How do you exit from Terminal?

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Level 1

92 points

How do you exit from Terminal?

Been googling this for some time but can't get a definitive answer. Haven't used Terminal before but now want to just take a quick look at a short list in Terminal and then exit from it.

I gather that you can launch Terminal from the Utilities folder. Don't know if there's any sort of username or password to enter before the app becomes operable and, if so, which. But nobody seems to mention how you properly exit from Terminal, once you're in it (removing the opened window, as well as exiting from the app itself).

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Apr 2, 2014 7:27 AM

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Answer 1

varjak paw

Level 10

182,668 points

Apr 2, 2014 8:13 AM in response to carefulowner

You can sign out of a session in Terminal by typing "exit" (sans the quotes) which will disconnect the session but leave the Terminal application running, which you can then quit.. Or you can as Kirk said just quit the application. If a process is still running, you'll be warned and asked if you still want to quit.

Regards.

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Answer 2

carefulowner Author

Level 1

92 points

Apr 2, 2014 9:13 AM in response to varjak paw

Ok, so if in Terminal I type exit <Rtn> and then hit Cmd + Q that should end it all, wrapping things up properly. Right?

Since nobody's mentioned it, I'm guessing that opening Terminal in the first place requires no logging in to it, provided you've administrator rights?

Oh, and presumably you can be in any directory when you do exit, you don't have to backtrack or change to a root directory before doing it?

Message was edited by: carefulowner

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Answer 3

Kurt Lang

Level 9

68,596 points

Apr 2, 2014 9:13 AM in response to carefulowner

If you have no process running, it doesn't matter if you "exit" first, or just quit the app.

You do not need to login to use Terminal. Not even if it's from a standard account. It will always automatically login the user of the active account.

What you can't do from a non admin account is anything which would require the admin password to proceed. So a standard account user can't do something like erase the entire startup drive.

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Answer 4

carefulowner Author

Level 1

92 points

Apr 5, 2014 9:52 AM in response to Kurt Lang

Thanks, everyone, for the help with this. I've managed to open and close Terminal without messing anything up.

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Answer 5

Apr 2, 2014 7:31 AM in response to carefulowner

Command and Q keys will quit any app.

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