Ctrl+r is fine when you're looking for something recent, but this one is useful when you're looking through a long list of similar commands. alias hist='hi

Ctrl+r is fine when you're looking for something recent, but this one is useful when you're looking through a long list of similar commands. alias hist='history | grep' Use it like this: $ hist git 9543 git add toto 9544 git commit 9545 git log 9546 git log 9548 git add -A 9549 git commit 9550 git log 9633 git pull 9955 cd dev/git 9957 git grep copyof 9958 git grep copyof 9959 git pull By the way, do you know you can call back the 9633rd command in the history with "!9633"?