Basic Terminal Commands for Mac & Windows

A cheat sheet to help transition between Mac & Windows terminals.

I’ve learned Ruby, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, React, git, and more while using a loaned Mac from my bootcamp. Now it’s time to return the my loan and return to my Windows laptop. There are some adjustments for sure. One thing I kept looking for was a nice, concise cheat sheet for terminal commands. I really wanted something to compare against what I already knew on Mac to build my learning through association instead of memorization. So, I’ve made this chart and I hope I can help others who make a switch between Mac and Windows.

Notice that for *, the directories can only be deleted if the they do not contain any content. If the directories do have a content, the directory will not be deleted. That is why there is another row titled “Delete Empty Directory”. The associated commands will delete the directory along with its content. Windows has a nice prompt asking if you are sure. Mac does not, so be entirely sure when using the command rm -R FolderName when removing a directory and its content.

The ** is to point the difference between and backslash (\) used in Windows and the forward slash (/) used in Mac.

Here is my Google Doc if you want to copy and paste the cheat sheet for yourself. I hope you find it useful. Please be on the lookout for another cheat sheet with some basic hotkeys for Windows and Mac.