bash: command not found error on macOS Terminal, Linux, Unix or Windows

bash: command not found is the most common error that someone may encounter while working on a macOS (earlier know as Mac OS X) terminal or any other Unix or Linux based operating system console (or Windows command line with Bash Shell commands enabled).

Let's see some examples and what could be the cause of the issue,

1. Did you get the command right?

   $ grep '%looking for some text%'

   Output: bash: gerp: command not found

   In the above example you can see that grep is misspelled as gerp, hence the command is actually invalid! If you are unsure if it's a valid command or not look at the below comprehensive list to find one you are trying to use,

   List of valid bash commands: !!, GetFileInfo, ReportCrash, afconvert, afinfo, afplay, airport, alias, alloc, apropos, asr, atsutil, awk, basename, bash, bc, bg, bind, bless, break, builtin, bzip2, caffeinate, cal, calendar, caller, cancel, case, cat, cd, chflags, chgrp, chmod, chown, chroot, cksum, clear, cmp, comm, command, complete, continue, cp, cpio, cron, crontab, csplit, csrutil, curl, cut, date, dc, dd, declare, defaults, df, diff, diff3, dig, dirname, dirs, diskutil, disown, ditto, dot_clean, drutil, dscacheutil, dscl, dseditgroup, dsenableroot, dsmemberutil, du, echo, ed, enable, env, eval, exec, execsnoop, exit, expand, expect, export, expr, fc, fdesetup, fdisk, fg, file, find, fmt, fold, for, fs_usage, fsck, ftp, function, fuser, getopt, getopts, goto, grep, groups, gzip, halt, hash, hdiutil, head, history, hostname, iconv, id, if, ifconfig, info, install, iosnoop, iostat, ipconfig, jobs, join, kextfind, kextstat, kextunload, kickstart, kill, killall, l, last, launchctl, less, let, lipo, ll, ln, local, locate, login, logname, logout, look, lp, lpr, lprm, lpstat, ls, lsbom, lsof, lsregister, man, mdfind, mdls, mdutil, mkdir, mkfifo, mkfile, mktemp, more, mount, mv, nano, nc/netcat, net, netstat, networksetup, nice, nohup, ntfs.util, nvram, onintr, open, opensnoop, openssl, osacompile, osascript, passwd, paste, pbcopy, pbpaste, pgrep, ping, pkgbuild, pkgutil, pkill, plutil, pmset, popd, pr, printenv, printf, ps, pushd, pwd, quota, rcp, read, readonly, reboot, return, rev, rm, rmdir, rpm, rsync, say, screen, screencapture, scselect, scutil, sdiff, security, sed, select, serverinfo, set, setfile, sharing, shasum, shift, shopt, shutdown, sips, sleep, softwareupdate, sort, source, spctl, split, sqlite3, srm, stat, stop, su, sudo, sum, suspend, sw_vers, sysctl, system_profiler, systemsetup, tail, tar, tccutil, tcpdump, tee, test, textutil, time, times, tmutil, top, touch, tput, tr, traceroute, trap, trimforce, tty, type, ufs.util, ulimit, umask, umount, unalias, uname, unexpand, uniq, units, unset, until, until, upsfilter, uptime, users, uucp, uudecode, uuencode, uuidgen, vi, w, wait, wall, wc, whatis, whereis, which, while, who, whoami, write, xargs, xattr, xcode-select, yes, zip

2. Do you have the command available under /usr/bin folder?

   $ cal
   bash: cal: command not found

   If you are using a utility like git bash for windows you may not have all set of bash commands available.

3. Is your .bash_profile set correctly?

   bash: ls: command not found
   bash: vi: command not found
   bash: touch: command not found
   bash: mkdir: command not found
   bash: gerp: command not found
   bash: sudo: command not found
   bash: env: command not found

   If none of your commands are working correctly, make sure you have set the file correctly, and has the correct encoding (CR/LF).

4. Check your PATH variable is rightly set?

   This is the most common reason why it may not work, try echoing PATH variable

   $ echo $PATH /c/Users/c2c/bin:/mingw64/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/mingw64/bin:/usr/bin:/c/Users/c2c/bin:/c/Program Files (x86)/Intel/Intel(R) Management Engine Components/iCLS:/c/Program Files/Intel/Intel(R) Management Engine Components/iCLS:/c/Windows/system32:/c/Windows:/c/Windows/System32/Wbem:/c/Windows/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0:/c/Windows/System32/OpenSSH:/c/Program Files (x86)/NVIDIA Corporation/PhysX/Common:/c/Program Files (x86)/Intel/Intel(R) Management Engine Components/DAL:/c/Program Files/Intel/Intel(R) Management Engine Components/DAL:/c/Program Files (x86)/Intel/Intel(R) Management Engine Components/IPT:/c/Program Files/Intel/Intel(R) Management Engine Components/IPT:/c/Program Files/Intel/WiFi/bin:/c/Program Files/Common Files/Intel/WirelessCommon:/c/WINDOWS/system32:/c/WINDOWS:/c/WINDOWS/System32/Wbem:/c/WINDOWS/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0:/c/WINDOWS/System32/OpenSSH:/c/Users/c2c/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps:/c/Users/c2c/AppData/Local/Programs/Fiddler:/c/Users/c2c/AppData/Local/Programs/Microsoft VS Code/bin:/c/Users/c2c/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps:/usr/bin/vendor_perl:/usr/bin/core_perl

Make sure usr/bin path is set correctly (the above example is from Windows - should be the same step for macOS.

You need to check if the environment variable is set correctly under System Properties ? Advance ? Environment Variables ? System variables ? Look for PATH

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