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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/tldr-pages/tldr/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

tldr gives you instant, example-focused help for any CLI command — no scrolling through dense man pages, no searching Stack Overflow. Type tldr <command> and you get the most practical usage patterns right in your terminal, with clear placeholders showing exactly what to substitute.
1

Install a tldr client

Choose the client that fits your environment. The official Rust client (tlrc) and Python client are the most actively maintained.
pipx install tldr
Requires pipx. Also available via other package managers — see the Python client repository for the full list.
2

Look up a command

Once installed, look up any command by passing its name to tldr. For example:
tldr tar
You’ll see output like this:
tar

  Archiving utility.
  Often combined with a compression method, such as gzip or bzip2.
  More information: https://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html.

  - Create an archive and write it to a file:
    tar cf path/to/target.tar path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...

  - Create a gzipped archive and write it to a file:
    tar czf path/to/target.tar.gz path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...

  - Create a gzipped archive from a directory using relative paths:
    tar czf path/to/target.tar.gz --directory path/to/directory .

  - Extract a (compressed) archive file into the current directory verbosely:
    tar xvf path/to/source.tar[.gz|.bz2|.xz]

  - Extract a (compressed) archive file into the target directory:
    tar xf path/to/source.tar[.gz|.bz2|.xz] --directory path/to/directory

  - Create a compressed archive and write it to a file, using the file extension to automatically determine the compression program:
    tar caf path/to/target.tar.xz path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...

  - List the contents of a tar file verbosely:
    tar tvf path/to/source.tar

  - Extract files matching a pattern from an archive file:
    tar xf path/to/source.tar --wildcards "*.html"
Editable values are shown without braces — replace them with your actual paths and filenames.
3

Update your local cache

tldr clients cache pages locally so you can use them offline. Keep your cache up to date with:
tldr --update
Or using the short flag:
tldr -u
The client downloads the latest ZIP archive from the tldr-pages GitHub Releases and stores it locally.
4

Explore by platform

By default, tldr shows pages for your current platform. You can explicitly target a different platform with --platform (or -p), and list all available pages with --list (or -l):
# Show the Linux-specific page for bash
tldr --platform linux bash

# List all pages available on the current platform
tldr --list
Use common as the platform name to see the cross-platform version of a command even when a platform-specific variant exists:
tldr --platform common tar

​
Common usage patterns

# Look up a subcommand — spaces are automatically converted to dashes
tldr git checkout

# Look up a command for a specific platform
tldr --platform osx bash

# Look up a command in a specific language (French)
tldr -L fr tar

# List all pages available for the current platform
tldr --list

# Show the version of the client and the spec it implements
tldr --version

​
Offline PDF

Prefer a printable reference? The entire tldr-pages collection is compiled into a downloadable PDF at every release: Download tldr-book.pdf PDFs for translated languages are also available — check the assets section of the latest release for your language.

Clients

Browse all official and community tldr clients for the command line, web, mobile, and desktop.

Introduction

Learn how tldr-pages is organized, what platforms it supports, and how the page format works.

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