A mac mini I'm working on won't boot, so I have to run the disc that came with it, which can re-install mac osx, but I need to get some files off it, and I can't find a way from the disc to open a finder menu to copy files from the hard drive to an external one. So I just need to know how to open finder from the terminal.
13 Answers
You can immediately access the present working directory in the Finder by typing the following command in the Terminal:
open .If you have just launched Terminal, typing this in the command line will immediately open your home directory, but you can be anywhere and it works the same. You can also specify directories to open from the terminal into the Finder, like so:
open /Applications/Utilities/This opens your utilities app folder. Try it with just about anything.
From one of the top hits on Google for “open finder from the terminal.”
3You won't be able to open finder from the Recovery DVD, it isn't available. If you have another mac with Firewire, and a Firewire cable you could put the mac into Target Disk Mode to recover your files. If not you can connect an external drive and copy the files via terminal. You can find guides online, but the basics are:
ls - view files in current directory
cd - change directory, cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/yourname/
cp - copy files, cp -rv /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/yourname/ /Volumes/External/
Is the problem that Finder is not running, and you want to launch the Finder so you can copy files that way? If so, you can launch it from Terminal by doing
open /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app
