Include $HOME/bin in the path for bash shell

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