Linux commands: printenv

By Flavio Copes

Learn how the Linux printenv command prints all of your environment variables, or just one like PATH when you pass its name as an argument.

A quick guide to the printenv command, used to print the values of environment variables

In any shell there are a good number of environment variables, set either by the system, or by your own shell scripts and configuration.

You can print them all to the terminal using the printenv command. The output will be something like this:

HOME=/Users/flavio
LOGNAME=flavio
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/Apple/usr/bin
PWD=/Users/flavio
SHELL=/usr/local/bin/fish

with a few more lines, usually.

You can append a variable name as a parameter, to only show that variable value:

printenv PATH

The printenv command works on Linux, macOS, WSL, and anywhere you have a UNIX environment

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