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I'm on OSX and I need to put something like this, alias blah="/usr/bin/blah" in a config file but I don't know where the config file is.

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4
  • Tangentially, this particular alias is basically redundant unless you are specifically trying to override he shell's PATH resolution for this specific command. If /usr/bin is in your PATH (which really it must be) then blah will run from there just fine without this alias, too, unless there is also say /usr/local/bin/blah and /usr/local/bin is before /usr/bin in your PATH but you still want to prefer /usr/bin/blah and cannot for some reason simply remove or rename /usr/local/bin/blah.
    – tripleee
    Commented Jan 5, 2018 at 5:49
  • Even then this is a dubious, hackish solution which should come with a big fat ugly comment with a warning message telling you how this will bite your shapely lower abdomen, and another saying "I told you so" for each time this happened.
    – tripleee
    Commented Jan 5, 2018 at 5:55
  • 1
    For all the automation lovers: I personally add addAlias() { echo "alias $1='$2' " >> ~/.bash_profile to my bash_profile and then I source it and run addAlias hi 'echo "hi" ' . Source bash profile and type hi to see it.
    – devssh
    Commented Jan 23, 2018 at 7:35
  • Make sure to escape characters properly alias name=" echo "string" " is wrong, but alias name=" echo \"string\" " will be fine.
    – Michael Hearn
    Commented Nov 28, 2022 at 21:36

16 Answers 16

Reset to default
338

You can add an alias or a function in your startup script file.

MacOS 10.13 High Sierra and earlier:

The default shell is bash. Usually the startup script file is .bashrc, .bash_login or .profile file in your home directory.

Since these files are hidden you will have to do an ls -a to list them. If you don't have one you can create one.

If I remember correctly, when I had bought my Mac, the .bash_login file wasn't there. I had to create it for myself so that I could put prompt info, alias, functions, etc. in it.

Here are the steps if you would like to create one:

  1. Start up Terminal
  2. Type cd ~/ to go to your home folder
  3. Type touch .bash_profile to create your new file.
  4. Edit .bash_profile with your favorite editor (or you can just type open -e .bash_profile to open it in TextEdit.
  5. Type . .bash_profile to reload .bash_profile and update any alias you add.
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10
  • 11
    Awesome, thanks @jaypal! Is the command source .bash_profile an alternative to step 5?
    – Ian Campbell
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 3:10
  • 10
    Yes on my OSX Mavericks there was no .bash_profile in my home dir. Creating it, adding the alias to it, and then initiating it with the . .bash_profile command worked.
    – Bradley Flood
    Commented Jun 26, 2014 at 1:27
  • 1
    .bash_profile works for me! :) .bashrc didn't on El Capitan
    – Parth
    Commented Apr 20, 2016 at 8:00
  • 7
    On OSX El Capitan .bash_profile works. If it doesn’t automatically load when you open a terminal window, it is probably because it was created without executable permission. This command will fix it and it should automatically load for future sessions: chmod u+x .bash_profile
    – Mischinab
    Commented Jul 5, 2016 at 13:09
  • 1
    .bash_profile profile is locked how can i update this file
    – amit gupta
    Commented Jan 4, 2017 at 6:52
108

I just open zshrc with sublime, and edit it.

subl .zshrc

And add this on sublime:

alias blah="/usr/bin/blah"

Run this command in terminal:

source ~/.zshrc

Done.

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1
  • 14
    This is confused. If your shell is Bash, many other answers on this page are more detailed and helpful. If you use Zsh instead of Bash, then obviously you should source .zshrc at the end to load in the changes you made into your currently running shell instance.
    – tripleee
    Commented Jan 5, 2018 at 5:41
48

MacOS 10.15 Catalina and Above

Apple switched their default shell to zsh, so the config files include ~/.zshenv and ~/.zshrc. This is just like ~/.bashrc, but for zsh. Just edit the file and add what you need; it should be sourced every time you open a new terminal window:

nano ~/.zshenv alias py=python

Then do ctrl+x, y, then enter to save.

This file seems to be executed no matter what (login, non-login, or script), so seems better than the ~/.zshrc file.

MacOS 10.13 High Sierra and earlier

The default shell is bash, and you can edit the file ~/.bash_profile and add aliases:

nano ~/.bash_profile alias py=python

Then ctrl+x, y, and enter to save. See this post for more on these configs. It's a little better to set it up with your alias in ~/.bashrc, then source ~/.bashrc from ~/.bash_profile. In ~/.bash_profile it would then look like:

source ~/.bashrc

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2
  • 8
    This should be higher now that Catalina is the most up to date Mac OS
    – Cauder
    Commented Jul 11, 2020 at 18:49
  • If you are dealing with paths, you should use quotes, e.g. alias ollama="/usr/local/opt/ollama/bin/ollama"
    – laitifranz
    Commented Jan 6 at 16:18
34

On OS X you want to use ~/.bash_profile. This is because by default Terminal.app opens a login shell for each new window.

See more about the different configuration files and when they are used here: What's the difference between .bashrc, .bash_profile, and .environment?

and in relation to OSX here: About .bash_profile, .bashrc, and where should alias be written in?

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0
21

In my .bashrc file the following lines were there by default:

# Alias definitions.
# You may want to put all your additions into a separate file like
# ~/.bash_aliases, instead of adding them here directly.
# See /usr/share/doc/bash-doc/examples in the bash-doc package.
if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
    . ~/.bash_aliases
fi

Hence, in my platform .bash_aliases is the file used for aliases by default (and the one I use). I'm not an OS X user, but I guess that if you open your .bashrc file, you'll be able to identify what's the file commonly used for aliases in your platform.

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2
  • 1
    If the profile doesn’t automatically load when you open a terminal window, it is probably missing the executable permission. This command will fix it and it should automatically load for future sessions: chmod u+x .bash_profile
    – Mischinab
    Commented Jul 5, 2016 at 13:13
  • 1
    @Mischinab No, the file just needs to be readable in order for Bash to read it as its configuration file. Making it executable is technically harmless but unnecessary. I would discourage it on nontechnical grounds (you might end up confusing yourself and/or others).
    – tripleee
    Commented Jan 5, 2018 at 5:45
21

It works for me on macOS Mojave

You can do a few simple steps:

  1. open terminal

  2. sudo nano /.bash_profile

  3. add your aliases, as example:

    # some aliases
    alias ll='ls -alF'
    alias la='ls -A'
    alias eb="sudo nano ~/.bash_profile && source ~/.bash_profile"
    #docker aliases
    alias d='docker'
    alias dc='docker-compose'
    alias dnax="docker rm $(docker ps -aq)"
    #git aliases
    alias g='git'
    alias new="git checkout -b"
    alias last="git log -2"
    alias gg='git status'
    alias lg="git log --pretty=format:'%h was %an, %ar, message: %s' --graph"
    alias nah="git reset --hard && git clean -df"
    alias squash="git rebase -i HEAD~2"
  1. source /.bash_profile

Done. Use and enjoy!

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3
  • My aliases do not work with double dashes -- in case of git. How did you get them to work? For example your alias lg has double dashes. I'm trying to set alias stash="git stash --include-untracked" but when I call it in terminal it ignores the -- command.
    – Ali Kazi
    Commented Jul 31, 2020 at 1:34
  • Just in case it's still not working, restarting the tab alone won't work, we have to restart the terminal - For Dumbos like me :)
    – Panduranga Rao Sadhu
    Commented Dec 20, 2021 at 6:17
  • 2
    alias nah="git reset --hard && git clean -df" is the winner of the most intuitive naming contest!
    – Mike Sulyaev
    Commented Oct 13, 2023 at 8:41
13

For macOS Catalina Users:

Step 1: create or update .zshrc file

vi ~/.zshrc

Step 2: Add your alias line

alias blah="/usr/bin/blah"

Step 3: Source .zshrc

source ~/.zshrc

Step 4: Check you're alias, by typing alias on the command prompt

alias
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9 
cd /etc
sudo vi bashrc

Add the following like:

alias ll="ls -lrt"

Finally restart Terminal.

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1
  • 1
    After adding alias. Run 'source' on your '.bash_profile' file. Ex: source ~/.bash_profile (command which activates/ reloads the bash aliases)
    – UIResponder
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 13:01
7

The config file for scripts and programs is ~/.bashrc and the config file that gets loaded when you use Terminal is ~/.bash_login.

I think the best way is to just have everything in ~/.bashrc.

For your specific question just enter (this will overwrite any existing ~/.bashrc):

echo "alias blah=\"/usr/bin/blah\"" >>~/.bashrc

into the Terminal and a ~/.bashrc file will be created with your new alises. After that just edit the file to add new aliases, functions, settings etc.

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1
  • 5
    Shouldn't you use >> instead of > so that it appends to the file rather than replacing everything in it?
    – Jonny
    Commented Apr 9, 2017 at 21:41
6
  1. Go to home
  2. Open .bashrc

  3. Create alias at bottom of the file

    alias alias_name='command to do'
eg: alias cdDesktop='cd /Desktop'

  4. Save the file

  5. source .bashrc

    source ~/.bashrc

  6. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) & type cdDesktop & press enter

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4

If you put blah="/usr/bin/blah" in your ~/.bashrc then you can use $blah in your login shell as a substitute for typing /usr/bin/blah

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1
  • 2
    The dollar sign is emphatically not in any way necessary, useful, or correct here.
    – tripleee
    Commented Jan 5, 2018 at 5:48
3

You probably want to edit the .bashrc file in your home directory.

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3

I need to run the Postgres database and created an alias for the purpose. The work through is provided below:

$ nano ~/.bash_profile 
# in the bash_profile, insert the following texts:
alias pgst="pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start"
alias pgsp="pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres stop"
$ source ~/.bash_profile 
### This will start the Postgres server 
$ pgst
### This will stop the Postgres server 
$ pgsp
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1

I think it's proper way:

1) Go to teminal. open ~/.bashrc. Add if not exists

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
    . ~/.bash_aliases
fi

2) open ~/.bash_aliases. If not exists: touch ~/.bash_aliases && open ~/.bash_aliases

3) To add new alias rather
- edit .bash_aliases file and restart terminal or print source ~/.bash_aliases
- print echo "alias clr='clear'" >> ~/.bash_aliases && source ~/.bash_aliases where your alias is alias clr='clear'.

4) Add line source ~/.bash_aliases to ~/.bash_profile file. It needs to load aliases in each init of terminal.

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1

create a bash_profile at your user root - ex 

/user/username/.bash_profile

open file

vim ~/.bash_profile

add alias as ex. (save and exit)

alias mydir="cd ~/Documents/dirname/anotherdir"

in new terminal just type mydir - it should open 

/user/username/Documents/dirname/anotherdir
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0

To create a permanent alias shortcut, put it in .bash_profile file and point .bashrc file to .bash_profile file. Follow these steps (I am creating an alias command called bnode to run babel transpiler on ES6 code):

  1. Go to terminal command prompt and type “cd” (this will take you to the home directory. Note: even though your programming files may be located on your “D: drive”, your “.bash” files may be located on your “C: drive” )
  2. To see the location of the home directory, type “pwd” (this will show you the home directory path and where the .bash files are probably located)
  3. To see all dot "." files in the home directory, type “ls -la” (this will show ALL files including hidden dot "." files)
  4. You will see 2 files: “.bash_profile” and “.bashrc”
  5. Open .bashrc file in VS Code Editor or your IDE and enter “source ~/.bash_profile” in first line (to point .bashrc file to .bash_profile)
  6. Open .bash_profile file in VS Code Editor and enter “alias bnode='./node_modules/.bin/babel-node'” (to create permanent bnode shortcut to execute as bash command)
  7. Save and close both files
  8. Now open the file you want to execute (index.js) and open in terminal command prompt and run file by using command “bnode index.js”
  9. Now your index.js file will execute but before creating bnode alias in .bash_profile file you would get the error "bash: bnode command not found" and it would not recognize and give errors on some ES6 code.
  10. Helpful link to learn about dotfiles: https://dotfiles.github.io/

I hope this helps! Good luck!

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