Question

I’m using Bash on Ubuntu, and sometimes when I run a command, the output overfills the terminal, even when I scroll up to the top. How can I access the part of the output that’s hidden because of the overfill?

Answer 1

You can try any of the following (Using the ls command as an example for where the commands would go):

Option A: Redirect the output to a file with > and then examine the file later with less or a text editor like vim or gedit.

$ ls > outfile
$ less outfile
$ vim outfile
$ gedit outfile
$ emacs outfile

To write the command’s output to both stdout and stderr to your outfile, add a 2>&1 at the end, like so:

$ ls > outfile 2>&1

Option B: pipe the output of your command directly to less

$ ls | less

Note: if you view the output with less with either of the above options, use:

• Ctrl+F to go down a page,
• Ctrl+B to go up a page ,
• Ctrl+D for down 1/2 a page,
• Ctrl+U for up 1/2 a page
• Arrow keys to move up / down line by line.
• Press q to exit from less anytime.