How can I delete a word backward at the command line (bash and zsh)?

Question

How can I delete a word backward at the command line? I'm truly used to some editors deleting the last 'word' using Ctrl+Backspace, and I'd like that functionality at the command line too.

I am using Bash at the moment and although I could jump backward a word and then delete forward a word, I'd rather have this as a quick-key, or event as Ctrl+Backspace.

How can accomplish this?

Similar question on Stack Overflow (the answer is in that question): On the Bash command-line, how do you cut the word immediately after the cursor? — Peter Mortensen, Jul 23 '21 at 19:57

score 345 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 06 '20 at 09:40

345

Ctrl+W is the standard "kill word" (aka werase). Ctrl+U kills the whole line (kill).

You can change them with stty.

-bash-4.2$ stty -a
speed 38400 baud; 24 rows; 80 columns;
lflags: icanon isig iexten echo echoe -echok echoke -echonl echoctl
        -echoprt -altwerase -noflsh -tostop -flusho pendin -nokerninfo
        -extproc -xcase
iflags: -istrip icrnl -inlcr -igncr -iuclc ixon -ixoff ixany imaxbel
        -ignbrk brkint -inpck -ignpar -parmrk
oflags: opost onlcr -ocrnl -onocr -onlret -olcuc oxtabs -onoeot
cflags: cread cs8 -parenb -parodd hupcl -clocal -cstopb -crtscts -mdmbuf
cchars: discard = ^O; dsusp = ^Y; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
        eol2 = <undef>; erase = ^?; intr = ^C; kill = ^U; lnext = ^V;
        min = 1; quit = ^\; reprint = ^R; start = ^Q; status = <undef>;
        stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; time = 0; werase = ^W;
-bash-4.2$ stty werase ^p
-bash-4.2$ stty kill ^a
-bash-4.2$

Note that one does not have to put the actual control character on the line, stty understands putting ^ and then the character you would hit with control.

After doing this, if I hit Ctrl+P it will erase a word from the line. And if I hit Ctrl+A, it will erase the whole line.

edited Aug 06 '20 at 09:40

AdminBee

22,803

answered Oct 10 '13 at 04:13

kurtm

7,055

2

Using the stty command I attempted to assign the "kill word" to Ctrl+BckSpc by typing stty werase followed by Ctrl-v Ctrl-Backspace. This inserts the literal Ctrl-Backspace character as the argument for stty werase. Unfortunately it does not require typing Ctrl-Backspace to delete the word but works with just the Backspace key. So I would like to second the request of @terdon to learn how to do this. To reset the werase to default, use stty werase Ctrl-v Ctrl-w. – Timothy Martin Oct 10 '13 at 07:26
2

@TimothyMartin I'm a little stuck on how to do ctrl-backspace. Backspace is generally sent as either ctrl-h or ctrl-?, so ctrl-backspace would somehow be ctrl-ctrl-backspace. I did try to figure out if something different was sent, but putty, at least, just sends backspace when you type ctrl-backspace. – kurtm Oct 10 '13 at 14:13
3

ctrl + w effectively deletes the word but it also copies to the clipboard, erasing anything you had stored (or pushing it down?). – Elijah Lynn Dec 28 '15 at 17:44
2

Anyone know how to make the 'word' stop at non word characters rather than only white spaces? IE with: 'curl a/asdf/xcvb', pressing ^w will get 'curl', but what I want is 'curl a/asdf/' – Rene Wooller Nov 23 '16 at 05:49
4

esc - delete just worked :-) – Rene Wooller Nov 23 '16 at 05:53
In my case, Ctrl+P cycles through previous commands like ArrowUp ↑ does. – neverMind9 Nov 11 '18 at 13:55
1

Do I understand correctly that despite this answer being accepted and the 200 upvotes no one ever figured out how to map backward delete word to CTRL+Backspace. (I have that combination setup everywhere else so I would really like to keep it.) – Kvothe Aug 06 '20 at 08:43
1

@Kvothe OP is not asking for it; however there are ways to remap keys in bash, see for example 1 2 3 or the answer below. – user202729 Jan 20 '21 at 09:44
Ctrl+W closed the tab in Solar-Putty – rd10 Apr 25 '23 at 09:44

score 92 · Answer 2 · edited May 19 '16 at 16:55

92

Alt+Backspace works for me in bash and zsh.

edited May 19 '16 at 16:55

Anthon

79,293

answered Oct 09 '13 at 22:06

Luis

2,518

5

Doesnt work with iterm :( – Akarsh Satija Jun 01 '16 at 10:25
12

For example deleting a URL and using Ctrl+W it deletes the whole URL while Alt+Backspace deletes a word and it stops deleting when a special character is found. – Metafaniel Aug 24 '16 at 15:20
2

And as always you have ctrl-y to yank/undo/paste. – Pablo A Sep 20 '18 at 00:04
2

This solves it for iterm: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/2124 – Pascalius Jan 03 '19 at 10:13
1

Ctrl+W close tab in cmder. – Smart Manoj Dec 15 '20 at 10:41
This is great for virtual terminals accessed via browser windows as Ctrl+W closes current chrome tab. – Zam Jul 13 '21 at 13:13
I think this doesn't work on Mac (not surprising). – matt Mar 03 '23 at 17:17

score 44 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:40

You can also do this with CtrlW.

Another option is to set your own shortcut but this will depend on the terminal emulator you are using. For xterm and rxvt and maybe others, add this line to your ~/.inputrc (create the file if it does not exist):

## rxvt, xterm
"\b":backward-kill-word

gnome-terminal and its ilk seem to have AltBackspace by default but apparently require you to patch readline() in order to get CtrlBackspace.

Also see:

score 15 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 06 '20 at 09:38

15

In Ubuntu 18.04.4 pressing Ctrl+V and then Ctrl+Backspace reveals that the Ctrl+Backspace combination is written as ^H.

You can show all current terminal key combinations using stty -a. In this case we want to change werase to ^H which can be done with

stty werase ^H

For any other key you want to remap you would again see how to write the new combination using Ctrl+V followed by the combination.

And you can find the command name (such as werase) by looking at stty -a and looking for the key combination an action is currently bound to.

edited Aug 06 '20 at 09:38

AdminBee

22,803

answered Aug 06 '20 at 09:22

Kvothe

413
6
14

It's 2020 and we can use backspace correctly on Linux :). The good news is I don't think this is specific to Ubuntu (see https://www.cs.colostate.edu/~mcrob/toolbox/unix/keyboard.html for some info). I've tried several different terminal emulators on arch and ^H works in each case. – pip Aug 30 '20 at 17:40
My man! How does this only have +6? Works on Cygwin as well. – Thick_propheT Mar 06 '21 at 00:25
And on Git Bash <3. Finally I have the same combination of keys in each shell. Great thanks! For anyone wondering how to do this for forward delete (CTRL + DEL), it's: bind '"5~": kill-word' – Mr Patience Feb 20 '22 at 09:53

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited May 19 '16 at 16:55

2

On Mac, you can use:

Fn+Delete

edited May 19 '16 at 16:55

Anthon

79,293

answered May 19 '16 at 15:54

J.Yang

31

2

That deletes 1 character in front of the cursor, not 1 word behind – Dannid Oct 14 '16 at 18:45
Don't know if this is still relevant, but that would be + on Mac. – Hassan Jan 15 '17 at 02:15
– Preet Sangha Jul 26 '23 at 01:08

skube · Answer 6 · 2022-07-16T18:23:06.720

2

Surprisingly, esc then delete works on macOS too.

Also, if using iTerm2, you can update the default profile:

Keys > Key Mapping > Presets > Natural Text Editing

edited Jul 16 '22 at 18:23

answered Jul 16 '22 at 17:32

skube

208

How can I delete a word backward at the command line (bash and zsh)?

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