HowTo: Clear BASH History
Article Number: 484 | Rating: Unrated | Last Updated: Mon, Feb 18, 2019 2:37 PM
Sometimes you don’t want to leave Bash history, because it may contain some sensitive data like passwords.
This article may help you to control your Bash history file.
Clear Bash history completely
Type the following command to clear all your Bash history:
$ history -cw
Option | Description |
---|---|
-c | Clear the history list |
-w | Write out the current history to the history file |
Remove a certain line from Bash history
Type the following command to remove a certain line (e.g. 352) from the Bash history file:
$ history -dw 352
Option | Description |
---|---|
-d | Delete specified line from the history |
Clear current session history
Type the following command to clear the Bash history of the current session only:
$ history -r
Option | Description |
---|---|
-r | Read the current history file and append its contents to the history list |
Don’t save command in Bash history
Execute a command without saving it in the Bash history:
$ <space>command
Put a space in front of your command and it won’t be saved in the Bash history.
Don’t save commands in Bash history for current session
Unsetting HISTFILE
will cause any commands that you have executed in the current shell session not to be written in your bash_history
file upon logout:
$ unset HISTFILE