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Deleting History

Atuin provides several ways to delete history, whether you want to remove a single entry, bulk delete by query, clean up duplicates, or wipe everything.

All deletion methods are local-first. If you have sync enabled, deletions are propagated to other machines automatically.

Deleting a single entry

The quickest way to delete a single entry is via the interactive TUI.

Using the inspector

  1. Open the TUI with Ctrl+R or the up arrow
  2. Search for the entry you want to delete
  3. Press Ctrl+O to open the inspector on the selected entry
  4. Verify this is the correct entry
  5. Press Ctrl+D to delete it

Using the prefix shortcut

  1. Open the TUI with Ctrl+R or the up arrow
  2. Navigate to the entry you want to delete
  3. Press Ctrl+A then D to delete the selected entry

Both methods remove the entry immediately with no further confirmation.

Deleting entries matching a query

Use atuin search --delete to delete all entries matching a search query. This uses the same query syntax as regular search, so you can preview what will be deleted before committing.

Preview first, then delete

Always run your query without --delete first to verify the results:

# Step 1: preview - see what matches
atuin search "^curl https://internal"

# Step 2: delete - once you're satisfied the results are correct
atuin search --delete "^curl https://internal"

Combining filters

You can combine --delete with any search filter:

# Delete all failed commands run from a specific directory
atuin search --delete --exit 1 --cwd /home/user/experiments

# Delete commands matching a pattern that ran before a certain date
atuin search --delete --before "2024-01-01" "^tmp-script"

# Delete successful cargo commands run after yesterday at 3pm
atuin search --delete --exit 0 --after "yesterday 3pm" cargo

Warning

--delete requires a query or filter. It will not run without one. This is intentional to prevent accidental bulk deletion.

Deleting all history

If you want to wipe your entire local history:

atuin search --delete-it-all

Danger

This deletes every entry in your local history database. It cannot be combined with a query or filters. This action is irreversible.

Starting fresh with sync

If you use sync and want to start completely fresh, --delete-it-all alone is not enough. Atuin sync works by recording every action (including deletions) as encrypted records. Deleting 100,000 entries locally creates 100,000 delete records that still need to sync. When your other machines pull those records, they process every single one, and your database still contains the overhead of all that history.

The cleaner approach is to delete your sync account and start over:

# Delete your sync account and all server-side data
atuin account delete

# Register a new account
atuin register

# Import your shell history fresh (optional)
atuin import auto

This gives you a clean slate on the server with no leftover records. Your other machines can then register with the new account and start fresh too.

Tip

If you only want to delete specific entries and keep the rest, atuin search --delete is the right tool. The account reset approach is only better when you want to wipe everything and start over.

Pruning filtered commands

If you've updated your history_filter config and want to retroactively remove entries that match the new filters:

# Preview what will be removed
atuin history prune --dry-run

# Perform the deletion
atuin history prune

This is useful when you add a new pattern to history_filter - future commands matching the filter are never recorded, but old entries that were recorded before the filter was set up remain. prune cleans those up.

Purging undecryptable local store records

If atuin store verify reports that some local store records cannot be decrypted with your current key, you can remove only those broken local records:

# Check whether every local store record can be decrypted
atuin store verify

# Delete only the local records that fail decryption
atuin store purge

This is useful when one machine ends up with local records that were encrypted with a different key than the one Atuin is currently using.

Warning

atuin store purge only affects the local record store on the current machine. It does not wipe your history, delete your sync account, or reset other machines.

Danger

atuin store purge permanently deletes the records it cannot decrypt. Before running it, make sure Atuin is using the key you intend to keep, and back up the local store if the records may still be recoverable. Run atuin store verify first so you know whether you are cleaning up a real key mismatch and not just deleting data blindly.

Deduplicating history

Remove duplicate entries (same command, working directory, and hostname):

# Preview duplicates that would be removed
atuin history dedup --dry-run --before "2025-01-01" --dupkeep 1

# Delete them
atuin history dedup --before "2025-01-01" --dupkeep 1
Flag Description
--dry-run/-n List duplicates without deleting
--before/-b Only consider entries added before this date (required)
--dupkeep Number of recent duplicates to keep

Deleting your sync account

To delete your remote sync account and all server-side history:

atuin account delete

This removes your account and all synchronized history from the server. Local history is not affected. See the sync reference for more details.

Summary

Goal Command
Delete one entry (TUI) Ctrl+O then Ctrl+D, or Ctrl+A then D
Delete entries by query atuin search --delete <query>
Delete all history atuin search --delete-it-all
Start fresh (with sync) atuin account delete then re-register
Remove filtered entries atuin history prune
Remove undecryptable local store records atuin store verify then atuin store purge
Remove duplicates atuin history dedup --before <date> --dupkeep <n>
Delete sync account atuin account delete