I recommend a few changes to these: Infinite history instead of a large limit: HISTFILESIZE=-1 HISTSIZE=-1 Also ignore commands starting with a space:

I recommend a few changes to these: Infinite history instead of a large limit: HISTFILESIZE=-1 HISTSIZE=-1 Also ignore commands starting with a space: HISTCONTROL=ignorespace:ignoredups:erasedups Enable history substitution to verify commands before running them: shopt -s histverify shopt -s histreedit Write commands to history files before running the commands instead of after the commands finish: trap 'history -a' DEBUG Or if you already have a DEBUG trap: trap "history -a ; $(trap -p DEBUG | cut -d "'" -f 2)" DEBUG