So, this is all my history-related .bashrc thing:
export HISTCONTROL=ignoredups:erasedups # no duplicate entries export HISTSIZE=100000 # big big history export HISTFILESIZE=100000 # big big history shopt -s histappend # append to history, don't overwrite it # Save and reload the history after each command finishes export PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a; history -c; history -r; $PROMPT_COMMAND" Tested with bash 3.2.17 on Mac OS X 10.5, bash 4.1.7 on 10.6.
edit: updated with history -c from lesmana's answer, which you should checkout too.