How can I shorten my command line (bash) prompt?

To change it for the current terminal instance only

Just enter PS1='\u:\W\$ ' and press enter.

To change it "permanently"

In your ~/.bashrc, find the following section:

if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '
else
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '
fi

Remove the @\h, and replace the \w with an uppercase \W, so that it becomes:

if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\W\[\033[00m\]\$ '
else
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u:\W\$ '
fi

Save, exit, close terminal and start another to see the result.

Tons more options!

• See here for a more extensive howto, with many more options
• See this answer for using up a tiny Python script to set the prompt so that the shortening only occurs when you are deep in a directory structure.

Run this code in the current terminal

PROMPT_DIRTRIM=3

Now the bash prompt will show only the last 3 directory names. You can choose 1 to show only current directory. More information is available in the GNU documentation.

The effect:

/var/lib/apt/lists# PROMPT_DIRTRIM=3
/.../lib/apt/lists# 

If you want to make it permanently, add the following line to ~/.bashrc in the beginning:

PROMPT_DIRTRIM=3

or another number greater than zero.

This is my preferred prompt setting:

added in ~/.bashrc

PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '    

it looks like this:

[user@hostname dirname]$

(with a space after the $ sign)

Personally I prefer to see only current folder in the bash prompt. I can do this with the following command:

PS1='\W\$ '

If you want it to take effect after each start then add the above command into your ~/.bashrc.

I realize this is super old but since nobody suggested creating an alias I figured I'd post. Using Bash Prompt Escape Sequences I made an alias shorten

In ~/.bash_aliases here you will notice the $Blue var to set the prompt colour which you can omit or change based on preference I also clear the terminal when calling shorten.

alias c='clear'

alias shorten='PS1="$Blue$USER:\W$ "&& c'

To achieve the OP's desired prompt string:

alias shorten='PS1="$USER:\W$ "'

I have colours defined in ~/.bashrccopy and pasted from https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Color_Bash_Prompt. On a side note what's with ansi code colours? I'm confused just looking at it.

Blue='\e[0;34m'         # Blue

I wrote a function you can modify to suit your needs:

function termprompt() {
    PS1="${PS1//@\\h/}"     # Remove @host
    PS1="${PS1//\\w/\\W}"   # Change from full directory to last name
}

Place this function at or near the bottom of ~/.bashrc after the PS1 line has been fully computed.

You would type termprompt whenever you wanted to shorten your prompt or, have termprompt called from the bottom of your ~/.bashrc for permanency.

The advantage of this technique over many other answers is .bashrc can setup PS1 in four different ways (xterm+no-color, xterm+color, no-xterm+no-color, no-xterm+color). This answer supports all four current methods and probably future methods too.

Another advantage is this method has less complex control codes to traverse over in order to insert your changes.

Noting the answers I found in this post I came up with a template that I prefer to use. I also include colors in the command.

it looks like this:

[ folder ]$ Command

To test it for the current terminal instance

PS1='\[\033[01;34m\][ \W ]\[\033[00m\]$ '

To make it permanent for every terminal instance

echo "PS1='\[\033[01;34m\][ \W ]\[\033[00m\]\$ '" >> ~/.bashrc