How to set up aliases in zsh?

Question

I know that in bash you can set up aliases in a .bash_aliases file, so that the command you type doesn't need to be a command stored in the binaries in the system. Is there any way I can get aliases into zsh?

score 217 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 18 '21 at 11:53

217

I go back and forth between bash and zsh, and use the same .aliases file for both. They share the same basic alias syntax, so you can create a .aliases file and link it to .bashrc and .zshrc:

.bashrc

if [ -f ~/.aliases ]; then
    . ~/.aliases
fi

.zshrc

source $HOME/.aliases

FWIW this can also be done with environment variable declarations, in a separate .env file.

edited Feb 18 '21 at 11:53

Community

1

answered Oct 02 '12 at 01:24

bgibson

5,037

4

I just added source ~/ .bash_aliases to the end of .zshrc, so all aliases are working both on bash and zsh – talsibony Feb 03 '17 at 09:04
@talsibony
like this: ~/ .bash_aliases I need little help please if you are there, respond
– lewis4u Apr 13 '17 at 11:26
@lewis4u There should not be a space between ~/ and .bash_aliases. It should be exactly ~/.bash_aliases. – bgibson Jun 16 '17 at 20:54
2

Your links are broken.. – Ilan.b Aug 19 '19 at 08:48
Both links are broken. Wouldn't both the same as [ -r "$HOME/.aliases" ] && source "$HOME/.aliases"? (nice doc) – Pablo Bianchi Apr 07 '20 at 16:09
@talsibony, still useful in 2025, thanks! This adds the line automatically:
[ -f ~/.zshrc ] && echo 'source ~/.bash_aliases' >> ~/.zshrc
– appel Feb 28 '25 at 15:44

score 57 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 01 '20 at 16:23

57

You can do it by the "alias" command with this syntax:

alias [ -gmrL ] [ name[=value] ... ]

For "gmrL" switches, see this guide, which is my reference.
For each name, with no value, zsh will print the name and what it is aliased to previously. With no arguments at all, alias prints the values of ALL defined aliases.

To define one or more aliases, simply enter:

alias name1=value1 name2=value2 ... nameX=valueX

For each name with a corresponding value, zsh defines an alias with that value. For further info, check out that link. ;-)

edited Jul 01 '20 at 16:23

jacefarm

103

answered Mar 20 '11 at 17:54

sazary

967

That document answered my question exactly. Thanks much. – Thomas Ward Mar 21 '11 at 03:22
12

this answer misses the part about where to persist the aliases, Kurtosis answer includes it (.zshrc). – Felix Jul 31 '14 at 09:06
6

I use ~/.profile to store all aliases I care about and source ~/.profile it from ~/.zshrc. – danba Nov 12 '18 at 20:00
I tried to store all my aliases in ~/.zprofile but most are overwritten @danba – alper Jul 07 '20 at 22:04

score 13 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 20 '11 at 18:01

13

You generally put them in ~/.zshenv. But many programs use /bin/sh (usually bash) instead of $SHELL to execute shell commands, so for it to work everywhere you will probably need to put the bash equivalent of the alias into ~/.bash_aliases anyway.

answered Mar 20 '11 at 18:01

geekosaur

11,787

This is for my user account only, so this does not need to be copied to the ~/.bash_aliases file. – Thomas Ward Mar 20 '11 at 18:02
2

According to this, aliases should go in .zshrc because .zshenv is "Read every time" -- "this file is read even when Zsh is launched to run a single command." – AWhitford Oct 16 '20 at 22:17
As .zshenv is always sourced, the aliases would even affect scripts, so this is a bad idea. – paradroid Apr 27 '23 at 17:19

score 4 · Answer 4 · edited Mar 29 '23 at 20:21

4

I was trying some things and I found a way to use my aliases created in bash into zsh, only I had to copy these lines from bashrc:

if [ -e ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
  . ~/.bash_aliases
fi

edited Mar 29 '23 at 20:21

Dale C. Anderson

387
4
12

answered Nov 03 '21 at 23:21

Elias Cruz

41
2

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Nov 14 '22 at 10:07

2

What I've found from official guide for Zsh it could be done by code below in your .zshrc:

if [[ -r ~/.aliasrc ]]; then
    . ~/.aliasrc
fi
which checks if there is a readable file ~/.aliasrc, and if there is, it runs it in exactly the same way the normal startup files are run. You can use source instead of . if it means more to you; . is the traditional Bourne and Korn shell name, however.

edited Nov 14 '22 at 10:07

BeastOfCaerbannog

16,936

answered Nov 10 '22 at 14:14

dstroch

21

OK so .aliasrc in ZSH is the equivalent of .bash_aliases in Bash. This should be the accepted answer. – WesternGun Jun 18 '25 at 11:29

score 0 · Answer 6 · edited Oct 26 '21 at 02:35

0

`.zshrc`

add this line at the bottom of the file (assuming that your aliases located in ~/.profile):

source ~/.profile

edited Oct 26 '21 at 02:35

muru

207,970

answered May 19 '21 at 14:22

code-8

205
1
7
17

Don't do this. Depending on what's in ~/.profile, you might end up with weird errors or, worst case, an unusable shell, since ~/.profile in turn sometimes calls another shell's rc file (e.g. you could end up with a circular reference). Also ~/.profile is meant to be executed once per login, not once per terminal process. I would source ~/.bash_aliases or ~/.aliases (whichever exists) instead. – Dale C. Anderson Mar 23 '23 at 21:32

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 22 '21 at 19:59

If anyone find this useful: My situation is that I have a Macbook Laptop, Ubuntu Laptop, Ubuntu Desktop and couple of Ubuntu VMs. In all of them I want to use defaults (so Bash in Ubuntu and Zsh in OSX) but with same aliases.

The way I handle it is that I have my alias file .bash_aliases in git repo called dotfiles. I just clone the repo in all my computers and I just create a symlink to the alias file:

ln -s "~/wherever_i_store_git_repos/dotfiles/.bash_aliases" "~/.bash_aliases"

in Ubuntu I add this to ~/.bashrc :

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
  . ~/.bash_aliases
fi

in OSX I add this to .zshrc :

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
  source $HOME/.bash_aliases
fi

note: Alternatively if you don't use git you can ln -s a Dropbox folder

How to set up aliases in zsh?

7 Answers7

.bashrc

.zshrc

.zshrc

`.zshrc`