iTerm2 File utilities — What they are and how to use them

iTerm2 is the king of terminal replacement apps on MacOS, and rightfully so. Below we look at some of the iTerm2 utilities primarily related to file operations and using them across remote servers

Note: This article is an extension of our iTerm2 advanced tricks article

To adequately demonstrate the use cases, we will be using Multipass to set up a local ubuntu server

Let’s get started!

Pre-Requisite

[a] Install Multipass Multipass can be installed on MacOS using brew

brew install multipass

[b] once installed, start a Multipass instance with the name testBox using

multipass launch — name testBox

[c] Check if the multipass instance is running using

multipass list

[d] Try accessing the shell of the remote server using

multipass shell testBox

[e] Install iTerm2 Shell Integration with iTerm2 Utilities

click Download and Run Installer

[e] Exit and Re-login to the ubuntu machine

exit multipass shell testBox

Use Case [1]: Download a File

Utility Name: it2dl What does it do: Download a file Syntax: it2dl {filename}

Let’s start by creating a test file on the remote server /tmp directory Staying in the Ubuntu shell, let’s browse to the/tmp directory cd /tmp

and create a simple text file echo “THIS IS A TEST FILE FROM DECODED BYTES” > testFile.txt

You can review the contents of the testFile using cat testFile.text

Now let’s download this file to the ~/Downloads directory on the local machine. Type it2dl testFile.txt

and testFile.txt should download the file to your local ~/Downloads directory

Note: We created a test file manually to showcase the capability, but this can be used to download logs and other important files from the server without setting up sftp connections or users

Use Case [2]: Upload a FILE

Utility Name: it2ul What does it do: Upload a file Syntax: it2ul — select the file from the finder window

Next, let's try and upload a file. Still, in the /tmp directory on the ubuntu server, type in it2ul

This will open a finder window where you can pick the file to upload

and check if the file upload is successful using ls -ltr

Use Case [3]: Check the image file on terminal

Utility Name: imgcat What does it do: View an image file inline on terminal Syntax: imgcat {filename}

You can even check the image file on the terminal; just use imgcat {filename}

which, in our case, is imgcat ‘Twitter Profile Picture.png’

and voila

Use Case [4]: Copy File Contents to Clipboard

Utility Name: it2copy What does it do: Copy file contents Syntax: it2copy {filename}

Finally, suppose you want to copy the contents of a file to the clipboard; you can do that using it2copy {filename}

Let's create a directory listing file in /tmp directory as ls -ltr > dirlisting.txt

and then you can copy the contents of this file using it2copy dirlisting.txt

Finally, you can paste the contents into Notes app or any other text app

Bonus: If the remote server has `php` installed; you can use imgls to show a listing of images with thumbnails

And that's all. Thanks for reading. Follow for more daily valuable content

Don’t forget to click the clap button a few times