# Linux commands: clear

> Learn how the Linux clear command wipes your terminal screen, the handy ctrl-L shortcut for it, and how clear -x clears but keeps your scrollback.

Author: [Flavio Copes](https://flaviocopes.com/about/) | Published: 2020-09-19 | Topics: [CLI](https://flaviocopes.com/tags/cli/) | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/linux-command-clear/

Type `clear` to clear all the previous commands that were ran in the current terminal.

The screen will clear and you will just see the prompt at the top:

![Terminal window showing a cleared screen with only the command prompt visible at the top](https://flaviocopes.com/images/linux-command-clear/Screen_Shot_2020-09-03_at_18.10.32.png)

> Note: this command has a handy shortcut: `ctrl-L`

Once you do that, you will lose access to scrolling to see the output of the previous commands entered.

So you might want to use `clear -x` instead, which still clears the screen, but lets you go back to see the previous work by scrolling up.

> The `clear` command works on Linux, macOS, WSL, and anywhere you have a UNIX environment