Terminal is a handy tool for giving your Mac commands although many may be intimidated by it. After all, it’s not as easy as just typing in a sentence and your Mac responding. We have some articles listed below that can help you with common commands if you’re interested in learning to use Terminal or if you just want to enter a command or two.

Either way, before you can use it, you have to open it, right? There are various methods for opening it; here are six simple ways to open Terminal on Mac.

Open Terminal using Spotlight Search

One of the quickest and easiest ways to open Terminal on Mac is with Spotlight Search.

1) If you have the Spotlight Search button in your menu bar, click it. Otherwise, you can use the keyboard shortcut Command + Space.

2) Type in “Terminal”.

3) You should see the Terminal application under Top Hit at the top of your results. Double-click it and Terminal will open.

Open Terminal using Finder

Open Finder or make sure that your menu bar is using Finder and not another application.

1) Click Go > Utilities from the menu bar.

2) In the Utilities folder that opens, double-click Terminal.

Open Terminal using the Applications folder

If you have a Finder window open, you can access Terminal from the Applications folder.

1) Select Applications from the left side.

2) Click the arrow to expand the Utilities folder.

3) Double-click Terminal.

If you have the Applications folder in your Dock like I do, you can open Terminal from there too.

1) Click Applications in your dock.

2) Select Utilities.

3) Choose Terminal.

Open Terminal using Launchpad

You can open Terminal using Launchpad two ways, depending on if you have organized Launchpad a different way or not.

By default, Launchpad contains a folder labeled Other that contains Terminal.

1) Open Launchpad from your Dock or with the keyboard shortcut Fn + F4.

2) Locate the Other folder and click.

3) Choose Terminal.

If you have arranged your Launchpad items differently and removed the Other folder, you can still find Terminal easily.

1) Open Launchpad from your Dock or with the keyboard shortcut Fn + F4.

2) Type “Terminal” into the search box at the top.

3) When the Terminal icon displays, click it.

Create a Terminal shortcut

If you decide that you want to start using Terminal more often, creating a shortcut for it in your Dock is convenient.

With the Terminal icon in your Dock already, from recently opening it, do the following.

1) Hold Control and click the Terminal icon in the Dock or right-click it.

2) Mouse over Options in the pop-up menu.

3) Click Keep in Dock.

Terminal commands and tips

As mentioned above, here are some of our articles with commands you can use for Terminal that may come in handy.

You can also head to the Terminal section of our website for additional tips and tutorials for Terminal.

Wrapping it up

Terminal is a terrific tool for doing things quickly on your Mac. And once you get the hang of it, and bookmark some useful commands, it’s not as intimidating anymore.

Have you tried to use Terminal yet or are you interested in learning more about it so that you can use it? Let us know your thoughts below and if you have any tips you’d like to share with our readers for using Terminal, feel free to comment!