How To Save Gnome Terminal Scrollback to File

In this article, we will explore various methods to save the Gnome Terminal scrollback to a file. This can be useful for debugging, documentation, or simply keeping a record of your terminal sessions.

What is Gnome Terminal Scrollback?

The Gnome Terminal, like many other terminal emulators, maintains a scrollback buffer. This buffer contains a certain number of lines of output from your terminal session. The size of this buffer can be adjusted in the terminal’s settings. When the buffer is full, older lines are discarded as new ones are added.

Method 1: Using xsel to Copy the Scrollback Buffer

One way to save the scrollback buffer to a file is by copying the buffer’s contents and pasting them into a file. This can be done with the xsel command, which interacts with the X selection.

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Select the desired content: You can either triple-click the last line or use Edit -> Select All to highlight the content. Then, press Shift + Home or use the scrollbar to go to the beginning of the output. Hold Shift and click on the first line to select the entire range.
2. Copy the selected content: You can do this with Ctrl + Shift + C or by right-clicking and selecting ‘Copy’.
3. Paste the copied content into a file: Open a new tab and run the command xsel -o > out.txt. This command uses xsel -o to output the current X selection, and > to redirect this output to a file named out.txt.

If xsel is not installed on your system, you can install it using the command sudo apt-get install xsel.

Method 2: Using the script Command

The script command is a utility that allows you to record a terminal session. It’s very useful when you want to save everything that’s happening in your terminal in real-time.

Here’s how to use it:

1. Start a new session with the script command: Simply run script in the terminal to start a new session. If you want to specify a different filename for the output file, you can do so by running script filename.
2. Perform your tasks: Everything you do in the terminal from this point will be recorded, including the output of all commands.
3. End the session: Once you’re done, type exit to end the session. The entire session will be saved to a file called typescript in your current directory, or to the filename you specified.

To view the saved session, you can use the cat command, like so: cat typescript.

Method 3: Using Virtual Console Memory

If you’re working on a virtual terminal (like /dev/tty1), you can save the scrollback buffer to a file using the cat command on the corresponding virtual console memory device (/dev/vcs1).

Here’s the command to do this: cat /dev/vcs1 > output-file.

Please note that the device numbers of tty1 and vcs1 should match. This method only works for virtual terminals and not for pseudo terminals used by terminal emulators like Gnome Terminal or xterm.

For more information on this method, you can refer to the manual with man vcs.

Conclusion

Saving the Gnome Terminal scrollback to a file can be achieved in several ways. The xsel and script methods are generally more versatile and work with both virtual and pseudo terminals, while the virtual console memory method is specific to virtual terminals. Choose the method that best fits your needs.