How to Open and Quit Terminal on Mac

This article explains how you can open Terminal on your Mac. This article further explains how you can quit Terminal and a shell process.

The Terminal app lets you type and execute text-based commands to control your Mac. It is found within the /Applications/Utilities/ folder.

Open Terminal on Mac

There are a lot of techniques for opening it. You can do one of the following methods.

1. Use Launchpad

• Open Launchpad on your Mac. You can click the Launchpad icon in the Dock. Alternatively, you can pinch your thumb and three fingers together on your trackpad.
• You can use the Search field. Type Terminal in Launchpad and press the Return to open it.
• Or alternatively, find the Other folder and click Terminal.

2.Use Finder

• Open a Finder window. You can click the Finder icon in the Dock.
• Click Applications from the left side sidebar.
• Find the Utilities folder. And open it.
• Double click the Terminal icon.

3. Use Siri

• Launch Siri. You can click the Siri icon in the menu bar. (If not already, turn on Siri first).
• Say say “Open Terminal.” And let Siri open Terminal for you.
• See this if Siri is not working on your Mac.

4. Use Spotlight

• Open Spotlight. You can click the search (magnifying glass) icon in the menu bar. Alternatively, press Command-Space bar.
• Type Terminal in the search field.
• Double click Terminal.

5. Add Terminal to the Dock

If you are using Terminal very often, you may want to do this for easy access:

• Open Terminal using any of the methods above.
• Now you can see its icon in the Dock. (see this article if the Dock is not working)
• Control-click (right-click) the app’s icon.
• Then click Options > Keep in Dock.

6. Use the Recent Items list

If you use Terminal a lot, you can use the Recent Items list to quickly open it. Here is how:

• Click the Apple menu.
• Click Recent Items.
• Click Terminal.

Quit Terminal

Here is how you can properly quit the Terminal app.

• In Terminal, click Terminal.
• Click Quit Terminal.

Or alternatively, you can press the Command-Q keys together.

See this article if you want to know what apps are running on your Mac.

Close a shell session

Sometimes you may want to quit a running shell process. You can use the exit command to exit the shell where it is currently running. Here is how:

• In Terminal, enter the following command:

exit

• Press return.