How to use shell history and keyboard shortcuts to work faster

Shell History and Keyboard Shortcuts

Power users rarely retype commands. Shell history and a handful of keyboard shortcuts make most repetitive terminal work disappear.

Reverse search with Ctrl+R

# Press Ctrl+R, then start typing part of a previous command
# Press Enter to run, or Ctrl+R again for the previous match

History shortcuts

history           # list last 500 commands with numbers
!42               # run command number 42 from history
!!                # run the last command again
sudo !!           # re-run last command with sudo
!$                # last argument of the previous command

Cursor movement shortcuts

Ctrl+A    # jump to start of line
Ctrl+E    # jump to end of line
Ctrl+W    # delete word before cursor
Ctrl+U    # delete entire line before cursor
Ctrl+L    # clear screen
Alt+F     # jump forward one word
Alt+B     # jump backward one word

Configuring history size

export HISTSIZE=10000
export HISTFILESIZE=20000

These defaults are small on many distros. Increasing them means you can find commands from weeks ago with Ctrl+R.