Keyboard shortcuts

Certain keys -- or combinations of keys -- trigger extremely useful functionality in a Bash terminal.

Navigate the history of commands #

The up and down arrow keys can be used to navigate the history of commands used earlier in a Terminal session (or in an earlier Terminal session altogether).

Jump to the start/end of a line #

The Control and A keys can be pressed simultaneously to move the cursor instantly at the start of the current line.

Conversely, Control and E move the cursor to the end of the line.

Abort the current command #

The Control and C keys can be pressed simultaneously to interrupt a command that is currently running in the Terminal application.

In the example below, we demonstrate this using the command sleep, which does nothing but keep the terminal session busy for a set number of seconds. During that interval of time (i.e., before the command completes), we press the Control and C keys simultaneously, to manually interrupt the command.