gnome-terminal: keep track of directory in new tab

Question

I'm on Arch linux, and when I open a new terminal tab, it always goes to $HOME. How can I make it so that when I open a new tab, it opens the shell in the directory I was in previously?

Answer 1

There is a bug related to this issue

All you need to do is add the following line to your .bashrc or .zshrc:

. /etc/profile.d/vte.sh

At least on Arch, the script checks if you are running either bash or zsh and exits if you are not.

Answer 2

Might as well crosspost this hacky solution from superuser:

[This] saves the current folder in a file, after every command (Doesn't hurt too much IMO) and opens a new terminal in the saved current folder.

add the following to .zshrc [or .bashrc]

# emulate bash PROMPT_COMMAND (only for zsh)
precmd() { eval "$PROMPT_COMMAND" }
# open new terminal in same dir
PROMPT_COMMAND='pwd > "${HOME}/.cwd"'
[[ -f "${HOME}/.cwd" ]] && cd "$(< ${HOME}/.cwd)"

Note that this you will also put you in your last-used directory when opening a new window.

Answer 3

@swalog inspired me in his comment to strip down all unnecessary parts of the vte.sh while not modifying the the prompt nor the terminal title. Note that I don’t use zsh, therefore I removed zsh-related code.

# Copyright © 2006 Shaun McCance <[email protected]>
# Copyright © 2013 Peter De Wachter <[email protected]>
#
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

# 28 Sep 2019: Tukusej’s Sirs modified this by stripping down all unnecessary parts for his usage
# (src: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/93476/gnome-terminal-keep-track-of-directory-in-new-tab#comment219157_93477)

# Not an interactive shell?
[[ $- == *i* ]] || return 0

# Not running under vte?
[ "${VTE_VERSION:-0}" -ge 3405 ] || return 0

__vte_urlencode() (
    # This is important to make sure string manipulation is handled
    # byte-by-byte.
    LC_ALL=C
    str="$1"
    while [ -n "$str" ]; do
        safe="${str%%[!a-zA-Z0-9/:_\.\-\!\'\(\)~]*}"
        printf "%s" "$safe"
        str="${str#"$safe"}"
        if [ -n "$str" ]; then
            printf "%%%02X" "'$str"
            str="${str#?}"
        fi
    done
)

__vte_prompt_command() {
    local command=$(HISTTIMEFORMAT= history 1 | sed 's/^ *[0-9]\+ *//')
    command="${command//;/ }"
    local pwd='~'
    printf "\033]7;file://%s%s\007" "${HOSTNAME:-}" "$(__vte_urlencode "${PWD}")"
}

case "$TERM" in
    xterm*|vte*)
        [ -n "$BASH_VERSION" ] && PROMPT_COMMAND="${PROMPT_COMMAND};__vte_prompt_command"
        ;;
esac