Translate a command between shells

Paste any common shell command and see its equivalent in bash, zsh, fish, PowerShell, or cmd. Powered by 204 regex mappings — runs entirely in your browser, no signup, no AI.

From

Try a preset (bash → PowerShell)

ls -la

grep -r

find -name

cat file

tail -f

head -n

cp -r

rm -rf

mkdir -p

curl -O

ps | grep

kill -9

Paste a command

Translation

How it works

Pattern-matched, not LLM-generated. Each rule is a regular expression with a hand-written output template. Predictable and deterministic — the same input always produces the same output.
Both directions. Translate bash → PowerShell or PowerShell → bash, plus every other pair across the five supported shells.
Flag-aware. Rules recognize common flag variants (e.g. ls -la, rm -rf, grep -ri) and map each to the target's idiomatic equivalent.
Honest about gaps. When a command has no clean target-shell equivalent (e.g. chmod +x in PowerShell), the translator says so instead of inventing a fake rewrite.

Example translations

A few patterns the translator recognizes out of the box. Try them in the box above.

bash → powershell

grep -r "TODO" .

↓

Get-ChildItem . -Recurse | Select-String -Pattern "TODO"

bash → powershell

ls -la /tmp

↓

Get-ChildItem /tmp -Force

bash → powershell

tail -n 100 app.log

↓

Get-Content app.log -Tail 100

bash → powershell

rm -rf node_modules

↓

Remove-Item node_modules -Recurse -Force

powershell → bash

Get-Process

↓

ps aux

cmd → bash

taskkill /f /pid 1234

↓

kill -9 1234

Supported commands (39)

Commands the translator currently has at least one rule for. Each links to its full per-shell reference.

Plus rules for shell built-ins and other tools not yet documented as full pages — env, export, echo, alias, which, clear, whoami, hostname, uname, uptime, groups, id, exit, date, history, man, touch, less, more, df, du, sleep, seq, yes, watch, ln, readlink, basename, dirname, ssh-keygen, systemctl, apt, brew, nslookup, dig, traceroute, ifconfig, ip, ss, lsof, nc, sha256sum, md5sum, base64, nl, pgrep, nohup, crontab, and shell redirection / heredoc forms.

All translation rules

Every rule, grouped by canonical command. Each entry shows the operation the rule recognizes and the canonical bash form.

awk5 rules
- Print column N of whitespace-separated input
  bash
```
$1 | awk '{print $$2}'
```
- Print the running line number
  bash
```
$1 | awk '{print NR}'
```
- Print the number of fields per line
  bash
```
$1 | awk '{print NF}'
```
- Print lines that match a regex (awk-style)
  bash
```
awk '/$1/ {print}' $2
```
- Pattern-action language (awk has no single PowerShell equivalent)
  bash
```
awk
```
cat2 rules
- Print file contents
  bash
```
cat $1
```
- cat heredoc — no single one-liner in PowerShell (use a here-string `@" ... "@`)
  bash
```
cat <<$1
```
cd4 rules
- Change to home directory
  bash
```
cd ~
```
- Move up one directory
  bash
```
cd ..
```
- Return to previous directory
  bash
```
cd -
```
- Change directory
  bash
```
cd $1
```
chmod4 rules
- Make a file executable
  bash
```
chmod +x $1
```
- Set file mode to 755 (owner rwx, group/other rx)
  bash
```
chmod 755 $1
```
- Recursively set numeric file mode
  bash
```
chmod -R $1 $2
```
- Adjust permission bits with symbolic mode (u/g/o + r/w/x)
  bash
```
chmod $1 $2
```
chown2 rules
- Recursively set file owner
  bash
```
chown -R $1 $2
```
- Set file owner
  bash
```
chown $1 $2
```
cp2 rules
- Copy a directory recursively
  bash
```
cp -r $1 $2
```
- Copy a file
  bash
```
cp $1 $2
```
curl4 rules
- Download a URL to a specific file
  bash
```
curl -o $1 $2
```
- Download a URL, keeping its remote filename
  bash
```
curl -O $1
```
- Send a POST request with body
  bash
```
curl -X POST -d "$1" $2
```
- Fetch a URL
  bash
```
curl $1
```
diff2 rules
- Unified diff between two files
  bash
```
diff -u $1 $2
```
- Compare two files line-by-line
  bash
```
diff $1 $2
```
file1 rule
- Identify a file type by magic bytes (no native Windows equivalent)
  bash
```
file $1
```
find9 rules
- Find files by name pattern (recursive)
  bash
```
find $1 -name "$2"
```
- Find only regular files (recursive)
  bash
```
find $1 -type f
```
- Find only directories (recursive)
  bash
```
find $1 -type d
```
- Find files by name and delete them
  bash
```
find $1 -name "$2" -exec rm {} \;
```
- Find files matching a name and search inside them
  bash
```
find $1 -name "$2" -exec grep "$3" {} \;
```
- Find files modified within the last N days
  bash
```
find $1 -mtime -$2
```
- Find files larger than N megabytes
  bash
```
find $1 -size +$2M
```
- Find empty files and directories
  bash
```
find $1 -empty
```
- Skip a subtree while searching (no clean PowerShell equivalent)
  bash
```
find $1 -name "$2" -prune -o -print
```
grep14 rules
- Recursive case-insensitive search
  bash
```
grep -ri "$1" $2
```
- Recursive search
  bash
```
grep -r "$1" $2
```
- Case-insensitive search in a file
  bash
```
grep -i "$1" $2
```
- Invert match — lines NOT matching pattern
  bash
```
grep -v "$1" $2
```
- Show line numbers
  bash
```
grep -n "$1" $2
```
- Search a file for a pattern
  bash
```
grep "$1" $2
```
- Extended regex search
  bash
```
grep -E "$1" $2
```
- Fixed-string (literal) search
  bash
```
grep -F "$1" $2
```
- List filenames containing matches, not the matches themselves
  bash
```
grep -l "$1" $2
```
- Count matching lines
  bash
```
grep -c "$1" $2
```
- Show N lines of trailing context after each match
  bash
```
grep -A $1 "$2" $3
```
- Show N lines of leading context before each match
  bash
```
grep -B $1 "$2" $3
```
- Show N lines of context around each match
  bash
```
grep -C $1 "$2" $3
```
- Match only whole words
  bash
```
grep -w "$1" $2
```
gzip1 rule
- Decompress a .gz file in place
  bash
```
gunzip $1
```
head3 rules
- Print the first N lines of a file
  bash
```
head -n $1 $2
```
- Print the first N lines of a file
  bash
```
head -n $1 $2
```
- Print the first 10 lines of a file (default head)
  bash
```
head $1
```
jobs1 rule
- List background jobs in the current shell session
  bash
```
jobs
```
kill4 rules
- Forcefully kill a process by PID
  bash
```
kill -9 $1
```
- Kill a process by PID
  bash
```
kill $1
```
- Kill all processes by name
  bash
```
killall $1
```
- Kill processes whose name matches a pattern
  bash
```
pkill $1
```
ls8 rules
- List all files including hidden
  bash
```
ls -la
```
- List all files including hidden in a directory
  bash
```
ls -la $1
```
- List files with human-readable sizes
  bash
```
ls -lh
```
- List files sorted by modification time, newest first
  bash
```
ls -lt
```
- List only directories
  bash
```
ls -d */
```
- Long listing (permissions, owner, size)
  bash
```
ls -l
```
- List a directory
  bash
```
ls $1
```
- List directory contents
  bash
```
ls
```
mkdir2 rules
- Create a directory tree, ignore if exists
  bash
```
mkdir -p $1
```
- Create a directory
  bash
```
mkdir $1
```
mv1 rule
- Rename or move a file
  bash
```
mv $1 $2
```
patch1 rule
- Apply a unified diff patch
  bash
```
patch -p1 < $1
```
ping1 rule
- Send ICMP echo requests to a host
  bash
```
ping $1
```
ps3 rules
- List all running processes
  bash
```
ps aux
```
- List all running processes (System V format)
  bash
```
ps -ef
```
- Show one process by its PID
  bash
```
ps -p $1
```
pwd1 rule
- Print working directory
  bash
```
pwd
```
rm4 rules
- Recursively delete a directory and contents, no prompts
  bash
```
rm -rf $1
```
- Recursively delete a directory
  bash
```
rm -r $1
```
- Delete a file without prompting
  bash
```
rm -f $1
```
- Delete a file
  bash
```
rm $1
```
rsync2 rules
- Recursively sync with compression and metadata preservation
  bash
```
rsync -avz $1 $2
```
- Recursively sync, preserving permissions and timestamps
  bash
```
rsync -av $1 $2
```
scp2 rules
- Recursively copy a directory over SSH
  bash
```
scp -r $1 $2
```
- Copy a file over SSH
  bash
```
scp $1 $2
```
sed2 rules
- In-place find-and-replace in a file
  bash
```
sed -i "s/$1/$2/g" $3
```
- Stream editor (sed has no single PowerShell equivalent)
  bash
```
sed
```
sort7 rules
- Sort a file and remove duplicates
  bash
```
sort $1 | uniq
```
- Sort and deduplicate lines in a file
  bash
```
sort -u $1
```
- Sort in reverse order
  bash
```
sort -r $1
```
- Sort lines in a file
  bash
```
sort $1
```
- Numeric sort (treat lines as numbers, not strings)
  bash
```
sort -n $1
```
- Sort by a specific whitespace-separated column
  bash
```
sort -k $1 $2
```
- Sort with a custom column delimiter
  bash
```
sort -t'$1' -k $2 $3
```
ssh3 rules
- Connect over SSH on a non-default port
  bash
```
ssh -p $1 $2
```
- Run a remote command via SSH
  bash
```
ssh $1 "$2"
```
- Open an interactive SSH session
  bash
```
ssh $1
```
stat2 rules
- Print the size of a file in bytes
  bash
```
stat -c %s $1
```
- Show file metadata (mode, size, owner, timestamps)
  bash
```
stat $1
```
tail4 rules
- Follow a growing file
  bash
```
tail -f $1
```
- Print the last N lines of a file
  bash
```
tail -n $1 $2
```
- Print the last N lines of a file
  bash
```
tail -n $1 $2
```
- Print the last 10 lines of a file (default tail)
  bash
```
tail $1
```
tar2 rules
- Extract a gzipped tar archive
  bash
```
tar -xzf $1
```
- Create a gzipped tar archive
  bash
```
tar -czf $1 $2
```
tee2 rules
- Send pipeline output to a file and stdout
  bash
```
$1 | tee $2
```
- Send pipeline output, appending to a file
  bash
```
$1 | tee -a $2
```
top1 rule
- Interactive process viewer
  bash
```
top
```
tr1 rule
- Delete a set of characters from input
  bash
```
$1 | tr -d "$2"
```
uniq1 rule
- Count occurrences of each unique line
  bash
```
sort $1 | uniq -c
```
wc4 rules
- Count lines in a file
  bash
```
wc -l $1
```
- Count words in a file
  bash
```
wc -w $1
```
- Count bytes in a file
  bash
```
wc -c $1
```
- Count characters in a file
  bash
```
wc -m $1
```
wget1 rule
- Download a file from a URL
  bash
```
wget $1
```
xargs3 rules
- Build and run a command from piped arguments
  bash
```
$1 | xargs $2
```
- Substitute the piped value into a command via {} placeholder
  bash
```
$1 | xargs -I {} $2
```
- Pass at most N arguments per invocation
  bash
```
$1 | xargs -n $2 $3
```
zip2 rules
- Extract a zip archive
  bash
```
unzip $1
```
- Recursively zip a directory
  bash
```
zip -r $1 $2
```

More from shellmap

Total rules in this translator: 204.