Here is one additional bookmark solution [1]:

    export CDPATH=.:~/.marks/

    function mark {
      ln -sr "$(pwd)" ~/.marks/"$1"
    }

    mark @name      # create a bookmark
    cd @name        # jump to bookmark
    cd @<tab>       # list bookmarks
    cd @n<tab>      # auto-complete
    cd @name/<tab>  # can access sub-directories within bookmarks

Works best when bookmarks are prefixed by "@" or other special symbol. Additional advantage is that you can use the same function `cd` to navigate both bookmarked and regular directories.

[1]: http://karolis.koncevicius.lt/posts/fast_navigation_in_the_c...

    alias cd="cd -P"

I upvoted for this alone:

  Another neat short hand is !$ which is an alias for the last argument of the previous command. This can be handy if one creates a new directory and wants to change into it without typing the the directory again. So commands would be

  mkdir -p make/new/directory
  cd !$

You've no idea how many years I've been thinking "This is Linux fer gawd's sake. Surely there must be some easy way to make a new directory and 'cd' to it in a single command!" But was never able to find or guess the right incantation.

     alias tcd='a=`date +%s`;mkdir "$a" && cd "$a"'

    # create a new directory and enter it
    function mkd() {
        mkdir -p "$@" && cd "$_";
    }

    enter () 
    { 
        mkdir -p "$1";
        cd "$1"
    }

The most important tool I found for switching directories is called "z". You just partially type a previously visited directory's name and it takes you there. It also keeps track of your history to rank candidates for popularity. https://github.com/rupa/z/ It's basically CDPATH on stereoids and doesn't require preconfiguration like CDPATH.

The author missed to mention one of my favorite tricks to change back in to the last visited directory:

  cd -

Hint: Change into directory called '-' can be done by

  cd ./-

I also use the mkcd alias / function:

  mkcd() { mkdir -p "$@" && cd !$; }

This allows creating multiple dirs and cd into the first one.

  mkcd test1 test2 test3

   git checkout -

I use `z` as a less manual way to search common directories instead of changing $CDPATH. It's based on 'frecency'.

https://github.com/rupa/z

Or you just use a shell like fish that already comes with a lot of useful defaults. No need to customize everything by yourself, just use what other smart people already created.

https://fishshell.com/

I'm surprised autocd was not mentioned. I saw

  alias ..='cd ..'
  # etc ...

But not.

  shopt -s autocd

zsh also has this. This seems like the fastest way to navigate since you no longer need to type, or retype, cd.

Another one:

  cdof () {
    cd "$(dirname $1)"
  }

as in 'Change into Directory Of"

Changes into the directory of a file. This is useful when you're doing complicated commands with long path names, but realize it would be easier if you were to cd into that directory. Use in combination with <Alt+.>. Especially useful if the filename component is long:

  $ pwd
  => ~/
  $ ls -l path/to/whatever/deep/somewhere/2021-04-22-filewithverylongnamefoobarbaz.xyz
  $ cdof <Alt+.>
  $ pwd
  => path/to/whatever/deep/somewhere

    function cd() {

        if [[ ${#} -eq 0 ]]; then
            builtin cd
            return
        fi

        if [[ -f ${1} ]]; then
            builtin cd $(dirname ${1})
        else
            builtin cd ${1}
        fi

    }

    cd $(dirname -z `find -iname $1`)

}

Good selection of tips, like Normille I didn't know $! even though I have read Bash's man page through more than once.

Note that many of these are not just for Bash. pushd/popd is near universal among shells and CDPATH is standard among SYSV shells.

The idea of a shortcut for cd .. and its repetitions is good, but I'd prefer alias p='cd ..', pp='cd ../..' and so on, since I balk at the idea of having to distinguish, e.g., ..... and ...., but I find pppp and ppp are easier to discriminate by eyeball.

The shells I use most often are bash and the Emacs eshell, and over the years I appreciate eshell more and more. It has a few footguns, but the availability of the various selection-narrowing libraries, dired and tramp are huge pluses. zsh can pretty much do anything bash can do and more, and it's default on Macos and Arch Linux.

https://github.com/junegunn/fzf also has a “cd mode”, by default triggerable using Alt-C, which can be useful.

I use jump commands:

export MARKPATH=$HOME/.marks function jump { cd -P $MARKPATH/$1 2>/dev/null || echo "No such mark: $1" } function ju { cd -P $MARKPATH/$1 2>/dev/null || echo "No such mark: $1" } function mark { mkdir -p $MARKPATH; ln -s $(pwd) $MARKPATH/$1 } function unmark { rm -i $MARKPATH/$1 } function marks { ls -l $MARKPATH | sed 's/ / /g' | cut -d' ' -f9- | sed 's/ -/\t-/g' && echo }

I think the original source is #http://jeroenjanssens.com/2013/08/16/quickly-navigate-your-f...

Another neat trick is to set you .inputrc to vi mode with

set editing-mode vi set keymap vi

and then put this in your .bashrc

bind -m vi-insert -x '"\C-h"':'"pushd . 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null && cd ../ && echo -e ${LILA} $PWD && ls"' bind -m vi-insert -x '"\C-n"':'"popd 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null && echo -e ${LILA} $PWD && ls"' bind -m vi-insert -x '"\C-b":"cd $HOME && echo -e ${LILA} $PWD && ls"'

This enables you to go a directory up using ctrl-h and go back using ctrl-n.

I have a few functions in my bashrc for fast directory navigation.

up <#> - cd .. # times

upto <dir> - find dir in the current path above you and cd to it

down <dir> - find dir in the current tree below you including inside any number of subdirectories and cd to it

https://github.com/robmccoll/dotfiles/blob/master/bashrc#L15...

I've been playing around with the tool FZF recently. It's speeding up my command line workflow quite a lot. I made a small script that allows me to open a fuzzy search for any command, so I can write the command f followed by something like vim, evince, cd, mpv... I can optionally give a starting directory and a first query but I rarely do it. I have it in my .bashrc, but should work in any posix compliant shell. It needs fzf and fd:

  # fuzzy search any command
  f(){
    ROOT_DIR="."
    [ -n "$2" ] && ROOT_DIR="$2"
    FZF_OUT=`fd . -H --color=always "$ROOT_DIR" --exclude "Software/"| fzf --query="$3"`
    [ -n "$FZF_OUT" ] && "$1" "$FZF_OUT"
  }

in my case Software/ is a directory with lots of files I don't need so I exclude it from my searches. I also like using ranger, it has very nice bookmarking and launcher features.

Honestly what made the most difference for me was learning that `cd -` is "go back".

Works for git too:

`git checkout -` (checkout previous branch)

`git merge -` (merge with previous branch; useful for pulling master before merging)

I exhort you all to take a look at Fasd:

https://github.com/clvv/fasd

No mentions of https://github.com/jarun/nnn yet?

I've really taken a shine to using a real file manager with lots of nifty features without any bloat.

I do the following [1]:

- I define "cdn" to be what others call "mkcd", as then if I have a command line "cd foo" and it tells me that foo doesn't exist, I can just add the 'n' to the previous entry. I also overload "cdn" so that when not given any argument, it goes into the newest subdirectory in the current directory.

- "u", "uu", "uuu", "uuuu", "uuuuu" for going "up" that many levels, and unlike the aliases in OP, I define them as functions and if those are given an argument, they descends into the path from there: "u foo" is equivalent to "cd ../foo", "uu foo" to "cd ../../foo".

- I also have a function called "mvcd foo bar" that moves foo to bar and then goes into bar. "mvcdnewdir foo bar" that does the same but will create bar. (I'm pondering unifying them to a version that always calls mkdir -p)

- an alias "c" for cd [2]. The single letter messes with the history search though (ctl-r c space or ctl-r cd space ?), so it's not necessarily a good idea. `shopt -s autocd` that I just learned about here may be better.

- some functions for special locations, "cs" for ~/scratch, "cb" for ~/bookmarks, etc.

[1] see .bashrc at https://github.com/pflanze/chj-home [2] but I never use bash's "alias" since aside of being shorter it is always worse than a function (no way to extend it later to take parameters, and messes up live redefinitions)

I vote for creating a « mkcd » alias !!

  # create a directory in the current directory and cd to it

  function mkcd() { mkdir -p "$@" && eval cd "\"\$$#\""; }

  mkcd(){ mkdir --parents -- "$@" && cd -- "$@"; }

I independently also have a stack of '...', '....' etc aliases almost exactly the same as this! Extremely useful I reckon!

Another thing that I've found surprisingly invaluable is an alias (i went for 'ccd') that figures out (via python, so a bit slower on the 1st run) what part of the argument is a valid directory and then cd's you there. It's very handy indeed when working with file paths all the time (a film-vfx-on-Linux use-case) otherwise you end up using backspace to delete the file part constantly! In fact, about that: hitting Esc-Backspace in sequence, should delete back to the next word separator instead of one char at a time.

  function ..() { for i in $(seq 1 $1); do cd ..; done }

  ..    # goes up 1 dir
  .. 2  # goes up 2 dirs 
  .. 42 # goes up 42 dirs

For me once I moved to zsh and added `oh my zsh` it really became so much easier.

I like the autocomplete, the fact that when cd-ing a known path you can just type the first leter of each directory with slashes, showing the git branch in working dir.

Its the little things.

I just read the title and thought "Switch to Zsh".

Bash is so amazingly clunky in comparison.

I haven’t tested this exact scenario but I like doing something like this when needed

    mkdir -p path/to/{one,two,three}/done

To create:

* path/to/one/done

* path/to/two/done

* path/to/three/done

    mv something{,.old}

  echo -e {A..Z}{a..z}{0..9}/{A..Z}{a..z}{0..9}"\n"|wc -l
  45697601

We tried to somewhat mimic the finder experience when implementing directory navigation at Fig (https://withfig.com). Except of course, we make it all keyboard driven!

The methods listed in the article are almost certainly better if you know exactly which directory you need to go to (like a specific project repo, your bin etc) however often you don’t!

Another interesting tool is Z: https://github.com/rupa/z

On a Mac, Findspot supports fuzzy directory search, either as a key sequence or via the command line (my alias is "c").

https://gumroad.com/l/findspot

I experiment with many forms of automation and stick with few of them. Interface complexity has a cost; there's a reason keyboards don't have more keys. For me, Findspot is indispensable.

FWIW I learnt a lot of my Bash tricks from: https://www.commandlinefu.com/

After trying such history-based automatic tools I found they lacked predictability for me.

So the very small 50 LOC kd was born:

    kd # jumps to project top level (based on .git/Gemfile)
    kd foobar "$PWD" # saves an entry named foobar pointing to $PWD
    kd foo # jumps to foobar
    cp qux $(kd foo) # expands to foobar's value

I should probably make it expand to absolute paths so that I could change "$PWD" to .

https://github.com/lloeki/dotfiles/blob/master/shell/kd

    g .       # add current dir to bookmarks
    g         # list bookmarks
    g del     # open bookmarks in vi (should use $EDITOR ...)
    g <regex> # jump to first matching bookmark

I use `autojump` (aliased as `j`), which sounds quite similar as it also records your most frequently visited directories. It's as simple as entering `j down` to enter /some/path/to/MyDownloadFolder.

For exploring massive file trees, a terminal file manager that allows you to preview the contents of subdirectories without entering them is huge time saver. I use `lf`.

https://github.com/wting/autojump

https://github.com/gokcehan/lf

I use (and develop) `goat`. It's like a shortcut manager for aliases for directories you go to often. And a way to make "cd ...." work for any number of dots.

https://github.com/0mp/goat

zsh, oh-my-zsh and z are the must haves that I add to any new environment immediately. Z and similar tools is such an elegant solution to directory navigation.

Many of these Emacs/readline shortcuts work in 99% of Mac apps too, which is nice.

https://jblevins.org/log/kbd

> I'm an old-timer so was introduced to Unix before bash was ubiquitous.

Me too, my first contact with UNIX was with SunOS 4 in 1988, which had csh as its default shell. I don't think I switched to bash until I started administering a Linux box in 1999, although I did script in POSIX shells before then. Before I had a system I was in control of, my attitude to bash was that it was unportable, because of the major differences between its v1 and v2 syntax.

Is there a way to tell CTRL-w to break words at / as well as space? I often use it to remove a parameter from a command I've copy-pasted or got from the history, but for the cd use case it removes too much.

Edit: ESC followed by backspace seems to work.