iTerm/zsh not reading .bashrc OR .bash_profile

In ~/.bash_profile I have :

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then source ~/.bashrc fi 

In ~/.bashrc I have some aliases

When I load a new iTerm window, my aliases do not work. If I source ~/.bashrc they work. If I source ~.bash_profile they work.

Isn't at least one of these supposed to be sourced automatically?

What might be causing it not to work properly?

3 Answers

The answer is simple, almost evident in the question. Here's why:

The shell zsh is not bash, it is a different shell. zsh will not use the default files built for bash: .bashrc or .bash_profile. These two files are startup configuration files for bash. zsh has its own startup configuration files.

You can find out more about them here on the zsh intro page:

There are five startup files that zsh will read commands from:

$ZDOTDIR/.zshenv $ZDOTDIR/.zprofile $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin $ZDOTDIR/.zlogout 

You had mentioned your aliases don't work, to fix this, apply your aliases here like so:

~/.zshrc

alias sz='source ~/.zshrc' # Easily source your ~/.zshrc file. alias ls='pwd; ls --color' # Alias 'ls' to: pwd + ls + color. 

If you are using zsh then to force source .bash_profile

in ~/.zshrc add the line below

source ~/.bash_profile 

P.S - I havent investigated whether this can cause any problem.

Copy the lines from ~/.bash_profile to ~/.zshrc

cat ~/.bash_profile >> ~/.zshrc 

And open a new terminal tab/window or use source ~/.zshrc