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This site says that on Linux you can add a space before a terminal command to keep it out of .bash_history.

This does not seem to work for Mac OS X. Does anyone know of a way to execute a single command on the Terminal without saving it to history?

I don't want to clear the history.

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adding a ` ` (space) before a terminal command will not keep it out of the history – warren Aug 18 '11 at 16:20
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@warren No, it does. You just have to enable the feature in bash. – firebat Aug 18 '11 at 16:33
@firebat - right: but since it's something you have to enable, it may or may not work everywhere :) – warren Aug 18 '11 at 16:35
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2 Answers

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Add the following line to ~/.bashrc

export HISTCONTROL=ignorespace

Then source ~/.bashrc to refresh the settings

This should enable that feature in bash. If it doesn't work, you might have to add it to ~/.bash_profile instead of ~/.bashrc since OS X loads them a bit differently than linux I think.

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How can I use two options with that? I want to use export HISTCONTROL=erasedups,ignorespace but I think that syntax does not work... – cwd Aug 18 '11 at 16:33
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export HISTCONTROL=erasedups:ignorespace – firebat Aug 18 '11 at 16:34
perfect, thanks! – cwd Aug 18 '11 at 16:35
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But i think it's actually export HISTCONTROL=ignoredups:ignorespace – firebat Aug 18 '11 at 16:35
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The "ignoredups" setting ignores repeated lines. Typing "ls" twenty times in a row only ends up with one of them in history. However, typing "ls" and then "ps" and then "ls" again will store "ls" and "ps" every time - unless you have bash 3 and set "erasedups". If that's set, no duplicates get entered in bash history at all. - cyberciti.biz/faq/bash-for-loop-array – cwd Aug 18 '11 at 18:39
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up vote 0 down vote

If you're not concerned about keeping the session active, this may work:

kill -9 $$

It will kill the current session instead of logging-out, which [theoretically] means your history will not be saved.

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