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The main purpose of this topic is to demonstrate how to clear the MySQL console screen.

Clearing the Screen in MySQL

When working on the MySQL Console and managing configuration and data, the screen can become overly cluttered with the results of previous actions. Clutter can result in a cluttered display, which can affect visualization of future queries, because a cluttered display can cause confusion when navigating through the output.

Consider the following scenario:

C:\Users\Admin>mysql --user=root --password=root
MySQL: [Warning] Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure.
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 10
Server version: 8.0.30 MySQL Community Server - GPL

Copyright (c) 2000, 2022, Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql> SELECT * from world.city;

+------+---------------+-------------+----------------------+------------+
| ID   | Name          | CountryCode | District             | Population |
+------+---------------+-------------+----------------------+------------+
|    1 | Kabul         | AFG         | Kabol                |    1780000 |
|    2 | Qandahar      | AFG         | Qandahar             |     237500 |
|    3 | Herat         | AFG         | Herat                |     186800 |
|    4 | Mazar-e-Sharif| AFG         | Balkh                |     127800 |
|    5 | Amsterdam     | NLD         | Noord-Holland        |     731200 |
|    . | . . . . . . . | . . . . . . | . . . . . . . . . .  |  . . . . . |
|    . | . . . . . . . | . . .  < OUTPUT REDACTED >  . . .  |  . . . . . |
|    . | . . . . . . . | . . . . . . | . . . . . . . . . .  |  . . . . . |
| 4078 | Nablus        | PSE         | Nablus               |     100231 |
| 4079 | Rafah         | PSE         | Rafah                |      92020 |
+------+---------------+-------------+----------------------+------------+
4079 rows in set (0.07 sec)

mysql>

After executing such a large query, it becomes annoying to go back and check something, especially when looking for a specific result in the middle of the output. It is difficult to find it among all the output.

To overcome this, we can clear the screen while we are in progress to prevent the screen from getting cluttered.

We can clear MySQL console in many ways, some of them are as follows:

Clear the MySQL console using the system

Depending on the operating system, the system following cmdlets for clearing the screen can be used to clear the MySQL console.

Here are examples for Linux, Mac, and Windows:

Clear MySQL Console in Linux

You can easily clear the screen on Linux using clear or reset.

# Only scrolls down
mysql> system clear

# For clearing both the history and scrollback history
mysql> system reset

With system clear, the shell will just scroll down, leaving the old results intact. If we need to remove the scroll, use system reset.

Clearing the MySQL Console in Windows

Likewise, for Windows:

mysql> system cls

We can also use its shortcuts \!instead of writing systems.

### Linux

mysql> \! clear
mysql> \! reset

### Windows

mysql> \! cls

Clearing the MySQL console in macOS

On macOS, you can do the following:

Go to Edit, click Clear Screen or use the keyboard shortcut ⌥+Cmd+L.

Clear the MySQL console in iTerm2

These settings are a bit renamed in iTerm. Use Clear Buffer instead of Clear Screen.

More specifically, go to Edit, click Clear Buffer, or use the keyboard shortcut Cmd+K .