How to set my default shell on Mac

Question

I do not like to retype fish every time I start terminal  I want fish on by default  How can I set fish shell as my default shell on a Mac

User · Accepted Answer

These are applicable to MacOS Sierra 10 12 5  16F73  and probably some other recent and upcoming versions of MacOS    chsh is not enough to change the default shell  Make sure you press Command   while your terminal is open and change the  Shells open with  option to  Default login shell   In case of bash  make sure that you execute echo  BASH VERSION to confirm you are running the intended version of bash  bash --version does not give you correct information

User · Answer

You can use chsh to change a user s shell   Run the following code  for instance  to change your shell to Zsh  chsh -s  bin zsh   As described in the manpage  and by Lorin  if the shell is not known by the OS  you have to add it to its known list   etc shells

User · Answer

the chsh program will let you change your default shell  It will want the full path to the executable  so if your shell is fish then it will want you to provide the output given when you type which fish   You ll see a line starting with  Shell    If you ve never edited it  it most likely says  Shell   bin bash   Replace that  bin bash path with the path to your desired shell

User · Answer

Here s another way to do it   Assuming you installed it with MacPorts  which can be done by doing   sudo port install fish   Your shell will be located in  opt local bin fish    You need to tell OSX that this is a valid shell  To do that  add this path to the end of the  etc shells file   Once you ve done this  you can change the shell by going to System Preferences -  Accounts  Click on the Lock to allow changes  Right-click on the account  and choose  Advanced Options      In the  Login shell  field  add the path to fish

User · Answer

From Terminal   Add Fish to  etc shells  which will require an administrative password  sudo echo  usr local bin fish  gt  gt   etc shells   Make Fish your default shell with chsh  chsh -s  usr local bin fish     From System Preferences   User and Groups   ctrl-click on Current User   Advanced Options     Change Login shell to  usr local bin fish   Press OK  log out and in again

User · Answer

Mac OS X  How to change the Terminal shell

User · Answer

heimdall   leeg  dscl Entering interactive mode     type  help  for commands    gt  cd  Local Default Users   Local Default Users  gt  read  lt  lt YOUR USER gt  gt        UserShell   bin bash  Local Default Users  gt    just change that value  with the write command in dscl

User · Answer

Terminal app   Preferences   General   Shells open with     bin fish   Open your terminal and press command    comma   This will open a preferences window   The first tab is  General    Find  Shells open with  setting and choose 2nd option which needs complete path to the shell   Paste the link to your fish command  which generally is  usr local bin fish    See this screenshot where zsh is being set as default     I am using macOS Sierra  Also works in macOS Mojave

User · Answer

From Terminal   Add Fish to  etc shells  which will require an administrative password  sudo echo  usr local bin fish  gt  gt   etc shells   Make Fish your default shell with chsh  chsh -s  usr local bin fish     From System Preferences   User and Groups   ctrl-click on Current User   Advanced Options     Change Login shell to  usr local bin fish   Press OK  log out and in again

User · Answer

On macOS Mojave I had to do the following  using zsh as an example    brew install zsh sudo sh -c  echo   which zsh   gt  gt   etc shells  chsh -s   which zsh

User · Answer

In case you are having troubles with the other ways  worked on mac Mojave but should generally work   which fish   add the output path to  System Preferences   Users  amp  Groups   right click user  Advanced Options  Paste the result from which into  Login shell

User · Answer

The only thing that worked for me was a combination of all these methods    First I had to add fish to the  etc shells file Then I ran chsh -s  usr local bin fish Finally  I typed Command   and added  usr local bin fish to the default path there   Only after I had done all three things did fish start popping up as the default for new terminal windows

User · Answer

You can use chsh to change a user s shell   Run the following code  for instance  to change your shell to Zsh  chsh -s  bin zsh   As described in the manpage  and by Lorin  if the shell is not known by the OS  you have to add it to its known list   etc shells

User · Answer

Mac OS X  How to change the Terminal shell

User · Answer

heimdall   leeg  dscl Entering interactive mode     type  help  for commands    gt  cd  Local Default Users   Local Default Users  gt  read  lt  lt YOUR USER gt  gt        UserShell   bin bash  Local Default Users  gt    just change that value  with the write command in dscl

User · Answer

the chsh program will let you change your default shell  It will want the full path to the executable  so if your shell is fish then it will want you to provide the output given when you type which fish   You ll see a line starting with  Shell    If you ve never edited it  it most likely says  Shell   bin bash   Replace that  bin bash path with the path to your desired shell

User · Answer

heimdall   leeg  dscl Entering interactive mode     type  help  for commands    gt  cd  Local Default Users   Local Default Users  gt  read  lt  lt YOUR USER gt  gt        UserShell   bin bash  Local Default Users  gt    just change that value  with the write command in dscl

User · Answer

Terminal app   Preferences   General   Shells open with     bin fish   Open your terminal and press command    comma   This will open a preferences window   The first tab is  General    Find  Shells open with  setting and choose 2nd option which needs complete path to the shell   Paste the link to your fish command  which generally is  usr local bin fish    See this screenshot where zsh is being set as default     I am using macOS Sierra  Also works in macOS Mojave

User · Answer

This work for me on fresh install of mac osx  sierra     Define current user as owner of shells   sudo chown   whoami   etc shells    Add Fish to  etc shells   sudo echo  usr local bin fish  gt  gt   etc shells    Make Fish your default shell with chsh   chsh -s  usr local bin fish    Redefine root as owner of shells   sudo chown root  etc shells

User · Answer

In case you are having troubles with the other ways  worked on mac Mojave but should generally work   which fish   add the output path to  System Preferences   Users  amp  Groups   right click user  Advanced Options  Paste the result from which into  Login shell

User · Answer

edit  zshrc and change it to exec  bin bash or to whatever shell you might prefer  Bonus  this doesn t require root access and will work on every version of osx  The only problem is that it doesn t read  bash profile this way  it is only read if bash is run as an interactive login shell  you would have to include it from  bashrc with something like this  if     quot  OSTYPE quot      quot darwin quot       then      local hack on osx      if    -f  HOME  bash profile     then          HOME  bash profile     fi fi

User · Answer

edit  zshrc and change it to exec  bin bash or to whatever shell you might prefer  Bonus  this doesn t require root access and will work on every version of osx  The only problem is that it doesn t read  bash profile this way  it is only read if bash is run as an interactive login shell  you would have to include it from  bashrc with something like this  if     quot  OSTYPE quot      quot darwin quot       then      local hack on osx      if    -f  HOME  bash profile     then          HOME  bash profile     fi fi

User · Answer

the chsh program will let you change your default shell  It will want the full path to the executable  so if your shell is fish then it will want you to provide the output given when you type which fish   You ll see a line starting with  Shell    If you ve never edited it  it most likely says  Shell   bin bash   Replace that  bin bash path with the path to your desired shell

User · Answer

1   sudo nano  etc shells   2   add  usr local bin fish to your list of shells   3   chsh -s  usr local bin fish

User · Answer

When in the terminal  open the terminal preferences using Command     On the Setting Tab  select one of the themes  and choose the shell tab on the right   You can set the autostart command fish

User · Answer

When in the terminal  open the terminal preferences using Command     On the Setting Tab  select one of the themes  and choose the shell tab on the right   You can set the autostart command fish

User · Answer

To change your default shell on mac run the following   chsh -s  lt name-of-shell gt    List of shells you can choose from are     bin bash   bin csh   bin dash   bin ksh   bin sh   bin tcsh   bin zsh   so if you want to change from to the  bin zsh shell  your command will look like   chsh -s  bin zsh   you can see all the available shells on your system by running   cat  etc shells

User · Answer

This work for me on fresh install of mac osx  sierra     Define current user as owner of shells   sudo chown   whoami   etc shells    Add Fish to  etc shells   sudo echo  usr local bin fish  gt  gt   etc shells    Make Fish your default shell with chsh   chsh -s  usr local bin fish    Redefine root as owner of shells   sudo chown root  etc shells

User · Answer

To change your default shell on mac run the following   chsh -s  lt name-of-shell gt    List of shells you can choose from are     bin bash   bin csh   bin dash   bin ksh   bin sh   bin tcsh   bin zsh   so if you want to change from to the  bin zsh shell  your command will look like   chsh -s  bin zsh   you can see all the available shells on your system by running   cat  etc shells

User · Answer

heimdall   leeg  dscl Entering interactive mode     type  help  for commands    gt  cd  Local Default Users   Local Default Users  gt  read  lt  lt YOUR USER gt  gt        UserShell   bin bash  Local Default Users  gt    just change that value  with the write command in dscl

User · Answer

1   sudo nano  etc shells   2   add  usr local bin fish to your list of shells   3   chsh -s  usr local bin fish

User · Answer

How to get the latest version of bash on modern macOS  tested on Mojave    brew install bash which bash   sudo tee -a  etc shells chsh -s   which bash    Then you are ready to get vim style tab completion which is only available on bash  4  current version in brew is 5 0 2    If there are multiple matches for completion  Tab should cycle through them bind  TAB  menu-complete    Display a list of the matching files bind  set show-all-if-ambiguous on     Perform partial completion on the first Tab press    only start cycling full results on the second Tab press bind  set menu-complete-display-prefix on

User · Answer

the chsh program will let you change your default shell  It will want the full path to the executable  so if your shell is fish then it will want you to provide the output given when you type which fish   You ll see a line starting with  Shell    If you ve never edited it  it most likely says  Shell   bin bash   Replace that  bin bash path with the path to your desired shell

User · Answer

You can use chsh to change a user s shell   Run the following code  for instance  to change your shell to Zsh  chsh -s  bin zsh   As described in the manpage  and by Lorin  if the shell is not known by the OS  you have to add it to its known list   etc shells

User · Answer

How to get the latest version of bash on modern macOS  tested on Mojave    brew install bash which bash   sudo tee -a  etc shells chsh -s   which bash    Then you are ready to get vim style tab completion which is only available on bash  4  current version in brew is 5 0 2    If there are multiple matches for completion  Tab should cycle through them bind  TAB  menu-complete    Display a list of the matching files bind  set show-all-if-ambiguous on     Perform partial completion on the first Tab press    only start cycling full results on the second Tab press bind  set menu-complete-display-prefix on

User · Answer

You can use chsh to change a user s shell   Run the following code  for instance  to change your shell to Zsh  chsh -s  bin zsh   As described in the manpage  and by Lorin  if the shell is not known by the OS  you have to add it to its known list   etc shells

User · Answer

Mac OS X  How to change the Terminal shell

User · Answer

The only thing that worked for me was a combination of all these methods    First I had to add fish to the  etc shells file Then I ran chsh -s  usr local bin fish Finally  I typed Command   and added  usr local bin fish to the default path there   Only after I had done all three things did fish start popping up as the default for new terminal windows

User · Answer

Here s another way to do it   Assuming you installed it with MacPorts  which can be done by doing   sudo port install fish   Your shell will be located in  opt local bin fish    You need to tell OSX that this is a valid shell  To do that  add this path to the end of the  etc shells file   Once you ve done this  you can change the shell by going to System Preferences -  Accounts  Click on the Lock to allow changes  Right-click on the account  and choose  Advanced Options      In the  Login shell  field  add the path to fish

User · Answer

On macOS Mojave I had to do the following  using zsh as an example    brew install zsh sudo sh -c  echo   which zsh   gt  gt   etc shells  chsh -s   which zsh

User · Answer

Mac OS X  How to change the Terminal shell

[macos] How to set my default shell on Mac?

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