zsh history is too short

Solution 1:

NVaughan (the OP) has already stated the answer in an update to the question: history behaves differently in bash than it does in zsh:

In short:

• zsh:
  • history lists only the 15 most recent history entries
  • history 1 lists all - see below.
• bash:
  • history lists all history entries.

Sadly, passing a numerical operand to history behaves differently, too:

• zsh:
  • history <n> shows all entries starting with <n> - therefore, history 1 shows all entries.
  • (history -<n> - note the - - shows the <n> most recent entries, so the default behavior is effectively history -15)
• bash:
  • history <n> shows the <n> most recent entries.
  • (bash's history doesn't support listing from an entry number; you can use fc -l <n>, but a specific entry <n> must exist, otherwise the command fails - see below.)

Optional background info:

• In zsh, history is effectively (not actually) an alias for fc -l: see man zshbuiltins
  • For the many history-related features, see man zshall
• In bash, history is its own command whose syntax differs from fc -l
  • See: man bash
• Both bash and zsh support fc -l <fromNum> [<toNum>] to list a given range of history entries:
  • bash: specific entry <fromNum> must exist.
  • zsh: command succeeds as long as least 1 entry falls in the (explicit or implied) range.
  • Thus, fc -l 1 works in zsh to return all history entries, whereas in bash it generally won't, given that entry #1 typically no longer exists (but, as stated, you can use history without arguments to list all entries in bash).

Solution 2:

#set history size
export HISTSIZE=10000
#save history after logout
export SAVEHIST=10000
#history file
export HISTFILE=~/.zhistory
#append into history file
setopt INC_APPEND_HISTORY
#save only one command if 2 common are same and consistent
setopt HIST_IGNORE_DUPS
#add timestamp for each entry
setopt EXTENDED_HISTORY   

this is my setting, and it work

Solution 3:

Perhaps late however coming across this post and trying to apply it, and failed .... so in practical terms, put this in .zshrc :

alias history='history 1'

and you'll see anything until the HIST_SIZE runs out. To find a command I use (after the .zshrc change)

history | grep "my_grep_string"