Separate up arrow lookback for local and global ZSH history

Copy & Paste this to your .zshrc:

Cursors are using local history:

bindkey "${key[Up]}" up-line-or-local-history
bindkey "${key[Down]}" down-line-or-local-history

up-line-or-local-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle up-line-or-history
    zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N up-line-or-local-history
down-line-or-local-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle down-line-or-history
    zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N down-line-or-local-history

If you need also key bindings (CTRL + cursors) to step through the global history add also this to your .zshrc:

bindkey "^[[1;5A" up-line-or-history    # [CTRL] + Cursor up
bindkey "^[[1;5B" down-line-or-history  # [CTRL] + Cursor down

To make this work the option SHARE_HISTORY (see 16.2.4 History) needs to be enabled. Run setopt and check if "sharehistory" is listed. If not add setopt sharehistory to your .zshrc. Then one can use set-local-history as we did above. The documenation says:

By default, history movement commands visit the imported lines as well as the local lines, but you can toggle this on and off with the set-local-history zle binding. It is also possible to create a zle widget that will make some commands ignore imported commands, and some include them.

Note that by default global history is used (and all functions end with "zle set-local-history 0", i.e. local history is disabled). So pressing CTRL + R will search the global history by default (which makes sense in most cases).

This is quite similar to the solution by @mpy, but ready for copy & paste. It overwrites the cursor keys up and down. I used this mail list entry.

See also:

http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Zsh-Line-Editor.html
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9502274/last-command-in-same-terminal/9518734?noredirect=1#comment15415094_9518734

You can setup a special zle widget to show only local history items:

function only-local-history () {
        zle set-local-history 1
        zle up-history
        zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N only-local-history

Assuming, that ↑ is bound to up-line-or-history (I think that is default), you can bind this widget to another key stroke, like CTRL+↑:

 bindkey "^[Oa" only-local-history

If this works is probably dependent of your terminal. Above line works in URxvt/Screen. With xterm you'll need

 bindkey "^[[1;5A" only-local-history

for CTRL+↑.

Another variant could be

function peek-history () {
        zle set-local-history
        zle up-history
        zle set-local-history
}
zle -N peek-history

so, if you have local history enabled, you can peek into the global one or vice versa.

@lumbic's answer worked for me only with a few changes:

setopt share_history

up-line-or-local-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle up-line-or-history
    zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N up-line-or-local-history
down-line-or-local-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle down-line-or-history
    zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N down-line-or-local-history

bindkey '^[OA' up-line-or-history     # Cursor up
bindkey '^[OB' down-line-or-history   # Cursor down
bindkey '^[[1;5A' up-line-or-local-history    # [CTRL] + Cursor up
bindkey '^[[1;5B' down-line-or-local-history  # [CTRL] + Cursor down

This code makes the global history the default, and uses CTRL-arrow for local history.

Note: I use zsh 5.0.2 together with oh-my-zsh.

I’ve been trying the options listed in other answers here but I was not happy with them. The widgets¹up-history or up-line-or-history do not include beginning search and the widget¹up-line-or-beginning-search seems to not work well when altering local history preference while using it.²

So I came to the following settings. It enables Ctrl+arrows to browse the global history, Alt+arrows to browse the local history only (similar to Bash) and standalone arrows to use the smart beginning search (default in Oh My Zsh).

up-line-or-local-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle up-line-or-search
    zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N up-line-or-local-history

down-line-or-local-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle down-line-or-search
    zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N down-line-or-local-history

bindkey "${key[Up]}" up-line-or-beginning-search
bindkey "${key[Down]}" down-line-or-beginning-search
bindkey "^[[1;5A" up-line-or-search    # [CTRL] + Cursor up
bindkey "^[[1;5B" down-line-or-search  # [CTRL] + Cursor down
bindkey "^[[1;3A" up-line-or-local-history    # [ALT] + Cursor up
bindkey "^[[1;3B" down-line-or-local-history  # [ALT] + Cursor up

¹ Their down counterparts are meant implicitly, too.

² The beginning used to search is redefined after altering local history preference, so the whole first found command is used as the beginning to be searched for in the second search.

Based on the various answers here, I was able to make a condenced version:

function up-line-or-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle .up-line-or-history
    zle set-local-history 0
}

function down-line-or-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle .down-line-or-history
    zle set-local-history 0
}

# Overwrite existing {up,down}-line-or-history widgets with the functions above.
zle -N up-line-or-history
zle -N down-line-or-history

This version will overwrite the existing up-line-or-history and down-line-or-history widgets with new user-defined widgets. This widget enables the local history and will then call the original widgets, which are available under the .-prefixed names. See the zle widget documentation for details.

This means that you get to keep any existing keybindings. You can therefore avoid having to figure out what the escape sequence is for typing an up-arrow in your current terminal.

Separate up arrow lookback for local and global ZSH history

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