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Ubuntu 16.04 - Set Terminal Title

It's extremely useful to be able to name your terminals when you are juggling a lot of them as shown below with the title "hello world":

In ubuntu 14.04 you could set a shortcut key, but it looks like you can't do that anymore is 16.04. Luckily, someone posted a solution on Ask Ubuntu.

Simply edit your $HOME/.bashrc file and add the following function:

set-title(){
  ORIG=$PS1
  TITLE="\e]2;$@\a"
  PS1=${ORIG}${TITLE}
}

Now whenever you want to set the title of your terminal, just enter something like:

set-title "my awesome terminal title"
Last updated: 19th February 2020
First published: 16th August 2018

This blog is created by Stuart Page

I'm a freelance web developer and technology consultant based in Surrey, UK, with over 10 years experience in web development, DevOps, Linux Administration, and IT solutions.

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