Quick Links
Installing Telnet in MacOS with Homebrew By far the simplest option is for Mac users to install Telnet through Homebrew. Of course this means you will need to install Homebrew on the Mac first, but if you’re advanced user that spends time in the command line you’ll likely appreciate having Homebrew for other reasons since you. One of the obvious perks to installing ftp and ftpd server with inetutils is you get other helpful network utilities, so you won’t need to manually install telnet on the Mac if you need that, it will just come in the same package together. Installing ftp through tnftp. To install only an ftp client, you can install tnftp on the Mac.
Have you tried to use Telnet on MacOS only to find out it wasn’t there?You’re not alone, many have been disappointed to find out that Telnet hasbeen removed from modern versions of the system software starting fromMacOS Mojave and newer. These instructions will work for MacOS Mojave andnewer, I happen to be running Big Sur and this is what I did to get Telnetback.
Installing Telnet on MacOS with Homebrew
First I would like to mention that there is an easier route, that is usingHomebrew. I see a lot about it and many people seem happy with it but I havean aversion to putting it on my machine. If you don’t already have Homebrewon your machine, navigate over to the brew website and followthe installation instructions. I would caution against following themexactly though for security purposes. I would do it like this instead:
Open and inspect the install.sh script to see what it does and make sure you feelcomfortable running it on your machine. And then run it.
After installing Homebrew, install Telnet
Installing Telnet on MacOS by Building Telnet from Source
This was the method I used. There are some prerequisite steps though, if youdon’t already have them you’ll need to install the MacOS command line tools.
Step 1: Installing the command line tools
Open a terminal and enter the following line, you’ll then be shown a pop upprompt.
Click install when the prompt pops up.
After that you’ll be shown a license which you’ll have to agree to in orderto install.
After that you’ll see the download progress and the install will happenafter that. Unfortunately I forgot to get screen shots of the followingmessage boxes.
Step 2: Getting the Telnet source
For this step you’ll be getting the GNU network utilitiesnavigate to the download pageand find the latest source. At the time I’m writing this it’s 1.9.4:
Step 3: Extract the source
Step 4: Configure and build
Now that the source is extracted change into the directory:
Run the configure command:
Run the make command to build:
Install Telnet Mac Catalina Mac
And then install:
Install Telnet Mac Catalina
Either way you choose is fairly easy, the build for this is pretty straightforward and was very quick. I don’t think it even took me 10 minutes tobuild and install.