cd - takes you back to the folder you came from

A typical terminal situation: you're working in a project, hop over to a completely different folder to check something — and now you need to get back. You don't want to type out the full path to the project again. That's exactly what the two-character command cd - is for: it switches you to the directory you were in immediately before. And because the shell always remembers the last folder you visited, cd - also works as a toggle — running it repeatedly bounces you between two places, like Alt+Tab between windows.

How to do it

1. You're in a project folder, say ~/projects/shop/backend/api. Go somewhere else, for example cd /var/log.
2. When you're done, type cd - — the shell prints the path it's returning you to, and you're instantly back in ~/projects/shop/backend/api.
3. Another cd - throws you back into /var/log. The two directories you're currently commuting between are always just one short command away.
4. It works in bash and zsh everywhere, and in PowerShell from version 7 as well (and cd + jumps forward again there). The previous directory is also stored in the $OLDPWD variable, so you can use it inside other commands too, like cp file.txt $OLDPWD.
5. When you need to juggle more than two folders, take a look at pushd and popd — they store directories on a stack. For an ordinary day, though, cd - is more than enough.

A typical scenario

A developer is debugging a deployment: in one window he edits configuration deep inside the project structure, while regularly darting over to /etc/nginx to compare settings. Without cd - he'd either keep typing out both long paths over and over, or open a second terminal window and switch between them. Instead he just alternates cd -, cd -, cd - — and is always exactly where he needs to be, without typing out a single path.

The same trick is a lifesaver when working with two projects that reference each other: a library in one folder, the app that uses it in another. Edit, switch, test, switch back — a whole afternoon on two keys and a dash.

The dash as “the previous one” shows up once more in git, and it's worth knowing: git checkout - (or the newer git switch -) switches to the branch you came from. Fixing something on main and going back to your working branch is just as fast as hopping between folders — the same mental pattern, two different tools.

What you get out of it

The most annoying part of working in a terminal — typing out long paths — disappears exactly in the situation where it's most common: going back to where you just were. Two characters instead of thirty, many times a day. And unlike clicking around a graphical file manager, your hands never leave the keyboard — exactly the kind of small thing that makes terminal work so fast.