MacOS – Terminal not responding to “which”, “type”, etc. commands

command linemacosterminal

I tried to look for the full path of the TextEdit app in the terminal using the command which and whereis but the terminal doesn't respond. it just skips to the next line like there was no command:

Last login: Thu Sep 17 21:30:51 on ttys000
Tomass-MacBook-Pro:~ SOLANOT$ which textedit
Tomass-MacBook-Pro:~ SOLANOT$

This also happens with type and whereis but not with commands such as ls or cd. What is causing this? I've read that some users experience total loss of commands response, including ls, etc.

Best Answer

textedit is not on the PATH normally so which and whereas which search that will not find it.

ls and cd look in any directory and so can see the files

In the GUI the Finder is the app (or in command line open) that knows where to find Text to open a file.

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