Linux delete history lines

Delete last N lines from bash history

When accidentally pasting a file into the shell it puts a ton of ugly nonsense entries in the bash history. Is there a clean way to remove those entries? Obviously I could close the shell and edit the .bash_history file manually but maybe there’s some kind of API available to modify the history of the current shell?

14 Answers 14

Just this one liner in command prompt will help.

for i in ; do history -d START_NUM; done 

Where START_NUM is starting position of entry in history. N is the number of entries you may want to delete.

ex: for i in ; do history -d 1030; done

askubuntu.com/a/978276/22866 has a nice way to delete the «delete from history command» from history 🙂

@RajeevAkotkar If the delete command is the nth line, then using N+1 in the for loop will also help delete the command that did the deleting.

Alternatively, you can also use for i in <1030..1080>; do history -d 1030; done instead — which might be a bit more intuitive. I wrote a small bash script, just replace 1030 with $1 and 1080 with $2 .

As of bash-5.0-alpha , the history command now takes a range for the delete ( -d ) option. See rastafile’s answer.

For older versions, workaround below.

You can use history -d offset builtin to delete a specific line from the current shell’s history, or history -c to clear the whole history.

It’s not really practical if you want to remove a range of lines, since it only takes one offset as an argument, but you could wrap it in a function with a loop.

Call it with rmhist first_line_to_delete last_line_to_delete . (Line numbers according to the output of history .)

(Use history -w to force a write to the history file.)

Since the OP asked for deleting the N last lines, this script should be modified by doing something like: tot_lines=$(history | wc -l) and then repeat history -d $(( tot_lines — $1 )) .

The history bash built-in command also takes a range, now in 2020:

-d offset

Delete the history entry at position offset. If offset is negative, it is interpreted as relative to one greater than the last history position, so negative indices count back from the end of the history, and an index of -1 refers to the current history -d command.

-d start-end

Delete the history entries between positions start and end, inclusive. Positive and negative values for start and end are interpreted as described above.

Only the command itself does not tell with —help :

 Options: -c clear the history list by deleting all of the entries -d offset delete the history entry at position OFFSET. Negative offsets count back from the end of the history list -a append history lines from this session to the history file . 

E.g. history -d 2031-2034 deletes four lines at once. You could use $HISTCMD to delete from the newest N lines backwards.

You can also export with history -w tmpfile , then edit that file, clear with history -c and then read back with history -r tmpfile . No write to .bash_history.

If you delete line N from the history, then line N+1 moves in position N etc.

For this reason, I prefer identifying the oldest and newest history line between which I want to delete all history. (Note: oldest < newest ).

If for instance I want to delete the history lines from oldest = 123 up to newest = 135 , I’d write:

$ for i in ; do history -d $i ; done 

I find it easier to read; besides: the for command can also decrement a range.

the history -d arg takes a range and $HISTCMD is the max number in the history.

This function works to remove the last n entries from history (just pass in the number of history commands to remove like, eg rmhist 5 :

Or.. Go fancy with an arg like this to remove from a point in history (inclusive) or last ‘n’ commands:

The result looks something like this:

 5778 ls /etc 5779 ls /tmp 5780 ls /dev 5781 ll 5782 cd /tmp 5783 cd 5784 history (base) ~ $ rmhist --last 3 (base) ~ $ history 5 5778 ls /etc 5779 ls /tmp 5780 ls /dev 5781 ll 5782 history 5 (base) ~ $ rmhist --from 5780 (base) ~ $ history 5 5776 history 10 5777 ls 5778 ls /etc 5779 ls /tmp 5780 history 5 

I get «bash: history: N: history position out of range» errors, but this worked for me to delete the last entry hdl() < history -d $(($HISTCMD - $1))-$(($HISTCMD - 2)) ;>I’ll write any error understandings in my answer here: unix.stackexchange.com/a/573258/346155

What’s different in this answer: it also displays what is being deleted.

For those using Bash 4.x (e.g. in Centos 7 and lower), I use this to delete the last N items in the history including the command to do this. (here N=5)

for i in ; do echo "clearing line $(($HISTCMD-2)): $(history -p \!$(($HISTCMD-2)))"; history -d $(($HISTCMD-2)); done; history -d $(($HISTCMD-1)) 

To delete the history lines between n and m (e.g. here 544 and 541), I use the following. NOTE: you must enter the bigger line number first and then the smaller one:

for i in ; do echo "clearing line $i: $(history -p \!$i)"; history -d $i; done; history -d $(($HISTCMD-1)) 

The answer by user2982704 almost worked for me but not quite. I had to make a small variation like this.

Assuming my history is is at 1000 and I want to delete the last 50 entries

start=1000 for i in ; do count=$((start-i)); history -d $count; done 

It works for me. To delete line 2 to 29 (includes line 2 and line 29):

This should delete every history list entry in reverse order N times:

If you want to add this to your .bashrc, use:

..and then source ~/.bashrc to reload bash config. Use as:

hd , where N is the number of lines to delete 

My other answer for a different approach that is not working, but is long and complicated.

EDIT: this started giving me the error «bash: history: -N: history position out of range» as does history -d -2 for some reason. So I used another users answer, that even though it gave me the same error, I could adjust to make work. This example deletes only the last line, but can be extended.

Before I give up on this alternative approach, I want to put down what I’ve learned. Part of my difficulty in debugging my first answer is that its a bit unclear how many N ends up being, because it includes the current command, so I think it is really N-1 or maybe N-2.

To make it more clear, I was trying a solution that would delete from a line number going forward. And wow, what a big surprise of how difficult that is. The main problem is the history routine is running in the background so deleting say number 50 will result in number 51 now being 50 in less than a second. So I tried making a function to delete going backwards from the end. And when trying to deleting 10 in a row and it gets about 5 before running out of commands as they shift down. So I tried making a function to delete forwards and it, for some reason only gets every other one. Consistent with the history routine running about half as fast as the function. I also tried inserting sleep at certain points.

I tried turning off history temporarily, but then $HISTCMD show the total from $HISTFILE not the history list. So it looks nary a possible. My goal was to clean the history of unnecessary commands so that I could memorize the bang number !# and use the same ones going forward for frequent and difficult commands.

Here’s some of the functions I tried. Maybe someone can improve or diagnose:

Going from the Number to the end: function hd2 < a=$HISTCMD; echo $a; echo $1; echo $(($a%$1)); for i in $(seq $1 $a); do echo $i; history -d $i; done; >Deleting from the end repeatedly with sleep: function hd3 < a=$HISTCMD; echo $a; echo $1; echo $(($a%$1)); for i in $(seq 1 $a); do history -d $HISTCMD; sleep 1; done; >Deleting the Number repeatedly with sleep: function hd4

The beginning echo variable are for debugging. % is remainder or mod. $HISTCMD does not carry through command substitution and need to be assigned as a variable.

new idea: since the function below works with repeated use:

echo "function hdn < history -d \$1; >">>~/.bashrc echo "function hdn2 < for i in $(seq 1 \$2); history -d \$1; sleep 1; done; >">>~/.bashrc 

Источник

How to Delete History in Linux Easily

The .bash_history file located in the user’s home directory keeps the history of commands you typed on the terminal. This helps users to reuse listed commands without retyping it.

If you don’t want others to see your typed commands for any reason, you can easily delete the history. In this guide, we learn how to delete history from Linux.

1. Delete History List Command Line

To see your bash history using history command, type:

$ history 1 history 2 vim .bash_history 3 exit 4 history

To delete history list from the command line, use the following commands:

2. Delete specific command from history

From the history list if you want to delete specific command, use the following syntax:

For example to delete the sixth entry history list, type:

3. Delete history without a trace

To clear the bash history completely without a trace on the server, one solution is to link ~/.bash_history to /dev/null.

$ cat /dev/null > ~/.bash_history

Alternatively, you can use the wipe tool to securely delete .bash_history file:

4. Turn off bash history

The $HISTFILE variable store the bash history file location.

You can stop history logging into the history file by adding unset HISTFILE to user profiles.

$ echo "unset HISTFILE" >> /etc/profile or $ echo "unset HISTFILE" >> /home/tom/.bash_profile

Alternatively, you can set zero values to HISTSIZE and HISTFILESIZE in the .bashrc file.

5. Delete History Range

If you want to delete N lines from the bash history, you may use the following one-liner.

for i in ; do history -d START_POSITION; done

START_POSITION is the line number in the history list from where you need to start deleting.

N is no of the entries you want to delete.

For example to delete 13 entries from line 986, type:

for i in ; do history -d 986; done

Conclusion

In this guide, we learned how to clear history in Linux. Thanks for reading, please share your feedback and suggestions in the comment section.

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About The Author

Bobbin Zachariah

Bobbin is a seasoned IT professional with over two decades of experience. He has excelled in roles such as a computer science instructor, Linux system engineer, and senior analyst. Currently, he thrives in DevOps environments, focusing on optimizing efficiency and delivery in AWS Cloud infrastructure. Bobbin holds certifications in RHEL, CCNA, and MCP, along with a Master’s degree in computer science. In his free time, he enjoys playing cricket, blogging, and immersing himself in the world of music.

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