Shell command history is truncated to 10K commands on installation
Author: max-rocket-internetCreated May 3, 2022Updated Sep 6, 2026
LabelsBugArea: installer
Describe the bug
Shell command history is truncated to 10K commands on installation. Super annoying, especially for people who have long and rich command histories
Steps to reproduce
user@laptop ~ % echo $HISTSIZE
10000000
user@laptop ~ % echo $HISTFILE
/Users/temporaryadmin/.zsh_history
user@laptop ~ % wc -l /Users/temporaryadmin/.zsh_history
66033 /Users/temporaryadmin/.zsh_history
user@laptop ~ % sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
Cloning Oh My Zsh...
remote: Enumerating objects: 1295, done.
<removed>
Looking for an existing zsh config...
Found old ~/.zshrc.pre-oh-my-zsh. Backing up to /Users/temporaryadmin/.zshrc.pre-oh-my-zsh-2022-05-03_11-50-17
Found ~/.zshrc. Backing up to /Users/temporaryadmin/.zshrc.pre-oh-my-zsh
Using the Oh My Zsh template file and adding it to ~/.zshrc.
__ __
____ / /_ ____ ___ __ __ ____ _____/ /_
/ __ \/ __ \ / __ `__ \/ / / / /_ / / ___/ __ \
/ /_/ / / / / / / / / / / /_/ / / /_(__ ) / / /
\____/_/ /_/ /_/ /_/ /_/\__, / /___/____/_/ /_/
/____/ ....is now installed!
Before you scream Oh My Zsh! look over the `.zshrc` file to select plugins, themes, and options.
• Follow us on Twitter: @ohmyzsh
<removed>
➜ ~ ls -d
.
➜ ~ echo $HISTSIZE
50000
➜ ~ wc -l /Users/temporaryadmin/.zsh_history
10017 /Users/temporaryadmin/.zsh_history
➜ ~
Expected behavior
Don't truncate the history file or AT LEAST back it up
Screenshots and recordings
No response
OS / Linux distribution
MacOS 10.15
Zsh version
5.8.1
Oh My Zsh version
master
Terminal emulator
iterm2
If using WSL on Windows, which version of WSL
No response
Additional context
No response
Source: ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh