Bash Cheatsheet

Movement, keyboard commands and shortcuts for the GNU Bourne-Again SHell.

Legend

Command	Keyboard Character
command	`⌘`
control	`⌃`
alt	`⎇`
delete	`⌫`
option	`⌥`
shift	`⇧`
caps lock	`⇪`
tab	`⇥`
arrow up	`↑`
arrow down	`↓`
arrow left	`←`
arrow right	`→`
escape	`⎋` or `␛`
return/enter	`⏎` or `⌤`
home	`↖`
end	`↘`
page up	`⇞`
page down	`⇟`

Movement

⌃a - Beginning of line (Home)
⌃e - End of line (End)
⎇b - Back one word
⎇f - Forward one word
⌃xx - Toggle between the start of line and current cursor position
⌃f - Forward one character
⌃b - Backward one character

Editing

⌃l - Clear the screen
⌃w - Delete the Word before the cursor
⎇d - Delete the Word after the cursor
⎇⌫ - Delete the Word before the cursor
⌃u - Cut the text before the cursor
⌃k - Cut the text after the cursor
⌃k - Cut the text after the cursor
⇧Insert - Paste at the cursor
⌃⇧<codepoint> - Insert unicode character at cursor

Command History

↑, ⌃p - Previous command
↓, ⌃n - Next command
⌃r - Search previous command history mode
⌃g - Escape from Search previous history mode
!! - Repeat last command

Note on Login vs Non-login Shells

There is much confusion about how .bashrc and .bash_profile are read. This article explains the issue.

To summarize: A login shell means that you got the shell after authenticating to the system, usually by giving your user name and password. Files read:

~/.bash_profile

A non-login shell means that you did not have to authenticate to the system. For instance, when you open a terminal using an icon, or a menu item, that is a non-login shell. Files read:

~/.bashrc

For this reason, to unify the environments between both login and non-login shells, the .bashrc file should source the .bash_profile file.