To make aliases of macOS Unix commands in your bash shell on macOS and earlier versions, it is done via your .bash_profile file which lives in your home account directory, if the file does not already exist, just create one.
Launch Terminal from the /Application/Utilities folder
Go to your home directory by just entering cd followed by the ‘return’ key to enter the command:
cd
List your home directory contents including invisible files to see if the file already exists, use:
ls -la drwxr-xr-x+ 18 ladmin staff 612 Jul 14 09:21 . drwxr-xr-x 6 root admin 204 Jul 3 18:28 .. -rw------- 1 ladmin staff 3 Jun 2 12:53 .CFUserTextEncoding [email protected] 1 ladmin staff 6148 Jul 14 09:01 .DS_Store drwx------ 5 ladmin staff 170 Jul 3 18:44 .Trash -rw------- 1 ladmin staff 1157 Jul 14 08:59 .bash_history drwx------+ 5 ladmin staff 170 Jul 14 08:33 Desktop drwx------+ 6 ladmin staff 204 Jun 2 13:48 Documents drwx------+ 8 ladmin staff 272 Jul 3 18:10 Downloads drwx------+ 29 ladmin staff 986 Jul 3 17:49 Library drwx------+ 3 ladmin staff 102 Jun 2 12:53 Movies drwx------+ 3 ladmin staff 102 Jun 2 12:53 Music drwx------+ 4 ladmin staff 136 Jun 2 12:53 Pictures drwxr-xr-x+ 4 ladmin staff 136 Jun 2 12:53 Public drwxr-xr-x+ 6 ladmin staff 204 Jul 3 18:11 Sites
Create the .bash_profile file using the command line program called ‘nano’ if it doesn’t exist:
nano .bash_profile
bash-alias-OSX
When the .bash_profile file is created you are ready to enter your alias commands.
So here I am using the alias ‘l’ to alias the command ‘ls -lah’
alias l='ls -lah'
In nano ‘control+o’ to write the file out and ‘control+x’ to exit the file.
Refresh the bash shell environment by entering the command below:
source ~/.bash_profile
That’s it, now the alias will take effect.
To add other aliases just start a new line, and apply the same formatting.