A console application is a computer program designed to be used via a text-only computer interface, such as a text terminal, the command line interface of some operating systems (Unix, DOS, etc.) or the text-based interface included with most Graphical User Interface (GUI) operating systems, such as the Win32 console in Microsoft Windows, the Terminal in Mac OS X, and xterm in Unix. A user typically interacts with a console application using only a keyboard and display screen, as opposed to GUI applications, which normally require the use of a mouse or other pointing device. Many console applications such as command line interpreters are command line tools, but numerous text-based user interface (TUI) programs also exist.

Console is a log viewer developed by Apple Inc. and included with OS X. It allows users to search through all of the system's logged messages, and can alert the user when certain types of messages are logged. The Console is generally used for troubleshooting when there is a problem with the computer. OS X itself, as well as any applications that are used, send a constant stream of messages to the system in the form of log files. The console allows you to read the system logs, help find certain ones, monitor them, and filter their contents.