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What are your favorite BASH shortcuts?

Posted January 2, 2020 1.4k views
Linux BasicsLinux Commands

As a SysAdmin/DevOps, I spend a lot of my day in the terminal.

Here are my favorite shortcuts!

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By:
bobbyiliev

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2 answers
bobbyiliev January 2, 2020

The below two are particularly useful if you have a very long command.

  • Delete everything from the cursor to the end of the line:
Ctrl + k
  • Delete everything from the cursor to the start of the line:
Ctrl + u
  • Delete one worked backwards from cursor:
Ctrl + w
  • Search your history backwards, this is probably the one that I use the most, it is really handy and speeds up my work-flow a lot:
Ctrl + r
  • Clear the screen, I use this instead of typing the clear command:
Ctrl + l
  • Stops the output to the screen:
Ctrl + s
  • Enable the output to the screen in case that previously stopped by Ctrl + s:
Ctrl + q
  • Terminate the current command
Ctrl + c
  • Throw the current command to background:
Ctrl + z

I use those constantly every day and it saves me a lot of time.

If I’ve missed any feel free to share them in the comments below!

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martinosis January 2, 2020

To go back to the [char] character in the current line.

ctrl + alt + ] + [char]

To go forward to the [char] character on the current line.

ctrl + ] + [char]

To swap two char around the cursor position.

ctrl + t
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