Type <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> <kbd>R</kbd> at the command line and start typing the previous command. Once a result appears keep hitting <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> <kbd>R</kbd> to see other matches. When the command you want appears, simply press <kbd>Enter</kbd> Note that while <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> <kbd>R</kbd> is the default, if you wanted the command (`reverse-search-history`) to be bound to <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> <kbd>T</kbd> you could configure that with the following: <pre> bind '"\C-t": reverse-search-history' </pre> There are a whole host of other readline bindable commands that are available to you as well. Take a look at the [`bash` man page][1]. [1]: http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html#Bindable-Readline-Commands