How to make OS X to read .bash_profile not .profile file

Question

I have read so many suggestions about, not putting your customization aka commands in ".profile" file. Rather, create a .bash_profile for yourself and add your alias and etc.

But,when I open the new terminal, if there is only .bash_profile, OS X is not exporting/sourcing the commands mentioned in it. I have to manually source the .bash_profile.

If I create .profile file, on opening a new terminal, all my commands in .profile are executed and will be available readily.

Could you please help me in understanding, how does it works? Also, when to use .bashrc/.profile/.bash_profile files.

Thanks!

Anisotropic

Related: #415903 – Psychophysiology

Are you sure you are using bash, and not some other shell? Try echo $SHELL – Outhouse

Answer 1

According to the manual page that ships with OS X:

... it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable. The --noprofile option may be used when the shell is started to inhibit this behavior.

It should only read ~/.profile as a last resort if neither ~/.bash_profile nor ~/.bash_login are readable.

On all of my OS X systems, I have my ~/.bash_profile set to:

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
    source ~/.bashrc
fi

It is highly recommended that you do this on OS X in order to get bash to read your ~/.bashrc file like you would expect.

Impeccable

I had the same problem with command aliases in ~/.profile not being put into effect in Terminal, and fixed the problem by using your method of moving the commands into ~/.bashrc (and deleting ~/.profile and making the little ~/.bash_profile). However, now when I execute echo $PATH all my path entries appear twice in the output. So something's still wrong! – Lashaun

weird. had .bash_profile and terminal.app is ignoring it here. moved the file (kept all the same permissions) to .profile and now it is happy. – Narrate

Reminder if you are using zsh instead of bash. The terminal will source .zshrc instead of .bash_profile. – Cobaltite

As of today, the default terminal shell in OSX Cataline is zsh, so @AlbertSamuel's comment is should be turned into an answer. – Observatory

@Cobaltite Thanks! Just got a new mac and this solved it – Spectroscopy

Answer 2

According to Apple,

zsh (Z shell) is the default shell for all newly created user accounts, starting with macOS Catalina.

So you should verify your default shell with the command:

$ echo $SHELL

If the result is /bin/bash your default shell is BASH, and if the result is /bin/zsh the default is ZSH.

Go to home with $ cd ~/ and create the profile (if it does not exist) and edit it with the commands:

For bash:

$ touch .bash_profile
$ open .bash_profile

For ZSH:

$ touch .zprofile
$ open .zprofile

Exile

You are a hero. I've been trying to figure out why .bash_profile/.bashrc/.profile don't work for half an hour. – Voluntaryism

Thanks!! Z shell threw me for a loop and googling turns up all of the older methods... – Phillada

thanks man! I used a mac after 4 years and you saved me. i was stuck with bash_profile – Klingensmith

For Apple M1 chip, this one worked. Look no further, thank you Doug.! – Impressible

Thank you @Exile for your answer. – Alonzoaloof

Thanks, this is crazy I guess my original mac account was created pre-catalina and was using the typical .bash_profile. I recently ran into login issues, and my user account was recreated on Big Sur which I currently run. I was able to fix my env variables issues by "cd ~/" then "cp .bash_profile .zprofile" – Edwardedwardian

The file is called .zshrc on mine. – Lampoon

Answer 3

It's also possible that your terminal shell is defaulting to sh instead of bash. You can verify this first:

$ echo $SHELL
/bin/tcsh

To change this to bash, you can go into your Terminal -> Preferences -> Startup tab, and change "Shell Opens With:" from "Default login shell" to Command and value "/bin/bash".

Alternately, you can change your default shell by executing the following command at the command prompt:

chsh -s bin/bash

After you do one of these, open a new shell window, and your .bash_profile should be sourced.

Disquieting

I found that I wanted to use sh instead of bash. I use zsh and I found this comment to be helpful: github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/issues/… - basically add source ~/.bash_profile to the bottom of your ~/.zshrc config – Ubana

Yes, that work! Just, add source ~/.bash_profile to the bottom of your ~/.zshrc. – Britt

Add source ~/.bash_profile to the bottom of your ~/.zshrc. This should be an answer – Husband

Answer 4

For anyone else who finds this, instead of bash_profile, for new versions of mac you can use .zshrc. I.E., do

open .zshrc

and add what you need there.

Stob

Answer 5

You can use zsh to fix the problem.

The Z shell (also known as zsh) is a Unix shell that is built on top of bash (the default shell for macOS) with additional features. It's recommended to use zsh over bash.

Installation

1. Install zsh using Homebrew: $ brew install zsh
2. Install Oh My Zsh: $ sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
3. Move to .bash_profile setting .zshrc file
4. To apply the changes you make you need to either start new shell instance or run: source ~/.zshrc

Loftin

FYI bash is no longer the default shell for macOS (as of Catalina) – Jung

Answer 6

If you are using zsh, you can source to .bash_profile by adding the following line to .zprofile

if [ -f ~/.bash_profile ]; then
    source ~/.bash_profile
fi

Mannish

Answer 7

It should be mentioned that bash will first look for a /etc/profile file, as stated in the Bash man pages.

When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-inter- active shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes com- mands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable. The --noprofile option may be used when the shell is started to inhibit this behavior.

Jasminejason

That bash on OSX by default doesn't source ~/.bashrc is unrelated to any content in /etc/profile. Rather, it has to do with the fact that Terminal.app creates every bash shell as a login session, so that only ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bash_login or ~/.profile (whichever is found fist) are sourced. If you want ~/.bashrc to be sourced too, source it explicitly from ~/.bash_profile, as in @Andon M. Coleman's answer. (If you explicitly start a bash session as an interactive NON-login session, ~/.bashrc gets sourced automatically.) – Azotemia

You are absolutely right, and I posted my explanation too hastily. Thank your for the correction; I edited my answer and upvoted your comment as it explains correctly what I had attempted to describe. – Jasminejason

On OSX El Capitan, I noticed that root runs under /bin/sh (I believe that's the Ash shell?) instead of the Bash shell. But when I open a terminal prompt and check the $SHELL var, it reads /bin/bash. So, what script do we edit for the case of /bin/sh? – Whipstock

Answer 8

I solved by simply adding bash (in a newline) into ~/.bash_profile file.

Stonecrop