How to open Terminal on MacOS Catalina

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. Using 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.

4. 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.

5. Using Siri

Thanks to a helpful comment from one of our readers, there is one more super simple to way to open Terminal on Mac; using Siri.

1) Click the Siri button from your menu bar or open Siri from your Applications folder.

2) Using your microphone, simply say “Open Terminal.”

6. 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

Here are some of reference 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 helpful tool for doing things quickly on MacOS. Hope that this small tutorial will help you master it faster.

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 what you think and if you have any fun tips you’d like to share for using Terminal, please comment!