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I just want the .bash_history file to store a lot of history, like $HISTSIZE=10000000, $HISTFILESIZE=10000000 which I have set months ago.

It does not work. I just tried ^R <some old command>, no way: my history file is now at 100324 bytes.

I have a single history for all sessions. I guess it is related to the problem: some race conditions, whatever. So I tried multiple recipes for a common bash history. Now I have this one:

HISTSIZE=10000000
HISTFILESIZE=$HISTSIZE
HISTCONTROL=ignorespace:ignoredups

history() {
  _bash_history_sync
  builtin history "$@"
}

_bash_history_sync() {
  builtin history -a         #1
  HISTFILESIZE=$HISTSIZE     #2
  builtin history -c         #3
  builtin history -r         #4
}

PROMPT_COMMAND=_bash_history_sync

Do not ask me what it means. It is just another copy&paste in a hope that the history file won't repeatedly lose contents despite the large limits.

Question: how to have both common history across sessions and $HISTSIZE, $HISTOFILESIZE be the only ultimate limits of history size, nothing else trying to help them?

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  • I'm afraid you'll always find it contains the history of the last session closed, being overwritten when the next one closes. I may be mistaken. Commented Mar 27, 2020 at 11:38
  • I can see stuff in my bash history that I did 16 days back, and I power down every night and cold-boot every morning. Maybe try a cron or shutdown job that rolls off the history to dated files that you can search. Commented Mar 27, 2020 at 12:22
  • @Gerard what is then the use of shopt -s histappend and builtin history -a? Commented Mar 27, 2020 at 13:14
  • Sorry, I only use ksh. Commented Mar 27, 2020 at 13:28
  • see this answer to another question: unix.stackexchange.com/a/428208/4721 Commented Mar 27, 2020 at 13:34

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