See Practical Examples With tldr

Show the handful of common use cases for a command instead of the full manual.

macOSTerminalproductivityLow risk

Run tldr <command>, for example tldr tar, to see short example-based help.

01Command

Command

$ tldr tar

02What it does

tldr pages are community-maintained summaries that focus on the most common invocations, which is much faster than reading a full man page. The client is available for many shells and can cache pages offline; run tldr --update after installing.

03Risk

RiskLow risk

Requirementsbrew install tldr

CompatibilitymacOS with Homebrew installed

!Warning: Examples come from the community and may lag the installed version, so verify flags with man when precision matters.

04Undo

✓No undo needed — this command does not change persistent state.

05Sources

Homebrew formula: tldr
Homebrew · vendor-doc · 2026-09-20
Evidence: Installs the tldr client for community-maintained example pages.
tldr pages
tldr.sh · vendor-doc · 2026-09-20
Evidence: Official tldr site explaining community example pages.

Last verified: 2026-09-20 · Category: Developer