macOS Commands

Basic macOS commands are rarely unique: most of them are inherited from Unix operating systems. If you’re familiar with one of the common Linux or Unix-like operating systems, you probably know all the basic MacOS commands you’ll need.

Uniquely MacOS Commands

These commands are found only on Mac platform (and not Linux), some originating from BSD:

• softwareupdate – controlling updates in your MacOS
• dscacheutil - flush DNS cache
• hdiutil – manipulating disk images (attach, verify, create)
  • Creating Bootable USB from ISO in macOS
  • ISO to USB on MacOS
• diskutil – disk and partitions manager
  • how to list disk partitions with diskutil
  • how to rename partition with diskutil
• sw_vers – confirm MacOS version
• scutil – manage system configuration
  • how to change hostname with scutil
• networksetup – network configuration tool
• kextstat – How To: list kernel extensions in macOS
• kextfind – find kernel extension files in macOS
  • Find kernel extensions in macOS

macOS Releases

• macOS Catalina
• macOS Big Sur
• macOS Ventura
• macOS Mojave
• macOS Sonoma
• macOS Sequoia

See Also

• MacOS
• Unix Commands
• Linux Commands