> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://ploegert.gitbook.io/til/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://ploegert.gitbook.io/til/programmy/databases/postgres/commands/track-psql-history-separately-per-database.md).

# Track psql History Separately Per Database

By default, `psql` will keep track of all recent queries and commands in the `.psql_history` file in your home directory.

When in a `psql` session, you can hit the `Up` key to go back through the history to find a previously entered query. That means you can quickly retrieve and rerun past queries.

However the default `psql` configuration means that your history can contain queries from a `psql` session with another database that don't make sense in the context of the current database.

You can keep these query histories separate by configuring `psql` to use separate history files per database. This can be done by adding the following line to your `~/.psqlrc` file.

```
\set HISTFILE ~/.psql_history-:DBNAME
```

[source](https://github.com/hashrocket/dotmatrix/commit/1bd581db3a7192eb7aaa766a97e4b4b82d544067)