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How to change your UNIX login shell from the default assigned Bourne (BASH) shell

Step-by-step guide

Open Terminal or establish a SSH session if performing this remotely: 

1. Check and note your current login shell 

   Code Block
   echo $SHELL /bin/bash

   
   

2. To change your shell, create a ~/.bash_profile in the root of your home directory with the following lines or if you already have a .bash_profile append it with the below entries.  This example is for zsh.

   Code Block
   export SHELL=/bin/zsh exec zsh

   List of other shell on macOS

   Code Block
   /bin/bash /bin/csh /bin/ksh /bin/sh /bin/tcsh /bin/zsh

   
   

3. Check and note your new login shell by opening another terminal window or ssh session) and do another "echo $SHELL" this time you should get zsh instead.

   Code Block
   echo $SHELL /bin/zsh

   
   

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