davideisinger.com/static/archive/evanhahn-com-6hstph.txt

Scripts I wrote that I use all the time


by [1]Evan Hahn
, posted Oct 22, 2025

In my [2]decade-plus of maintaining my dotfiles, I’ve written a lot of little
shell scripts. Here’s a big list of my personal favorites.

Clipboard

[3]copy and [4]pasta are simple wrappers around system clipboard managers, like
pbcopy on macOS and xclip on Linux. I use these all the time.

# High level examples
run_some_command | copy
pasta > file_from_my_clipboard.txt

# Copy a file's contents
copy < file.txt

# Open a file path from your clipboard
vim "$(pasta)"

# Decode some base64 from the clipboard
pasta | base64 --decode

[5]pastas prints the current state of your clipboard to stdout, and then
whenever the clipboard changes, it prints the new version. I use this once a
week or so.

# High level example
pastas > everything_i_copied.txt

# Download every link I copy to my clipboard
pastas | wget -i -

[6]cpwd copies the current directory to the clipboard. Basically pwd | copy. I
often use this when I’m in a directory and I want use that directory in another
terminal tab; I copy it in one tab and cd to it in another. I use this once a
day or so.

File management

[7]mkcd foo makes a directory and cds inside. It’s basically mkdir foo && cd
foo. I use this all the time—almost every time I make a directory, I want to go
in there.

[8]tempe changes to a temporary directory. It’s basically cd "$(mktemp -d)". I
use this all the time to hop into a sandbox directory. It saves me from having
to manually clean up my work. A couple of common examples:

# Download a file and extract it
tempe
wget 'https://example.com/big_file.tar.xz'
tar -xf big_file.tar.xz
# ...do something with the file...

# Write a quick throwaway script to try something out
tempe
vim foo.py
python3 foo.py

[9]trash a.txt b.png moves a.txt and b.png to the trash. Supports macOS and
Linux. I use this every day. I definitely run it more than rm, and it saves me
from accidentally deleting files.

[10]mksh makes it quick to create shell scripts. mksh foo.sh creates foo.sh,
makes it executable with chmod u+x, adds some nice Bash prefixes, and opens it
with my editor (Vim in my case). I use this every few days. Many of the scripts
in this post were made with this helper!

Internet

[11]serveit starts a static file server on localhost:8000 in the current
directory. It’s basically python3 -m http.server 8000 but handles cases where
Python isn’t installed, falling back to other programs. I use this a few times
a week. Probably less useful if you’re not a web developer.

[12]getsong uses yt-dlp to download songs, often from YouTube or SoundCloud, in
the highest available quality. For example, getsong https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ downloads that video as a song. I use this a few times a
week&mldr;typically to grab video game soundtracks&mldr;

[13]getpod similarly uses yt-dlp to download something for a podcast player.
There are a lot of videos that I’d rather listen to like a podcast. I use this
a few times a month.

[14]getsubs downloads the English subtitles for a video. (There’s some
fanciness to look for “official” subtitles, falling back to auto-generated
subtitles.) Sometimes I read the subtitles manually, sometimes I run getsubs
https://video.example/foo | ollama run llama3.2 "Summarize this", sometimes I
just want it as a backup of a video I don’t want to save on my computer. I use
this every few days.

[15]wifi off, wifi on, and wifi toggle are useful for controlling my system’s
wifi. wifi toggle is the one I use most often, when I’m having network trouble.
I use this about once a month.

[16]url "$my_url" parses a URL into its parts. I use this about once a month to
pull data out of a URL, often because I don’t want to click a nasty tracking
link.

url 'https://evil.example/track-user-link?url=https%3A%2F%2Furl-i-want-to-visit.example&track=06f8582a-91e6-4c9c-bf8e-516884584aba#cookie=123'
# original: https://evil.example/track-user-link?url=https%3A%2F%2Furl-i-want-to-visit.example&track=06f8582a-91e6-4c9c-bf8e-516884584aba#cookie=123
# protocol: https
# hostname: evil.example
# path: /track-user-link
# query: url=https%3A%2F%2Furl-i-want-to-visit.example&track=06f8582a-91e6-4c9c-bf8e-516884584aba
# - url https://url-i-want-to-visit.example
# - track 06f8582a-91e6-4c9c-bf8e-516884584aba
# hash: cookie=123

Text processing

[17]line 10 prints line 10 from stdin. For example, cat some_big_file | line 10
prints line 10 of a file. This feels like one of those things that should be
built in, like head and tail. I use this about once a month.

[18]scratch opens a temporary Vim buffer. It’s basically an alias for $EDITOR $
(mktemp). I use this about once a day for quick text manipulation tasks, or to
take a little throwaway note.

[19]straightquote converts “smart quotes” to “straight quotes” (sometimes
called “dumb quotes”). I don’t care much about these in general, but they
sometimes weasel their way into code I’m working on. It can also make the file
size smaller, which is occasionally useful. I use this at least once a week.

[20]markdownquote adds > before every line. I use it in Vim a lot; I select a
region and then run :'<,'>!markdownquote to quote the selection. I use this
about once a week.

[21]length foo returns 3. (I should probably just use wc -c.)

[22]jsonformat takes JSON at stdin and pretty-prints it to stdout. I use this a
few times a year.

[23]uppered and [24]lowered convert strings to upper and lowercase. For
example, echo foo | uppered returns FOO. I use these about once a week.

[25]nato bar returns Bravo Alfa Romeo. I use this most often when talking to
customer service and need to read out a long alphanumeric string, which has
only happened a couple of times in my whole life. But it’s sometimes useful!

[26]u+ 2025 returns ñ, LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH TILDE. A quick way to do a
lookup of a Unicode string. I don’t use this one that often&mldr;probably about
once a month.

[27]snippets foo cats ~/.config/evanhahn-snippets/foo. I use snippet arrow for
→, snippet recruiter for a quick “not interested” response to job recruiters,
snippet lorem to print a “Lorem ipsum” block, and a few others. I probably use
one or two of these a week.

REPL launchers

Inspired by Ruby’s built-in irb REPL, I’ve made:

  • [28]iclj to start a Clojure REPL
  • [29]ijs to start a Deno REPL (or a Node REPL when Deno is missing)
  • [30]iphp to start a PHP REPL
  • [31]ipy to start a Python REPL
  • [32]isql to start a SQLite shell (an alias for sqlite3 :memory:)

Dates and times

[33]hoy prints the current date in ISO format, like 2020-04-20. I use this all
the time because I like to prefix files with the current date.

[34]timer 10m starts a timer for 10 minutes, then (1) plays an audible ring
sound (2) sends an OS notification (see notify below). I often use bb timer 5m
to start a 5 minute timer in the background (see bb below). I use this almost
every day as a useful way to keep on track of time.

[35]rn prints the current time and date using date and cal. I probably use it
once a week. It prints something like this:

 4:20PM on Wednesday, October 22, 2025

   September 2025
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
    1  2  3  4  5  6
 7  8  9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30

Audio and video and pictures

[36]ocr my_image.png extracts text from an image and prints it to stdout. It
only works on macOS, unfortunately, but I want to fix that. (I wrote [37]a post
about this script.)

[38]boop (an alias, not a shell script) makes a happy sound if the previous
command succeeded and a sad sound otherwise. I do things like run_the_tests ;
boop which will tell me, audibly, whether the tests succeed. It’s also helpful
for long-running commands, because you get a little alert when they’re done. I
use this all the time.

[39]sfx foo basically just plays ~/.config/evanhahn-sfx/foo.ogg. Used in boop
and timer above.

[40]tunes uses mpv to play audio from a file. I use this all the time, running
tunes --shuffle ~/music.

[41]pix uses mpv to show a picture. I use this a few times a week to look at
photos.

[42]radio is a little wrapper around some of my favorite internet radio
stations. radio lofi and radio salsa are two of my favorites. I use this a few
times a month.

[43]speak reads from stdin, removes all Markdown formatting, and pipes it to a
text-to-speech system (say on macOS and espeak-ng on Linux). [44]I like using
text-to-speech when I can’t proofread out loud. I use this a few times a month.

[45]shrinkvid is an ffmpeg wrapper that compresses a video a bit. I use this
about once a month.

[46]removeexif removes EXIF data from JPEGs. I don’t use this much, in part
because it doesn’t remove EXIF data from other file formats like PNGs&mldr;but
I keep it around because I hope to expand this one day.

[47]tuivid is one I almost never use, but you can use it to watch videos in the
terminal. It’s cursed and I love it, even if I never use it.

Process management

[48]each is my answer to xargs and find ... -exec, which I find hard to use.
For example, ls | each 'du -h {}' runs du -h on every file in a directory. I
use this infrequently but I always mess up xargs so this is a nice alternative.

[49]running foo is like ps aux | grep foo but much easier (for me) to read—just
the PID (highlighted in purple) and the command.

[50]murder foo or murder 1234 is a wrapper around kill that sends kill -15
$PID, waits a little, then sends kill -2, waits and sends kill -1, waits before
finally sending kill -9. If I want a program to stop, I want to ask it nicely
before getting more aggressive. I use this a few times a month.

[51]waitfor $PID waits for a PID to exit before continuing. It also keeps the
system from going to sleep. I use this about once a month to do things like:

# I want to start something only after another process finishes
waitfor 1234 ; something_else

# I started a long-running process and want to know when it's done
waitfor 1234 ; notify 'process 1234 is done'

[52]bb my_command is like my_command & but it really really runs it in the
background. You’ll never hear from that program again. It’s useful when you
want to start a daemon or long-running process you truly don’t care about. I
use bb ollama serve and bb timer 5m most often. I use this about once a day.

[53]prettypath prints $PATH but with newlines separating entries, which makes
it much easier to read. I use this pretty rarely—mostly just when I’m debugging
a $PATH issue, which is unusual—but I’m glad I have it when I do.

[54]tryna my_command runs my_command until it succeeds. [55]trynafail
my_command runs my_command until it fails. I don’t use this much, but it’s
useful for various things. tryna wget ... will keep trying to download
something. trynafail npm test will stop once my tests start failing.

Quick references

[56]emoji is my emoji lookup helper. For example, emoji cool prints the
following:

😛
😒
😎
🪭
🆒

[57]httpstatus prints all HTTP statuses. httpstatus 204 prints 204 No Content.
As a web developer, I use this a few times a month, instead of looking it up
online.

[58]alphabet just prints the English alphabet in upper and lowercase. I use
this surprisingly often (probably about once a month). It literally just prints
this:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

System management

[59]theme 0 changes my whole system to dark mode. theme 1 changes it to light
mode. It doesn’t just change the OS theme—it also changes my Vim, Tmux, and
terminal themes. I use this at least once a day.

[60]sleepybear puts my system to sleep, and works on macOS and Linux. I use
this a few times a week.

[61]ds-destroy recursively deletes all .DS_Store files in a directory. I hate
that macOS clutters directories with these files! I don’t use this often, but
I’m glad I have it when I need it.

Grab bag

[62]catbin foo is basically cat "$(which foo)". Useful for seeing the source
code of a file in your path (used it for writing up this post, for example!). I
use this a few times a month.

[63]notify sends an OS notification. It’s used in several of my other scripts
(see above). I also do something like this about once a month:

run_some_long_running_process ; notify 'all done'

[64]uuid prints a v4 UUID. I use this about once a month.

What about your scripts?

These are just scripts I use a lot. I hope some of them are useful to you!

If you liked this post, you might like [65]“Why ‘alias’ is my last resort for
aliases” and [66]“A decade of dotfiles”.

Oh, and [67]contact me if you have any scripts you think I’d like.

[68][logo_white]

  • [69]About me
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  • [74]RSS
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Unless noted otherwise, content is licensed under the [77]Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial License and code under the [78]Unlicense. Logo by 
[79]Lulu Tang. Profile photo by [80]Ali Boschert-Downs.


References:

[1] https://evanhahn.com/
[2] https://evanhahn.com/a-decade-of-dotfiles/
[3] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/copy
[4] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/pasta
[5] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/pastas
[6] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/cpwd
[7] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/zsh/.config/zsh/aliases.zsh#L38-L41
[8] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/zsh/.config/zsh/aliases.zsh#L43-L51
[9] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/trash
[10] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/mksh
[11] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/serveit
[12] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/getsong
[13] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/getpod
[14] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/getsubs
[15] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/wifi
[16] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/url
[17] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/line
[18] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/scratch
[19] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/straightquote
[20] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/markdownquote
[21] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/length
[22] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/jsonformat
[23] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/uppered
[24] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/lowered
[25] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/nato
[26] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/u+
[27] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/snippets
[28] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/iclj
[29] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/ijs
[30] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/iphp
[31] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/ipy
[32] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/isql
[33] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/hoy
[34] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/timer
[35] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/rn
[36] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/ocr
[37] https://evanhahn.com/mac-ocr-script/
[38] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/zsh/.config/zsh/aliases.zsh#L53-L61
[39] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/sfx
[40] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/tunes
[41] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/pix
[42] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/radio
[43] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/speak
[44] https://evanhahn.com/use-text-to-speech-if-you-cant-proofread-aloud/
[45] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/shrinkvid
[46] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/removeexif
[47] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/tuivid
[48] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/each
[49] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/running
[50] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/murder
[51] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/waitfor
[52] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/bb
[53] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/prettypath
[54] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/tryna
[55] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/trynafail
[56] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/emoji
[57] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/httpstatus
[58] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/alphabet
[59] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/theme
[60] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/sleepybear
[61] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/ds-destroy
[62] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/catbin
[63] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/notify
[64] https://codeberg.org/EvanHahn/dotfiles/src/commit/843b9ee13d949d346a4a73ccee2a99351aed285b/home/bin/bin/uuid
[65] https://evanhahn.com/why-alias-is-my-last-resort-for-aliases/
[66] https://evanhahn.com/a-decade-of-dotfiles/
[67] https://evanhahn.com/contact/
[68] https://evanhahn.com/
[69] https://evanhahn.com/
[70] https://evanhahn.com/contact/
[71] https://evanhahn.com/projects/
[72] https://evanhahn.com/guides/
[73] https://evanhahn.com/blog/
[74] https://evanhahn.com/blog/index.xml
[75] https://buttondown.com/evanhahn
[76] https://bigshoulders.city/@EvanHahn
[77] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
[78] https://unlicense.org/
[79] http://luluspice.com/
[80] https://www.instagram.com/boschertdowns/