Aliases

~/.aliases is loaded by both bash and zsh. Where Linux and macOS need different commands, the alias name stays the same and the right command is picked when the shell starts.

To see what an alias really runs: alias ll (or type ll).

Folders

Alias	What it does	Command
desk	go to Desktop	cd $HOME/Desktop
dl	go to Downloads	cd $HOME/Downloads

Listing files

Alias	What it does	Linux	macOS
ls	short listing, sizes readable, type markers, colour	ls -hF --color=auto	ls -hFG
ll	everything, detailed	ls -alhF --color=auto	ls -alhFG
l	everything, in rows instead of columns	ls -aFx --color=auto	ls -aFxG
la	everything except . and ..	ls -A	ls -A
lsd	folders only, including hidden ones	ls -dl */ .[^.]*/	same

What the flags mean:

• -a all files, including hidden .dotfiles · -A same but without . and ..
• -l long format (permissions, owner, size, date) · -h human sizes (4.0K, 2.3G)
• -F adds a marker: / folder, * executable, @ link, = socket, | pipe
• -x sorts across rows instead of down columns
• Colour: GNU ls (Linux) uses --color=auto; BSD ls (macOS) uses -G

tree colours its output by default in a terminal, so there’s no alias. To keep colours through a pager: tree -C | less -R.

Search

Alias	Command
grep	grep --color=auto
egrep	grep -E --color=auto
fgrep	grep -F --color=auto

--color=auto colours matches only when you’re looking at the terminal. --color=always would also add colour codes when piped (grep foo file | wc -l), which breaks the next command.

Tools

Alias	What it does	Command
c	start Claude Code	claude
kkk	kill the current tmux session	tmux kill-session
peaclock	terminal clock with this repo’s config	peaclock --config-dir ~/.config/peaclock
ssh	inside kitty only: SSH that copies kitty’s terminfo to the server	kitty +kitten ssh

It’s c, not cc, on purpose: cc is the system C compiler, and an alias would hide it at the prompt.

Network

Alias	What it does	Command
netlisteners	programs listening for connections	lsof -i -P | grep LISTEN
flushdns	clear the DNS cache	Linux: resolvectl flush-caches (or the older systemd-resolve) · macOS: dscacheutil -flushcache + restart mDNSResponder

Your local and public IP addresses, IPv4 and IPv6: myip (a function). There’s no ip alias, so Linux’s own ip command (ip addr, ip route) works as normal.

System

Alias	What it does	Linux	macOS
afk	lock the screen	loginctl lock-session, then xdg-screensaver lock	CGSession -suspend
emptytrash	empty the Trash	~/.local/share/Trash/	/Volumes/*/.Trashes (needs sudo) + ~/.Trash
cleanup	delete .DS_Store files below this folder	find . -type f -name '*.DS_Store' -ls -delete	same
chromekill	close Chrome’s tab processes to free memory (extensions survive)	matches chrome --type=renderer	matches Chrome Helper --type=renderer
reload	restart the shell as a login shell	exec $SHELL -l	same
dang	run the last command again with sudo (like sudo !!)	—	—

emptytrash, cleanup and chromekill delete or kill without asking. cleanup prints each file as it goes (-ls).

alert

Shows a desktop notification when a long command finishes:

sleep 10; alert

The icon shows whether the command succeeded, and the message is the command itself. Only defined when notify-send exists — Linux desktops. Not on servers or macOS. Comes from Ubuntu’s default .bashrc.

Disk and memory

Alias	What it does	Command
ducks	10 biggest items here, readable sizes, plus a total	du -chs * | sort -rh | head -11
ds	everything here sorted by size, biggest last	du -ks * | sort -n
wotgobblemem	15 processes using the most memory	ps -o time,ppid,pid,nice,pcpu,pmem,user,comm -A | sort -n -k 6 | tail -15

sort -h (human-readable sizes) needs macOS Mojave or newer. On older macOS, brew install coreutils and use gsort -rh.

ducks and ds skip hidden files and folders (the * doesn’t match names starting with .).

Adding your own

Machine-specific aliases (project folders, SSH shortcuts) go in ~/.aliases.local. It’s loaded after ~/.aliases, isn’t tracked in git, and survives re-installs. See Local files.

Ideas: alias.sh, commandlinefu.com.