2,1 firmware files listed below. They are for the 3G S and will not work on your phone. Read the whole post for details. The correct firmware for the 3G will start with "iPhone1,2" instead. If you were up all night waiting for the new iPhone OS to ...

LiveChat: Pwnage and Beyond

by Erica Sadun (Jul 21st, 2008)

This weekend, the iPhone Dev Team delivered an iPhone 2.0 jailbreak. Today, TUAW invites you to chat about the jailbreak, about the new Cydia installer, and about the future of iPhone jailbreak development and use. Follow the jump to join in our discussion. ...

Mac 101: Get that "stuck" disc out of your Mac

by Cory Bohon (Jun 23rd, 2008)

Welcome to another Mac 101 here at TUAW. Mac 101 is our recurring feature where we point out some tips and tricks for folks new to the Mac. Remember, if you're a Mac expert this post isn't for you. Have you ever tried to unmount a disc in Mac OS X, but it simply wouldn't come out of your Mac's ...

Freeware Find: IceClean 3.0b

by Steven Sande (Jun 5th, 2008)

Most of us know that we should perform regular maintenance on our Macs, usually simple things such as doing backups and shaking pizza crumbs out of the keyboard. But did you know that there are a number of UNIX System Tasks that are available for keeping your Mac running at peak performance? A lot ...