Terminal Magic: Essentials for Website Builders (macOS Focus)

When you start building your own website — especially something lightweight like MzZavaa — you realize quickly:

The Terminal is your silent co-pilot.

It’s not about being a Linux wizard. It’s about small, repeatable tricks that save your focus and your sanity.

Here’s my personal, battle-tested CLI starter kit — clean, simple, and macOS-friendly.

Table of Contents

• Image Optimization
• Text Replacement
• File Management & Cleanup
• Local Development Helpers
• Deployment Essentials
• Searching Through Code
• Backup & Archiving
• Bonus Shortcuts

🗾 Image Optimization: Shrink Images Fast

Large images kill website speed. Resize them before upload.

Bulk resize PNGs:

mogrify -resize 800x *.png

📌 This resizes every .png in the current directory to a max width of 800px, maintaining aspect ratio.

Convert images to optimized JPEGs:

mogrify -format jpg -quality 85 *.png

📌 Good if you want to shrink file size even further for static blogs.

Note: Install ImageMagick if you don’t have mogrify yet:

brew install imagemagick

Text Replacement Across Many Files

When you need to update something across 100+ files, sed is a lifesaver.

Find and replace text in .html files:

sed -i '' 's/old-link/new-link/g' *.html

On macOS, the empty '' after -i is required for in-place editing.

File Management & Cleanup

Project folders get messy fast.

Find and delete all .tmp or unwanted backup files:

find . -name "*.tmp" -type f -delete

Find big files (>10MB):

find . -type f -size +10M

Local Development Helpers

Sometimes you want to test your static site locally without setting up Nginx or Apache.

Start a simple local web server:

python3 -m http.server 8000

Then open http://localhost:8000 in your browser.

📌 Great for quickly previewing your Hugo public/ folder.

Deployment Essentials

Upload your static site easily with rsync — faster and safer than FTP.

Sync your build folder to a remote server:

rsync -avz --delete public/ user@yourserver:/var/www/html/

• -a means archive mode (keep permissions, etc.)
• -v means verbose (see what’s happening)
• -z means compress data during transfer
• --delete removes files on the server that no longer exist locally (be careful!)

Searching Through Code and Projects

Find broken links, missed TODOs, old API calls — quickly.

Search recursively for a string in all files:

grep -rnw 'searchTerm' .

• -r means recursive
• -n shows line numbers
• -w matches whole words only

Backup & Archiving

Back up your project folders before big updates!

Create a compressed archive:

tar -czvf mybackup.tar.gz myproject-folder/

📌 Good habit before deploying changes you might regret.

Bonus Shortcuts

Some quick helpers you’ll thank yourself for learning:

Show folder sizes in human-readable format:

du -sh *

Show only top-level disk usage (for large projects):

du -h --max-depth=1

List the 20 most recently modified files:

ls -lt | head -n 20

Final Thoughts

You don’t need to memorize 500 CLI commands to be productive.

You just need a handful you actually use.

This list evolved while building:

• MzZavaa (this blog)
• Meet the AWS Community site
• The Juggling Company project

And all the little experiments in between.

Use the terminal like a paintbrush — not a punishment.

If you want a “Terminal Essentials Vol. 2” covering more git tricks, AWS CLI shortcuts, or advanced workflows, let me know! 🚀