There are only a couple of important differences that set the two apart and make PuTTY worth installing on your Mac – its GUI and the option that it gives you to save login and sessions data. If there isn’t a specific reason you need PuTTY on your Mac, it may be better to stick with your Mac’s Terminal tool, which can do pretty much the same things that PuTTY can. Installing PuTTY on a Mac is relatively easy, but there are several steps that you’d need to complete.
Before you can install PuTTY, however, you’ll first need Xcode, Xcode Command Line Tools, and MacPorts. To install PuTTY on Mac, you will need to do it through the Terminal app on your Mac, by entering and executing a command that will automatically install PuTTY.
This is a two-factor authentication, so you will be shown a code that you must enter before you can finally log in. Next, go to this link, enter your Apple ID username/email and password, and log in.Note that, at the time of writing, in order to install Xcode on your Mac, your macOS will need to be upgraded to macOS Monterey.First, go to the Mac App Store, search for Xcode, and click the Xcode app (should be the first result).
The good news is that all of this can be done for free, so if you have some time and patience to complete the different steps from the installation process, here are the details of how to download PuTTY on your Mac: Next, accept the Xcode license agreement, install MacPorts, and after that use the built-in Terminal app to finally install PuTTY on your Mac.Īs you can see, the process of downloading and installing PuTTY on a Mac isn’t particularly straightforward, and some preparation is required to get everything working. To download PuTTY on Mac, you must first download and install Xcode and download and install Xcode Command Line Tools. This can speed up the process of logging back into SSH servers in the future, and also makes switching between SSH servers quicker and more convenient. Other notable things that you can do in PuTTY that you can’t do in Terminal are saving your login data and saving information about your previous sessions. Note that you’d still need to use commands for most of your work, but having a GUI for the tool’s settings can still be very helpful. This interface can help with using PuTTY’s command line by allowing you to customize its settings in a more convenient way, rather than having to do everything by entering commands into the command line. However, the thing that may make downloading and installing PuTTY and using it instead of your Mac’s Terminal is that the latter offers a graphical user interface (GUI). For the most part, Terminal and PuTTY can be used in the same way. Your Mac already has a built-in SSH client – the Terminal tool that you can find in the Utilities folder.
PuTTY is a Windows SSH client that’s also available for Mac – unlike other SSH clients, this tool offers a user interface and allows the user to save their login data and session information. PuTTY is available on Mac through its macOS port.