How can I partially clear my terminal scrollback?

Question

I want to partially clear my terminal scrollback history, but only from where I have selected with my mouse in the scrollback and up. Is this possible? I'm on a Mac, and I use iTerm2 and Terminal.

`bash` doesn't have any notion of scrollback; that's something your terminal emulator manages. — chepner, Apr 01 '13 at 18:03
@chepner - ok, good point. I just reframed the question to not be about bash. — Javid Jamae, Apr 01 '13 at 18:56
Landed here from a search for fully clearing scrollback. If you need to fully clear scrollback, `right-click` -> `clear buffer` — Shamal Karunarathne, Jan 12 '21 at 20:54

Luqmaan · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-16T22:53:41.240

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Not sure about partially, but you can fully clear your scrollback with Cmd+K. Control+L will only clear the screen, not the scrollback content/history/buffer.

If you want the partial scrollback badly enough, this would probably be the place to implement it.

edited Dec 16 '13 at 22:53

answered Dec 16 '13 at 21:29

Luqmaan

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Thanks, but man, that is some nasty code! I don't think I'd ever want anything so badly that I would have to get in to that codebase. :-) – Javid Jamae Dec 16 '13 at 23:00
If this is still true - and it seems it is - that's very disappointing. The scrollback buffer looks like a trash dump, picking up bits from the pager & randomly over-writing stuff that might actually be useful. – Seamus Mar 30 '22 at 23:30

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 16 '13 at 21:58

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This is not possible, but you can clear just the screen by pressing Control+L.

edited Dec 16 '13 at 21:58

Scott - Слава Україні

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answered Apr 17 '13 at 21:36

Mark Stewart

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score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 07 '15 at 05:31

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http://www.pendrivelinux.com/how-to-clear-the-terminal-command-history/

This will clear the history completely. history -c

No way I could find to do a partial.

answered Apr 07 '15 at 05:31

Edwin Dover

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score -2 · Answer 4 · answered May 04 '18 at 12:16

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This command will most probably give you the possible history files. You can open it in a text editor and edit.

ls -a ~ | grep hist

answered May 04 '18 at 12:16

iozozturk

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Welcome to Super User! Please reread the question- OP is asking about scrollback, not history. – bertieb May 04 '18 at 13:11

score -4 · Answer 5 · edited Dec 16 '13 at 21:58

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If I have correctly understood your question, I think that you can achieve that by manually editing your history file, ~/.bash_history.

P.S.: In order to save your current session, you have to first close the Terminal.

edited Dec 16 '13 at 21:58

Scott - Слава Україні

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answered Apr 17 '13 at 22:16

dezzeus

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No, I think you misunderstood. The .bash_history file is for the command history, not the terminal scrollback history. – Javid Jamae Dec 16 '13 at 22:54

How can I partially clear my terminal scrollback?

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