Say we want to have our $HOME/bin added to the $PATH First check that the PATH does not already contain our $HOME/bin, by issuing in a terminal: echo $PATH If our $HOME/bin is contained in the $PATH we need to do nothing further, otherwise, proceed as follows: If you haven’t yet, create the directory bin in your home: mkdir bin Edit $HOME/.bashrc and add the following towards the end of the file: [[ -d $HOME/bin ]] && \ [[ ! $PATH =~ $HOME/bin ]] && \ PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH && \ export PATH Edit $HOME/.profile or $HOME/.bash_profile and do the same. Log out of the system and log back in and check the path in a terminal: echo $PATH We should now find that the $HOME/bin is included in our $PATH, whether bash is used as a login shell or just as a terminal Also note that the [[ ! $PATH =~ $HOME/bin ]] condition prevents the $HOME/bin to appear more than once in our $PATH