CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashmacosunix
Kevin
Kevin

Reputation: 5082

Load .bash_profile for every terminal

I set up some aliases in my .bash_profile on my Max OS X. It works but when I'm opening a new tab I always have to load my .bash_profile file with this command:

source ~/.bash_profile

How can I make it work for every terminal I'm opening, even if I'm restarting my Mac or Linux computer?

Upvotes: 28

Views: 44483

Answers (4)

Sabrina
Sabrina

Reputation: 2799

If you are using zsh, you can add source ~/.bash_profile at the end of the .zshrc file located at the following path: /Users/YOUR USER NAME/.zshrc

After making this change, restart your Terminal or iTerm2 application.

Please note that the .zshrc file is hidden. To make it visible, you can press CMD + SHIFT + . in Finder. Alternatively, you can open it in the default text editor using the following command in the terminal:

open ~/.zshrc

Update

You don't need to perform these steps manually. You can run the following command instead:

echo "source ~/.bash_profile" >> ~/.zshrc

* Dont forget to restart your terminal.

Upvotes: 45

Payal Bhalerao
Payal Bhalerao

Reputation: 1

For Ubuntu system - Do it from Terminal > Preferences > Profile > Command > click on checkbox of Run command as a login shell and then reopen the Terminal

Screenshot of terminal preferences

Upvotes: 0

jaymzleutz
jaymzleutz

Reputation: 165

I know this is a pretty old post, but this problem comes and goes quite oftenly and a lot of laborous solutions are offered. The fact is: being aware of a simple info would solve this pretty fast and easy:

LINUX/Unix OS will load the profile files on startup following the rules below (some distros may have other files names, mainly for user local profiles, but the main rule follows this):

  1. Login Shell

First and foremost: /etc/profile is loaded (global settings); Next: ˜/.bash_profile (local user settings- other files may be found, like ˜/.profile, depending on the distro. Check documentation).

So, if you are in a Login Shell environment, put all your crazy stuff inside ˜/.bash_profile (or the file provided by your distro) and everything will be fine.

  1. Non-login Shell

First and foremost: /etc/bashrc (some distros will load bash.bashrc); The next file to be seeked and loaded is ˜/.bashrc

And that's why so many people (just like me) got frustrated having to source their ˜/.bash_profile every single time a Terminal was loaded. We were simply inserting info in the "wrong" file- regarding the kind of shell loaded (see above: login, non-login).

More details on variants of the files mentioned above and some info on login vs non-login shell can be found here.

Hope it helps \o/

Upvotes: 2

user2350426
user2350426

Reputation:

The files executed at the start may be several, usually ~/.bashrc for interactive, non-login shells. The kind I assume you are using.

If so, create an ~/.bashrc file and source ~/.bash_profile in it:

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

This web site has a lot of information about this.

Study this image, as it is a condensed guide

If you do need to find out exactly which file is being executed, take a look at this web page. It has a lot of specific tests to find out what file is setting what.

Specific for Mac-OS (which is an exception and loads ~/.bash_profile) do as is recomended in the site linked in this answer AFTER you confirm that your bash is doing as explained there.

Upvotes: 24

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