Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

The Terminal is a very powerful tool that comes with the Mac. It gives access to the core operating system via a command line. One of the cool things the Terminal can for you is to change hidden preferences.

There are many "hidden" files on every Mac. These hidden files contain folder icons, system data, and application information. Some of these can can be removed and they can take up a large amount of storage. There is an easy Terminal command to show and hide these files.

For those who use OS X at its core level (UNIX, aka Darwin), a very handy utility is the Terminal.app. Terminal.app is a quick way to drop down to the UNIX level of the operating system and perform some deep level coding. Or it can also be a way to navigate around the operating system if point-and-click isn't your thing.

With Lion Terminal.app got a few cool features, one of which is making windows blur when in the background. This is especially handy when you have multiple windows open at the same time, but want to focus on one. However, there seems to be a drawback to Lion's version of Terminal.app and that is Lion's Auto Save feature.

Few people have used the Terminal application and even fewer understand it. The goal of this new series of articles at T-GAAP will teach Mac users to use the Terminal and its commands to change the way the Mac OS runs.

The Terminal gives users access to some pretty powerful tools inside the Mac OS. These tools allow you to get under the hood of the OS engine in a new way. The first article will give just a taste of the power inside the Terminal application.