I am using iTerm in Mac OS X 10.6. It seems when I open iTerm, neither .bashrc nor .bash_profile is sourced. I can tell because the aliases defined in .bashrc are not set. How to fix?
14 Answers
Bash will source EITHER .bash_profile or .bashrc, depending upon how it is called. If it is a login shell, Bash looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, or ~/.profile, in that order, and sources the first one it finds (and only that one). If it is not a login shell but is interactive (like most terminal sessions), Bash will source ~/.bashrc.
Likely, iTerm is looking for ~/.bashrc. If it's configured to start as a login shell, it will look for ~/.bash_profile. It's almost certainly an error within the config file rather than that the shell is not sourcing it.
I would put a line at the beginning of each file. At the top of ~/.bash_profile:
export BASH_CONF="bash_profile"
And at the top of ~/.bashrc:
export BASH_CONF="bashrc"
Then, open a new iTerm and type
$ echo $BASH_CONF
That should confirm the file is being sourced and you can look into the syntax of the file.
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3Setting a different environment variable for each source file allows for more information, that is, if more than one file is sourced, you'll know it, nost just the last one (if not the order sourced.)– kmarshCommented Nov 23, 2015 at 18:47
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This still doesn't load the .bashrc file. I had to add source ~/.bashrc to my iTerm and Terminal Preferences. btw I'm using Mac OS X 10.9.5. Commented May 26, 2016 at 1:06
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I just added a .profile file and that automatically works on OS X 10.9.5 without messing in your terminal preferences. Commented May 26, 2016 at 1:11
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2I found out it is a login shell by going to preferences -> profiles -> general and login shell is selected under command. Valid on MacOS El Capitan and iTerm2 3.0.14– AdityaCommented Mar 2, 2017 at 17:37
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The solution here did not work for me, but I found a solution. In the beginning, there was no bashrc and no bash_profile. The answer here proposes to create a bashrc. Instead of creating a bashrc file I created a bash_profile, and it worked. Now I need to understand why the bashrc was not executed and the bash_profile yes. Commented Aug 17, 2018 at 15:17
In iTerm2, none of these solutions worked for me. I was able to get it to properly read my .bashrc file by adding the command
source ~/.bashrc
to the Send text at start: field in Settings/General for my iTerm profile.
answered Jun 13, 2012 at 17:35
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What happened when you did what the accepted answer suggests? No output?– Daniel Beck ♦Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 18:15
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1Right. I got no output, and iTerm 2 just loaded the default bash shell with none of my aliases. Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 18:25
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That answer was broken until just now -- the second snippet was supposed to go into
~/.bashrc. Edited it.– Daniel Beck ♦Commented Jun 16, 2012 at 6:13 -
I use ZSH and was having the same issue. Except that none of my config file existed in the first place and had to be created. I used this answer and set the "Send text at start" however, when i restarted ZSH created it's .zsh and overwrote my file, i was able to remove the "Send text at start" and add my configs to the newly generated file. Not sure if this helps anyone– ArnolioCommented Dec 8, 2016 at 16:23
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1+1 works like a charm. May add also
source ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bash_profileCommented Sep 13, 2017 at 19:06
I just wonder do you really use Bash? May be you can use echo $SHELL, it is quite possible that you are using zsh, have you installed on-my-zh?
Acutually I encounter the same problem as you, I fix it by configuring ~/.zshrc instead either ~/.bash_profile for login shell or ~/.bashrc for non-login shell.
Maybe you can have a try
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1Interesting suggestion, although this question is 3 years old and has an accepted answer.– TysonCommented Dec 2, 2014 at 13:55
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On my 10.6 machine ~/.profile is sourced. So a source .bashrc entry in ~/.profile should do the job.
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My experience says you do not want to source one .bashx file from another, they are separate for a reason :) If you are doing that, then something is wrong Commented Feb 20, 2017 at 21:55
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@AlexanderMills The reason these files exist is because Mac ripped them straight outta Unix. There's no reason they all shouldn't be loaded for a user. Commented Feb 7, 2019 at 21:35
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you can get circular calls if they load each other, is the problem, best way to avoid that is to flip a boolean with an env var and only load the other files if the boolean is not set. Commented Feb 7, 2019 at 22:03
Easy fix.
1. Open your ~/.zshrc file
2. Add the following line at the end of the file.
source ~/.bash_profile
answered Aug 18, 2017 at 20:09
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1Brilliant! That did it for me. It never occurred to me that zsh was getting in the way after I installed Oh-my-zh. Commented Apr 19, 2018 at 14:34
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Brilliant! None of the other solutions above worked for me. Commented Oct 12, 2021 at 2:28
On my 10.9 machine ~/.bash_profile is sourced. So a source .bashrc entry in ~/.bash_profile should do the job.
Put your alias definitions in the bash profile file, you have to create the file but it will be sourced automatically. I create a separate file called alias.configuration and source it in .bash_profile just because I have another user defined and want to have the same alias set.
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1
Add
set -x
to the beginning of /etc/profile. This gives you a line-by-line account of everything that gets executed when bash starts up, including files sourced from within /etc/profile, ~/.bash_profile, etc. It's a bit daunting if you don't understand bash scripting very well, but you may be able to see if there is an error in a start-up file, and the output will be useful for someone proficient in bash to help you locate your problem.
You can remove the set -x line when you're finished troubleshooting.
On 10.10 and iTerm2 2.0, customized profile
- .bash_rc should work.
- .bash_profile, try "/bin/bash --login" instead of "/bin/bash"
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I voted up this answer because it seems to be the only one acknowledging that in OS X,at some point, bash would source ".bash_rc" instead of ".bashrc" . I only came here because I was trying to find out why (and I still don't know). Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 18:09
Since iTerm2 has "Login Shell" under Preference > Profiles > General > Command, it will look for ~/.bash_profile before ~/.bashrc.
You need to add this to ~/bash_profile:
. ~/.bashrc
In iTerm2, ensure you're using "login shell" instead of a custom command including "login", which doesn't do what you expect.
Make the following change and iTerm will source bashrc
iTerm > Preferences > General > [x] Command: /bin/bash
Problem can be fixed by adding below line into /etc/bashrc
[ -r "$HOME/.bashrc" ] && . "$HOME/.bashrc"
I combined couple solutions together to work it like expected.
.bash_profile source and run on zsh.
Preferences -> Profiles -> General .
Select Command under Command .
And add in the text box /bin/bash --login .
Then in .bash_profile add line
/bin/zsh --login
That's it.
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(1) What? (2) If you are having
bashalways runzsh, that is not what anybody expects. Commented Mar 5, 2018 at 5:56 -
If I set /bin/bash --login, it doesn't provide any features of zsh. Then If I change it to loginshell in preference, it doesn't read .bash_profile. Everytime I have to run
source ~/.bash_profilemanually. @Scott After doing the above things, I have zsh in the required way. Commented Mar 5, 2018 at 8:07 -
(1) My point is that
zshmight be what you desire, but it is not required or asked for by this question, which is tagged [bash] and doesn’t say anything aboutzsh. (2) If you define aliases and shell functions and set variables (without exporting them) in your.bashrcand/or.bash_profile, are they available to you in yourzshshell? Commented Mar 5, 2018 at 15:32
~/.bash_profileis being invoked by bash first, which is short circuiting the instructions you have in~/.bashrc. This problem can happen unexpectedly if a rogue program adds some instructions to your~/.bash_profilewhen previously the file didn't exist, and you had placed all your bash commands in~/.bashrc. The solution is to either delete your ~/.bash_profile, or to have ~/.bash_profile source your ~/.bashrc. This can be performed by adding the command:source ~/.bashrcto the end of your~/.bash_profileand restarting the terminal.