iTerm 2 on Mac OS X - How to get rid of all characters before the $ on each line?

Question

I installed iTerm 2 but my shell windows show:

"computer name":"current directory" "user" $

This is far too long. I'd like to just see:

"current directory" $

Is there an option for this? I couldn't find it in the preferences.

Solution

It's behavior of your shell, not your terminal. If you're using bash, edit ~/.bash_profile and add the following line:

export PS1='\w \$ '

This will display the current working directory, or ~ in case of $HOME, and either $ or #, depending on whether you're root. Examples:

/Applications $
~/Documents $
/Users/danielbeck/Documents #

Search man bash for PS1 to find out about the possible placeholders. You can execute shell scripts as part of your prompt, e.g.:

export PS1='$( pwd ) \$ '

This will behave similar to the one above, but always print the full path.