Are you looking for the technique of scrolling through your Linux terminal? Brace yourself. This article is written for you. Today you’ll learn how to scroll up and down in the Linux terminal. So, let’s begin.

Why You Need to Scroll in Linux Terminal

But before going ahead and learning about up and down scrolling in the terminal, let’s find out what’s the importance of scrolling in the Linux terminal. When you have a lot of output printed on your terminal screen, it becomes helpful to make your Linux terminal behave in a particular manner. You can clear the terminal at any time. This may make your work easier and quicker to complete. But what if you’re troubleshooting an issue and you need a previously entered command, then scrolling up or down comes to the rescue.

Various shortcuts and commands allow you to perform scrolling in the Linux terminal whenever you want. So, for easy navigation in your terminal using the keyboard, read on.

How to Scroll Up and Down in Linux Terminal

In the Linux terminal, you can scroll up by page using the Shift + PageUp shortcut. And to scroll down in the terminal, use Shift + PageDown. To go up or down in the terminal by line, use Ctrl + Shift + Up or Ctrl + Shift + Down respectively.

Key Combinations Used in Scrolling

Following are some key combinations that are useful in scrolling through the Linux terminal. 

Ctrl+End: This allows you to scroll down to your cursor.

Ctrl+Page Up: This key combination lets you scroll up by one page.

Ctrl+Page Dn: This lets you scroll down by one page.

Ctrl+Line Up: To scroll up by one line, use this key combination.

Scrolling Up and Down with More Command

The more command allows you to see the text files within the command prompt. For bigger files (for example, log files), it shows one screen at one time. The more command is also used to scroll up and down within the page. To scroll up the display one line at a time, press the Enter key. To scroll a screenful at a time, use Spacebar. To do backward scrolling, press ‘b’.

How to Disable Scrolling in the Terminal

To disable the scrollbar, follow the steps given in this section. First, on the window, press the Menu button residing in the top-right corner. Then select Preferences. From the Profiles section in the sidebar, select the profile you’re currently using. Then select the Scrolling option. Finally, uncheck the Show scrollbar to disable the scrolling feature in the terminal. Your preference will be saved immediately.

Scrolling on the Output

To view the latest output whenever a command is executed and produces an output, you can lock scrolling. To do this, press the Menu button. Select Preferences. Select your current profile from the Profiles section. Then select Scrolling. Check Scroll on the output option. This enables scrolling through the output on your terminal.

Scrolling on the Input

You can enable automatic scrolling to the bottom of the screen whenever a text input is given into the prompt. To do this, press the Menu button from the top-right corner. Select the Preferences option. Choose your current profile from the Profiles section. Then select Scrolling. Finally, check Scroll on keystroke. That’s how you’re able to scroll on the input.

Scrollback Lines of Output

If you want to limit the Linux terminal’s output lines to be remembered, use the limit scrollback method. To do this, press the menu button of the window. Select Preferences. In the sidebar, choose your currently using profile from the Profiles section. Next, select the Scrolling option. Check Limit scrollback to. Then give a number as input to limit scrollback. You can also click on the + sign to increase and the - sign to decrease lines.

Enable Unlimited Scrollback

To enable unlimited scrollback, follow this section. First, press the menu button. Select Preferences. Choose your current profile from the Profiles section. Select Scrolling. Then uncheck the Limit scroll back to.

Conclusion

That’s a wrap! Today we learned how to scroll up and down in our Linux terminal. We also learned about some useful key combinations that are used in scrolling, more command usages, how to disable the scrollbar, scrolling on input and output, and how to enable unlimited scrollback. Make use of this article while practicing on your terminal.