History isn’t preserved in zsh

command historyzsh

Whenever I open a new instance of a terminal, the history is empty. Why is that? Do I need to set something up? In bash there's no need for this, though.

Best Answer

Bash and zsh have different defaults. Zsh doesn't save the history to a file by default.

When you run zsh without a configuration file, it displays a configuration interface. In this configuration interface, select

(1)  Configure settings for history, i.e. command lines remembered
     and saved by the shell.  (Recommended.)

then review the proposed settings and select

# (0)  Remember edits and return to main menu (does not save file yet)

Repeat for the other submenus for (2) completion, (3) keybindings and (4) options, then select

(0)  Exit, saving the new settings.  They will take effect immediately.

from the main menu.

The recommended history-related settings are

HISTFILE=~/.histfile
HISTSIZE=1000
SAVEHIST=1000
setopt appendhistory

I would use a different name for the history file, to indicate it's zsh's history file. And 1000 lines can be increased on a modern system.

HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history
HISTSIZE=10000
SAVEHIST=10000
setopt appendhistory

These lines go into ~/.zshrc, by the way.

Related Solutions

Zsh – Per-directory Command History

There is a plugin that claims to do exactly what you are looking for, appropriately named per directory history plugin:

https://github.com/jimhester/oh-my-zsh/commit/baa187e4b903f39422a84b580e6e617ec3738e09

"Per-directory-history - tracks previous command history both per current directory and globally, with the ability to switch between them on the fly, bound to ctrl-g." says their wiki.

I did not test it myself (yet), but according to the comments it should work.

Zsh – How to Clear History in Zsh

To get an empty history, temporarily set HISTSIZE to zero.

function erase_history { local HISTSIZE=0; }
erase_history

If you want to erase the new history from this shell instance but keep the old history that was loaded initially, empty the history as above then reload the saved history fc -R afterwards.

If you don't want the erase_history call to be recorded in the history, you can filter it out in the zshaddhistory hook.

function zshaddhistory_erase_history {
  [[ $1 != [[:space:]]#erase_history[[:space:]]# ]]
}
zshaddhistory_functions+=(zshaddhistory_erase_history)

Deleting one specific history element (history -d NUM in bash) is another matter. I don't think there's a way other than:

Save the history: fc -AI to append to the history file, or fc -WI to overwrite the history file, depending on your history sharing preferences.
Edit the history file ($HISTFILE).
Reload the history file: fc -R.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Zsh – Per-directory Command History

Zsh – How to Clear History in Zsh

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