How do I set a proxy for the terminal in macOS?

On macOS, the terminal does not use a proxy by default.

If you want to request a URL via cURL or download a file via Wget using a SOCKS proxy instead of a VPN, follow this guide to make it happen.

Run this command in terminal:


                        export ALL_PROXY=socks5://address:port

If you don't have a SOCKS proxy, get a free one now.

Open the file "~/.bashrc":


                        vim ~/.bashrc

Add this command into it and save it:


                            export ALL_PROXY=socks5://address:port

If you don't have a SOCKS proxy, get a free one now.

Tested macOS version: Tahoe 26.4.1.

Test code:


                            curl "https://ipinfo.io"

Check if the IP in the JSON results matches the SOCKS proxy server.

It didn't work on my macOS (version: Tahoe 26.4.1).


                            export http_proxy=http://address:port