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I just did a clean install of OS X Lion and I see that now I have no .bash_profile file in my home directory.

Should I create this by hand? (I want to save in it some alias.)

Thank you.

PS : The only file that exist now that I could use is /etc/profile

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1 Answer

up vote 13 down vote accepted

By default this file does not exist on any version of OS X. And yes, it is up to you to create it manually:

touch ~/.bash_profile

Alternatively, you could use nano as well if you want to edit the file at the same time:

nano ~/.bash_profile

Do not monkey in /etc unless you know what you're doing.

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Thank you for your answer.I just created the file and it worked fine after opening a new terminal window – skiabox Oct 7 '11 at 10:53
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You are welcome. If it solved your problem, please mark it as such to let others know if they ever reference this thread :) – cksum Oct 7 '11 at 10:54
Thanks - this had been bugging me for a while – iancrowther Jul 5 '12 at 22:30

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