Best way to gain quick access to frequently used directory in linux terminal

Question

Having some problems googling this one because I'm not sure what the search term is. Shell scripting or terminal feature. What is the best way to streamline access to frequently used directories. Normally when I start a terminal it defaults to my home directory but sometimes I ike to open several terminal windows, the problem is I'm typing the cd /.../directory in each one multiple times and I need a way to not have to do this. What is the best way or just provide the search terms I could use to read about it online. Thank you

Answer 1

Create a symbolic link in your home directory:

$ ln -s path/to/a/really/deeply/nested/director/my-project ~/my-project

$ cd ~/my-project

Answer 2

Add a variable in your .bashrc:

MYPROJECT=path/to/a/really/deeply/nested/director/my-project

to use:

$ cd $MYPROJECT

Answer 3

Set the CDPATH variable: it contains additional directories to be searched when you run cd.

Answer 4

You could use a bookmarks for the shell, e.g. bookmarks.sh.

Answer 5

You can also take advantage of CDPATH variable.

And you could define a bash function in your $HOME/.bashrc like

 # in file ~/.bashrc
 function work() {
    cd $HOME/path/to/a/really/deeply/nested/director/my-project
 }

And recent bash or even better zsh may permit you things like

 cd **/my-project

Assuming you have only one deeply nested my-project/ directory in all your tree hierarchy. The ** is doing the equivalent of a find so can be slow.

Answer 6

Add an alias in your .bashrc

alias myproject="cd path/to/a/really/deeply/nested/director/my-project"

to use:

$ myproject