# psql tips: Change the location and filtering of the history file

> Anyone who uses PostgreSQL knows of the best client available: psql. This is the client that ships with PostgreSQL. Yes it is a command line client (which turn…

Anyone who uses PostgreSQL knows of the best client available: **psql**. This is the client that ships with PostgreSQL. Yes it is a command line client (which turns some people off) but that also means that it is the most efficient at everyday tasks for a DBA. What a lot of people don't know is that psql is rather configurable. Here is an example:

**Problem 1:** I want my history file in a place other that ~/.psql_history

**Problem 2:** I want my history file to be per database not global

**Solution 1:  **Edit the .psqlrc file and change the history file settings

\set HISTFILE ~/psql_history/.psql_history  
  
This will put your .psql_history file into the directory psql_history under your home directory.

**Solution 2:  **Edit the .psqlrc file again to:

\set HISTFILE ~/psql_history/.psql_history- :DBNAME

This will not only put all your history files within the psql_history directory, it will separate the history files into a file per database. For example:
    
    
    postgres@jd-laptop:~$ ls -l psql-history  
    total 4  
    -rw------- 1 postgres postgres 33 Oct 24 09:33 psql_history-tut  
    [postgres@jd-laptop:~$ ](<mailto:postgres@jd-laptop:~$>)

Where tut is the name of a tutorial database I use for teaching.

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