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Access a Mac's Specific System Reports with a Terminal Command


Macs all come packed with the System Information app, which is great for getting all kinds of information about your computer. Unfortunately, it's also kind of tough to find what you're looking for sometimes. To get this info quick, The Instructional shows how to access it from Terminal.

To load up your entire system information report, just type this into Terminal:

system_profiler

That's probably way more information than you really need though. It's more useful to do it by the type of data you're looking for. To do this, you just type the above command, followed by the data type you're looking for. To get a full list of all the different data types, just type in:

system_profiler -listDataTypes

For example, if you're having some issues with your network and want to quickly get that info, just type in:

system_profiler SPNetworkDataType

It's a fast, easy way to access information about your computer whether you're sitting in front of it, or you need to SSH into it. Head over to The Instructional for all sorts of other System Information tricks you can access through Terminal.

Mac Administration: A Closer Look at System Information | The Instructional