[kwlug-disc] bash: HISTTIMEFORMAT

Chris Frey cdfrey at foursquare.net
Tue Mar 3 22:07:35 EST 2026


It turns out that by setting the environment variable HISTTIMEFORMAT
on startup to something like "%Y-%m-%dT%T " bash will both display
the timestamp of all commands when you use the 'history' command,
but also store the timestamps in the .bash_history file.

Now I have an automatic trail of timed breadcrumbs in case I need it,
for all my shell work.

Just passing along the tip.

- Chris



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