List USB devices in Terminal

The USB device name and hexadecimal Device Vendor and Product ID for connected devices is available from Terminal on Linux, macOS, WSL, etc. using USButils. This can be useful when debugging problems with USB-serial adapters. Windows usbipd as recommended by Microsoft can list and connect USB devices:

usbipd list

On non-Windows systems, list USB devices with

lsusb

A macOS-specific alternative built into macOS is

system_profiler SPUSBDataType

This information does not rely on having a working USB driver. Compare text output by running the command before and after plugging / unplugging a USB device.

If the new device doesn’t appear, this could mean

  • the device requires an external (non-USB) source of power
  • the device cable or jack is broken
  • the device itself is broken
  • the computer/hub USB port is broken

USB devices internal to the computer also show (like a laptop built-in keyboard or mouse trackpad).

lsusb -t
tree view of connected USB devices (not always available)
lsusb -v
detailed listing of all USB devices: device class, vendor, product ID, etc.

To see if a controller or device is USB 3.0, try

lsusb -v | grep xHCI

GUI: USBview gives a detailed GUI USB device tree view.