Jumping between Terminal and Finder

Depending on the situation, sometimes Finder can be the best way to interact with the file system and sometimes Terminal is better. There are a couple of little tricks for jumping.

Jump from Finder → Terminal

Tip #1

Terminal has two Services available called New Terminal Tab and New Terminal Tab at Folder.

With a folder selected in Finder, choose Finder → Services from the menu bar and choose one of the two options. Note this is quickly accessed in the contextual menu. This causes a Terminal window or tab to open, rooted at the folder you chose.

You’ll note that one of the commands has a keyboard shortcut. You can set this up in System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → Services

Tip #2

If you’re drag-n-drop oriented, you can drag any folder into an open Terminal window and the path will get pasted in. If your goal is to get into the folder easily, Tip #1 will probably be easier. Otherwise, you can type a command like “ls -alR’ into Terminal, drag a folder in from Finder and you have your path argument.

Jump from Terminal → Finder

This one is pretty straightforward, using the “open” command.

# Opens a Finder window at that path

open <path>

# Opens a Finder window at the current working directory

open .