import

atuin import

Atuin can import your history from your “old” history file

atuin import auto will attempt to figure out your shell (via $SHELL) and run the correct importer

Unfortunately these older files do not store as much information as Atuin does, so not all features are available with imported data.

Except as noted otherwise, you can set the HISTFILE environment variable to control which file is read, otherwise each importer will try some default filenames.

HISTFILE=/path/to/history/file atuin import zsh

Note that for shells such as Xonsh that store history in many files rather than a single file, $HISTFILE should be set to the directory in whic those files reside.

For formats that don’t store timestamps, timestamps will be generated starting at the current time plus 1ms for each additional command in the history.

Most importers will discard commands found that have invalid UTF-8.

bash

This will read the history from $HISTFILE or $HOME/.bash_history.

Warnings will be issued if timestamps are found to be out of order, which could also happen when a history file starts without timestamps but later entries include them.

fish

fish supports multiple history sessions, so the importer will default to the fish session unless the fish_history environment variable is set. The file to be read will be {session}_history in $XDG_DATA_HOME/fish/ (or $HOME/.local/share/fish).

Not all of the data in the fish history is preserved, some data about filenames used for each command are not used by Atuin, so it is discarded.

nu-hist-db

This importer reads from Nushell’s SQLite history database, which is stored in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nushell/history.sqlite3 or $HOME/.config/nushell/history.sqlite3. There is no way to set the filename otherwise.

nu

This importer reads from Nushell’s text history format, which is stored in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nushell/history.txt or $HOME/.config/nushell/history.txt. There is no way to set the filename otherwise.

resh

The RESH importer will read from $HISTFILE or $HOME/.resh_history.json.

xonsh

The Xonsh importer will read from all JSON files it finds in the Xonsh history directory. The location of the directory is determined as follows:

• If $HISTFILE is set, its value is used as the history directory.
• If $XONSH_DATA_DIR is set (as it typically will be if the importer is invoked from within Xonsh), $XONSH_DATA_DIR/history_json is used.
• If $XDG_DATA_HOME is set, $XDG_DATA_HOME/xonsh/history_json is used.
• Otherwise, $HOME/.local/share/xonsh/history_json is used.

Not all data present in Xonsh history JSON files is used by Atuin. Xonsh stores the environment variables present when each session was initiated, but this data is discarded by Atuin. Xonsh optionally stores the output of each command; if present this data is also ignored by Atuin.

xonsh_sqlite

The Xonsh SQLite importer will read from the Xonsh SQLite history file. The history file’s location is determined by the same process as the regular Xonsh importer, but with history_json replaced by xonsh-history.sqlite.

The Xonsh SQLite backend does not store environment variables, but like the JSON backend it can optionally store the output of each command. As with the JSON backend, if present this data will be ignored by Atuin.

zsh_histdb

This will read the Zsh histdb SQLite file from $HISTDB_FILE or $HOME/.histdb/zsh-history.db.

zsh

This will read the Zsh history from $HISTFILE or $HOME/.zhistory or $HOME/.zsh_history in either the simple or extended format.