Bash - Clear History Upon Exiting Terminal

10/28/2014, Tue

Categories: #Shell

Cleaning terminal history

Whether you want to have some sense of privacy or a sense of cleanliness, working with the terminal leaves a history that you might want to remove.

Removing the .bash_history upon exiting the terminal is the goal for this post.

Create a .rm_terminal_history.sh file in the directory that .bashrc file is in.

# .rm_terminal_history.sh

rm_hist(){
  if [ -f ~/.bash_history ]
  then
    rm ~/.bash_history
    history -c
    echo ".bash_history removed."
    exit 0
  else
    echo ".bash_history can not be found."
    exit 1
  fi
}

trap rm_hist EXIT

After the script is created, give it executable privileges.

# Make Script Executable

chmod +x .rm_terminal_history.sh

Now add a reference to your .bashrc file for the script to run

# Add Entry to .bashrc

#Add following line to .bashrc
source ~/.rm_terminal_history.sh

The .bash_history file will be removed when exiting the terminal at any time.

WH

Bash - Clear History Upon Exiting Terminal

Cleaning terminal history

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