Linux commands: fg

Sep 14, 2020

Learn how the Linux fg command brings a background job back to the foreground, resuming the last one or a specific job number you find with the jobs command.

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When a command is running in the background, because you started it with & at the end (example: top & or because you put it in the background with the bg command, you can put it to the foreground using fg.

Running

fg

will resume to the foreground the last job that was suspended.

You can also specify which job you want to resume to the foreground passing the job number, which you can get using the jobs command.

Terminal showing jobs command output with two stopped background jobs labeled 1 and 2 running top commands

Running fg 2 will resume job #2:

Terminal showing top command running in foreground displaying system processes and resource usage statistics

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

Tagged: CLI · All topics

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