Equivalent/Alternatives for Alt+Dot in Mac

One thing i miss from the Linux shell is the Alt+Dot shortcut. What it does is insert the last argument of the previous command. It appears to be a trivial technique, but it's really useful. i.e. if you type this:

$ ls /Applications/MAMP/conf/apache/

The next time you just have to type a command + shortcut and the argument will be completed for you.

$ cd 'alt+dot'

On Mac i know 2 alternatives; pressing Esc+Dot or typing !$, !* with the magic space setup. However while both alternatives do insert the last argument(s) you've used, they can't scroll back in command history like typing Alt+Dot repeatedly does. I can live with this options for now, but i'd love to know if someone knows a better way to do it.

asked Dec 18, 2009 at 14:15 819 1 1 gold badge 7 7 silver badges 11 11 bronze badges

6 Answers 6

You can press Escape + . many times, it does the same thing as Alt + . .
But, like you, I find it more cumbersome to type than Alt + . .

2,307 12 12 gold badges 19 19 silver badges 24 24 bronze badges answered Dec 18, 2009 at 14:43 806 6 6 silver badges 3 3 bronze badges I can press it many times, but it just works the first time Commented Dec 18, 2009 at 16:00

Nevermind, you're right. You just have to release esc to press it again, Then it works as expected scrolling through history. Being that treating the option key as meta messes up some other shortcuts, this is the cleanest solution.

Commented Dec 18, 2009 at 19:22

The easiest way to do this is to check "Use Option Key as Meta" in Terminal preferences, as described in Richard Hoskins' answer.

Commented Aug 21, 2014 at 13:39

In Terminal.app, Preferences->Settings, select the Keyboard tab. Ensure "Use Option Key as Meta" is checked.

answered Dec 18, 2009 at 14:44 Richard Hoskins Richard Hoskins 12.6k 10 10 gold badges 50 50 silver badges 52 52 bronze badges

btw, i should mention that while this solves the alt+dot problem, it messes up another keyboard combinations like ], > or |. My keyboard (spanish) uses option+somekey to type them. Well, you can't have it all.

Commented Dec 18, 2009 at 19:09 For iTerm, open Preferences, Profiles > Keys, Choose option key acts as +Esc at the bottom. Commented Aug 18, 2014 at 7:19 For Terminal inside VSCode, set "terminal.integrated.macOptionIsMeta" to true. Commented Oct 31, 2021 at 11:54

Regarding the conflict of key combinations @pablasso mentioned: stackoverflow.com/a/25183276/648271 describes a way of re-mapping needed combinations via .inputrc so you can re-enable needed combinations for your keyboard (in my case i.e for ~,@).

Commented Aug 2, 2023 at 13:24

Note that this is a feature of bash and not linux. Macs have bash on them as well. Alt-. is the shortcut for a builtin bash function insert-last-argument . Read the READLINE section of the bash man page for how you can bind this to a different key combination.

Pasting a few relevant parts:

 Readline Initialization Readline is customized by putting commands in an initialization file (the inputrc file). The default key-bindings may be changed with an inputrc file. Other pro- grams that use this library may add their own commands and bindings. For example, placing M-Control-u: universal-argument or C-Meta-u: universal-argument into the inputrc would make M-C-u execute the readline command univer- sal-argument. Readline Key Bindings The syntax for controlling key bindings in the inputrc file is simple. All that is required is the name of the command or the text of a macro and a key sequence to which it should be bound. The name may be specified in one of two ways: as a symbolic key name, possibly with Meta- or Control- prefixes, or as a key sequence. When using the form keyname:function-name or macro, keyname is the name of a key spelled out in English. For example: Control-u: universal-argument Meta-Rubout: backward-kill-word Control-o: "> output" In the above example, C-u is bound to the function universal-argument, M-DEL is bound to the function backward-kill-word, and C-o is bound to run the macro expressed on the right hand side (that is, to insert the text ``> output'' into the line). In the second form, "keyseq":function-name or macro, keyseq differs from keyname above in that strings denoting an entire key sequence may be spec- ified by placing the sequence within double quotes. Some GNU Emacs style key escapes can be used, as in the following example, but the symbolic character names are not recognized. "\C-u": universal-argument "\C-x\C-r": re-read-init-file "\e[11~": "Function Key 1" Commands for Manipulating the History insert-last-argument (M-., M-_) A synonym for yank-last-arg.