How to edit the terminal prompt name in MacOS

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If you work in the Terminal like I do, you’d like to see some customizations done to personalize it. This tip will show you how to customize the Terminal prompt.

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The Terminal prompt is shown just before where you type in the commands to execute commands. Sometimes, users like to personalize this prompt for one reason or another.

Here’s how:

Open Terminal (Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal).
First, ensure you’re in the HOME Directory by issuing the command: cd ~/
To prove you’re in the right directory and show hidden files, type in: ls-la
Check and see if a file named bash_profile exists.
If it doesn’t exist, create one by typing in: touch .bash_profile
You’ll have to edit this file by typing: open -e .bash_profile
Add this line to the file and save it: export PS1=”u$ “
Quit Terminal and relaunch it in step #1 to see your new prompt.
That’s it.

In addition:

Here’s an abbreviated list of commands that can change the prompt:

\d – Current date
\t – Current time
\h – Host name
\# – Command number
\u – User name
\W – Current working directory (ie: Desktop/)
\w – Current working directory with full path (ie: /Users/Admin/Desktop/)

There are other things you can do to customize the prompt, like using Emojis, colors, and more. You can do a search via Google or DuckDuckGo for more information.