How to Change Your Terminal Prompt Name on macOS

Is your Mac’s Terminal prompt name long and bloated like this?

Davids-MacBook-Pro:~ techstacker$ cd xxxx

Let’s fix it.

Here’s how to change your Terminal prompt name (macOS) quickly:

1. Open a new Terminal window and type cd ~/ to go to your Home directory
2. Type ls -la and look for a file called .bash_profile. If it’s not there, create one with this command: touch .bash_profile.
3. Now open your .bash_profile file with his command: open -e .bash_profile.
4. Add this line export PS1="\u$ " and save it.
5. Quit and restart your Terminal.

The \u flag sets the prompt to your Mac’s User Account name.

This is how mine looks now:

techstacker$ cd xxxx

Glorious!