How can I install the `ll` command on Mac OS X?

Question

I'm using Mac OS X. When I SSH into servers I find the ll command useful, but it's not available on my local machine. How can I install it?

score 188 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 06 '21 at 08:54

188

MacOS:

alias ll='ls -lG'

Linux:

alias ll='ls -l --color=auto'

Stick that in the appropriate startup file for your shell, e.g. ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc. To apply the setting, source the file, or quit and restart your terminal.

edited Dec 06 '21 at 08:54

Stephen Kitt

434,908

answered Jan 06 '12 at 06:23

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

45,725

It worked!, anyway --color=auto parameter made an error. Other parts worked well. – Eonil Jan 06 '12 at 07:10
4

Ah right, BSD ls doesn't support --color. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Jan 06 '12 at 07:12
9

One more, I had to add the command ~/.profile instead of ~/.bashrc to make it work. Maybe this is Mac OS X specific. – Eonil Jan 06 '12 at 12:12
9

You need alias ll='ls -lG' for the same effect in macosx. – Burhan Khalid Jan 06 '12 at 13:01
8

I needed to add alias ll='ls -lG' to my ~/.bash_profile to make it work (in Lion, if that matters) – jessica Jul 28 '12 at 01:58
2

Even lazier: $ echo "alias ll='ls -lG'" >> ~/.bashrc – Avishai Mar 06 '14 at 21:28
On root user it didn't work for me, any idea why? – yair Mar 25 '14 at 09:18
@Eonil Macs use ~/.bash_profile, but you could add source ~/.bashrc into that file to make bashrc get sourced in. – Gregg Leventhal Jul 25 '14 at 15:54
1

I use alias ll='ls -alG' as I like to see the hidden files as well. – davidryan Jul 03 '16 at 17:18
And after you added the alias, saved and exited do a source ~/.bashrc to activate it without exiting Bash. – rhand May 26 '17 at 05:41
I only have ~/.bash_history and ~/.bash_sessions in my new Macbook. Ideas? – Nathan B Sep 16 '19 at 08:06
For those who are finding this answer in 2021 - you need to add it to .zprofile instead of .bash_profile. See: https://stackoverflow.com/a/58310864/4282321 – Daniel Falabella Apr 21 '21 at 01:14
I had to add in ~/.bash_profile . OS. -MacOS BigSur, 11.2.2 – Arvind K. Apr 21 '21 at 12:46
I am suggesting to add -a - alias ll='ls -alG' – Yakir GIladi Edry Jun 29 '22 at 15:48

score 61 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 02 '18 at 12:01

In OS X 10.9.5 since Mavericks (and at least up to El Capitan) you have to add an alias command to your .bash_profile file in your home folder:

~/.bash_profile

which is equivalent to your user path at

/Users/YOUR_USER_NAME/.bash_profile

To see that file in finder you have to activate the display of hidden files (e.g. using the app InVisible). Otherwise you can simply use your terminal to locate it and edit it with nano:

nano ~/.bash_profile

Then add an alias command to the end of that file. The standard ll alias would be

alias ll='ls -lG'

but I prefer

alias ll='ls -lGaf'

which also shows all hidden files (starting with a dot) and sorts the output case-insensitive.

Don't forget to restart your terminal app after the changes.

you don't need to restart the terminal, it is enough to use source ~/.bash_profile to reload the new settings — Asped, Aug 26 '16 at 09:38

score 11 · Answer 3 · answered May 03 '20 at 03:26

11

macOS with zsh shell should put

alias ll='ls -lG'

to ~/.zshrc instead of ~/.bash_profile nor ~/.bashrc

answered May 03 '20 at 03:26

Gary Tsui

111

very good one. I like to use alias ll='ls -laG' So, the files size is displayed in MB, KB, etc – xCovelus Feb 15 '23 at 21:09

score 9 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 07 '12 at 01:43

Run type ll to see where the ll command is coming from. ll is not a standard command, but many distributions predefine it to an alias for ls with some preset options. The output of type ll gives you the definition of the alias, or you can look for it in your shell configuration file (~/.bashrc if your shell is bash). Copy the definition to ~/.bashrc on the other machine.

Bash handles its configuration file in a slightly odd way: it loads ~/.bashrc in all interactive shells except the ones that are also login shells. Bash only loads ~/.bash_profile (if it exists, otherwise ~/.profile) in a login shell. To make sure that your .bashrc is read when it should be, put this line in your ~/.bash_profile:

case $- in *i*) . ~/.bashrc;; esac

score 6 · Answer 5 · edited Sep 15 '14 at 19:28

6

Add alias ll='ls -lG' to your ~/.profile with your favorite $EDITOR.

With this method, remember that you'll have to start a new terminal session (or source ~/.profile to be able to use ll).

edited Sep 15 '14 at 19:28

HalosGhost

4,790

answered Sep 15 '14 at 18:58

Sixhammers

61

mialkin · Answer 6 · 2023-02-06T14:18:05.457

6

On macOS Ventura:

echo "alias ll='ls -la'" >> ~/.zshrc

Don't forget to close and reopen Terminal after that.

As it's explained in the article:

Apple has changed the default shell to zsh. Therefore you have to rename your configuration files. .bashrc is now .zshrc and .bash_profile is now .zprofile.

The difference between .bash_profile and .bashrc files explained in this article.

edited Feb 06 '23 at 14:18

answered Jun 15 '20 at 11:40

mialkin

161

score 3 · Answer 7 · edited May 02 '16 at 00:18

3

If you want it to apply in all accounts, you can also put

alias ll='ls -lG'

in /etc/profile.

edited May 02 '16 at 00:18

don_crissti

82,805

answered May 01 '16 at 23:56

user168497

31

1

Does OSX even have an /etc? – jasonwryan May 02 '16 at 00:11

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 26 '16 at 09:51

3

To summarize the best of all answers:

Mac OS X (tested on El Capitan)

echo "alias ll='ls -lGaf'" >> ~/.bash_profile 
source ~/.bash_profile

Linux

echo "alias ll='ls -la --color=auto'" >> ~/.bash_profile
source  ~/.bash_profile

answered Aug 26 '16 at 09:51

Asped

131

score 2 · Answer 9 · edited Sep 15 '19 at 09:15

(MacOS Mojave Example)

Open the hidden .bash_profile file in the Vim editor:
```
vim ~/.bash_profile
```
Jump to the last character of the file by pressing capital G and then $.
Press o to add a new line to the file.
Insert your new alias like:
```
alias ll='ls -lG'
```
Press Esc to exit insert mode of Vim.
Type following to write your new changes and exit the editor:
```
:wq
```
Reopen terminal and you should be able to use the alias ll

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 17 '18 at 20:50

I don't have the rep points yet to comment directly on someone else's comment but, I just wanted to clarify that "alias ll='ls -lGaf'" is partly redundant. Using -f automatically enables -a as well. You can verify this in the man page for ls. So, all that's truly needed is "alias ll='ls -lGf'".

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Jun 24 '19 at 18:25

One thing that is missing from several answers is that this is shell-dependent. If you're using the system default shell on 10.14 on below, which is bash, then references to (.)bash_profile are correct. Modifying /etc/profile would create the alias for sh for all users (but not in bash).

If you have switched, for example, to zsh, then making a system-wide change requires adding the alias to /etc/zprofile. If you wanted to make the change for only your user, then you could add it to ~/.zprofile

How can I install the `ll` command on Mac OS X?

11 Answers11