Mac Terminal Alternative
Fun Hacks For Mac Terminal 2018 Trailer
Life Hacks For 2018

Terminal app can be daunting at first, but it’s really the best way to hack into your Mac’s configurations and preferences to customize things to work for you rather than against you. Unix is the core of OS X, but to get at it you need the command-line interface, which terrifies a lot of people. This hack demystifies the command line by showing you the fun that’s baked in! Then use this fun hack: go the Terminal command line and type in “caffeinate” and press Enter. Voila, your Mac will never go to sleep again (unless you cancel this command, of course) Not only will these tips save you precious time, but it will also make you more efficient and organized and enable you to finish your work faster.

Terminal app can be daunting at first, but it’s really the best way to hack into your Mac’s configurations and preferences to customize things to work for you rather than against you. With the right Terminal commands, you can tweak the Finder, mess with the user interface, build a more private and secure Mac, and even enable features that aren’t officially supported on older Macs.

If you're not, the Terminal is an application included in every version of OS X into the Utilities folder which provides a command line interface to manually control your Mac. In this roundup I've collected the best links about Terminal.app: you'll find the best commands, hacks and tips to get the most out of it. Unix is the core of OS X, but to get at it you need the command-line interface, which terrifies a lot of people. This hack demystifies the command line by showing you the fun that’s baked in!

Here are a few of the better ones.

Hack The Finder

The Finder can be hacked a bit using the Terminal, of course, so we figured we could show you a few tricks, too. Here’s how to hack up the Finder a bit to make it work better for you.

Show Hidden Files

The Finder hides many configuration files in the finder, some of which you might want to get into to change things. Most of the time, these files should stay hidden or left alone, but we’re not interested in playing it safe all the time. If you want to see all the files on your Mac for your own reasons, launch Terminal and type or paste in the following command:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

Then, issue the command to restart the Finder (killall Finder) and hit the Return key.

If, after you’ve found the hidden files you were looking for, you want to return the Finder to its pristine, hidden-file state, simply do the same thing, except change TRUE to FALSE, and you’ll be good to go.

Change Screenshot Formats

Taking a screenshot in OS X is as simple as hitting Command-Shift-3 for the whole screen, and Command-Shift-4 for a selection portion of your screen. These screenshots end up on your Desktop in the Finder, and by default are PNG files. If you want to change that default to, say, JPG or PDF, simply type or paste the following command into Terminal.

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type file-extension

Just be sure to change “file-extension” above with the three letter suffix for the file type you want. So, if you want your screenshots to default to jpeg files, simply type or paste the following: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type JPG, and you’ll be good to go.

Show File Path Info

Sometimes, it can get confusing as to where you’re at in the Finder, especially if you have a lot of folders open in windows, and they have similar names. A neat way to remind yourself where you are is to enable the Path View in the title bar of your Finder windows. To do so, simply enter the following into your Terminal app.

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

Now your Finder windows will all show you the file path structure, so you’ll be able to figure out where exactly you are when you get lost in a plethora of open folders and files. Slick!

Hack The User Interface

Now, let’s look at some commands you can issue in the Terminal to mess around with the user interface, to help you use your Mac the way you want, rather than the way they want. Whoever they are.

Disable Window Animations

Mountain Lion has a window animation that make things look slick, but can slow down vital workflow, especially on older Macs. To get rid of this subtle but occasionally annoying feature, zoom up to open animation, and issue the following command into your Terminal app:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false

Now the windows will just appear without any opening animations, which should help things feel a bit snappier when running OS X on an older Mac. Change false to true to bring it back.

Get Rid Of Smooth Scrolling

When you launch a Safari window that needs scrolling and hit the space bar, OS X is set up to animate the scrolling down motion, so it feels smooth and silky. Some users complain about this effect being jerky and unattractive on Retina Macbooks, and would like to disable it. All you need to do is issue the following command into Terminal:

defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool NO

Now, when you hit the space bar in Safari or other scrolling windows, it will jump right to the next area on the page, rather than animating down. Change NO to YES to get it back.

Dump The Rubber Banding Effect

Mac Terminal Alternative

When you’re scrolling up or down in any OS X application, including the Finder, you may notice a sort of bouncy, rubber-band effect when you scroll past the top or bottom of a page or list too quickly. This mimics iOS beahvior, which is aesthetically pleasing, but it can be annoying at times, or slow down your process on an older Mac. To get rid of this feature, type or paste the following Terminal command:

defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -int 0

Now this only works in some apps, so you’ll have to quit them and relaunch to make sure. Safari or Chrome don’t seem to lose the effect, but Finder and Evernote do, so play around with it to see if the apps you want to disable this within will work.

Enable Key Repeats

It used to be simple to get a repeated key on your Mac; just hold down any key and it would repeat after a certain amount of delay time. Now, however, in many OS X apps like TextEdit, you can’t do that anymore, as an alternate character popup menu will appear if you hold down a key that has those associated with it. If you want to get rid of that popup feature, and get your key repetition back, simply issue the following command in Terminal:

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

Now you can hold down any key and get a repeat. Yessssssssss!

Make Your Mac More Secure

Now, we’re going to spend a little time with Terminal commands to make your Mac just a bit more secure and private. Feel free to follow along at home.

Read more at http://www.cultofmac.com/214558/mastering-terminal-to-hack-for-better-security/#PV7UucS3J1Zffkom.99

Erase Free Hard Drive Space Securely

When you delete files from your Mac’s hard drive, they don’t actually go anywhere. What gets deleted is your Mac’s ability to use them in any functional way. When new files are put on the Mac, they might (or might not) overwrite some or all of the older, already-trashed files. To keep your files private, you might want to securely delete files from the Trash, and you might also want to delete all the files from the free space on your Mac.

To do so, simply type or paste the following command into Terminal:

diskutil secureErase freespace 3/Volumes/hard-drive-name

Replace “hard-drive-name” with the actual name of your hard drive, and then hit enter. You’ll get a progress bar, and if you have a big drive, it will take some time, as it overwrites each sector 35 times, five times as much as the US Department of Defense recommends, so you can assume it’s safely removed. This will get rid of any lingering files that you’ve already thrown away on your Mac, but didn’t do so securely.

Reset Privacy Data On Your Mac

We all add new apps all the time, and in our socially-networked world, it’s hard not to jsut give the apps the permissions they need to run, and then move on. Somet

Fun Hacks For Mac Terminal 2018