History delete function not working properly

[og900aero]

Checklist

• I have read through the manual page (man fzf)
• I have searched through the existing issues
• For bug reports, I have checked if the bug is reproducible in the latest version of fzf

Output of fzf --version

0.71.0 (62899fd)

OS

• Linux - Debian 13 - Niri WM
• macOS
• Windows
• Etc.

Shell

• bash
• zsh
• fish

Problem / Steps to reproduce

When I delete items using SHIFT+DELETE, they disappear from the list. If I exit and then bring it back up with CTRL+R, the items I deleted are no longer in the list. But when I exit the terminal and bring it back up with CTRL+R, the deleted items are actually still there in the history.
I’ve attached a video demonstrating this.

recording-20260406-175613.mp4

[bitraid]

Can you try this:

diff --git a/shell/key-bindings.bash b/shell/key-bindings.bash
index 743b3a33..d8884b6a 100644
--- a/shell/key-bindings.bash
+++ b/shell/key-bindings.bash
@@ -84,6 +84,8 @@ __fzf_history_delete() {
   for offset in "${offsets[@]}"; do
     builtin history -d "$offset"
   done
+
+  builtin history -w
 }
 
 if command -v perl > /dev/null; then

[og900aero]

Can you try this:

diff --git a/shell/key-bindings.bash b/shell/key-bindings.bash
index 743b3a33..d8884b6a 100644
--- a/shell/key-bindings.bash
+++ b/shell/key-bindings.bash
@@ -84,6 +84,8 @@ __fzf_history_delete() {
for offset in "${offsets[@]}"; do
builtin history -d "$offset"
done
+

• builtin history -w
  }

if command -v perl > /dev/null; then

Yes. Works very well with your patch.

[junegunn]

Hmm, I can reproduce. But it's not clear why manual writing is required. I expected bash to update the history file on exit, but no?

[og900aero]

Hmm, I can reproduce. But it's not clear why manual writing is required. I expected bash to update the history file on exit, but no?

I'm not at my home computer right now, but I don't have this problem on my work computer. However, I don't change the prompt_command on my work computer, whereas I do on my home computer. Do you have PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a" in your .bashrc file? That might be the problem.

[junegunn]

Do you have PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a" in your .bashrc file?

No, I don't have PROMPT_COMMAND set.

I can see builtin history -w will fix this problem, but I'm not sure whether it might introduce any unintended side effects.

[junegunn]

I expected bash to update the history file on exit, but no?

Realized it's because of the histappend setting.

[junegunn]

It seems history -w is the only solution, but it might lose entries from other sessions, I'm not sure if it's acceptable.

[og900aero]

I founded it:
"Instead of history -w, why not use history -a to safely append new lines, then perform the deletion on the file, and finally use history -c && history -r to refresh the session's memory? This way, you don't overwrite entries from other concurrent sessions."

Maybe is safer?

[junegunn]

history -a only appends new entries to the file. So I think will not reflect deletions made by history -d, so the deleted entries would still be in the file.

[og900aero]

Then must be shopt -s histappend for users who use multiple terminal window.