When I download command line applications they are located in my ~/Downloads/
directory. But I feel this is wrong place to have a command line application located. Where in the Mac OS X filesystem should I store command line applications?
/Applications/
also feels wrong, it´s more for desktop applications. And /bin/
sounds more for applications that belongs to OS X.
Best Answer
Since OS X comes from a unix heritage, you will want to store system files in
/usr/local/bin
for command line applications and scripts that belong to the system locally and not to a specific user. You may need to create this directory first by running:You can move any command line application to that folder by running:
To make sure that
/usr/local/bin
is part of your standard search path in Terminal, check the content of/etc/paths
and add it if necessary:Some users make a second directory for user level scripts, but this is even more subject to personal preference.
I typically make a bin directory in each user folder and then hide it from Finder - but you can make that decision yourself whether you want it hidden:
In this case, you'll want to have each user's path include this location by modifying the shell startup scripts (
~/.bash_profile
for bash which is the standard shell)or by hard coding the path to each app when you run it.