Master Linux Directory Navigation with pushd, popd, and dirs

On Linux the cd command is the most basic way to change directories, but repeatedly typing long paths quickly becomes inefficient. The shell provides a directory‑stack mechanism—managed by pushd, popd and dirs —that lets you navigate, reorder, and inspect a stack of directories.

Understanding the directory stack

The stack stores directory paths in a last‑in‑first‑out (LIFO) order, with the top element always representing the current working directory. Manipulating the stack automatically updates the current directory.

Viewing the stack: dirs

The dirs command lists the stack contents. Useful options are: -p: print each entry on a separate line. -v: print each entry with its index in the stack. -c: clear the entire stack.

Example:

[alvin@VM_0_16_centos dir2]$ pwd
/home/alvin/test/dir2
[alvin@VM_0_16_centos dir2]$ dirs -v
 0  ~/test/dir2
 1  ~/test/dir1
 2  ~/test/dir3
 3  ~/test

The first entry (index 0) always matches the current directory.

Adding and switching directories: pushd

1. pushd <dir> – changes to <dir> and pushes the previous directory onto the stack.

[alvin@VM_0_16_centos test]$ pushd dir1
~/test/dir1 ~/test

2. pushd (no arguments) – swaps the top two entries, effectively changing to the directory that was previously second on the stack.

[alvin@VM_0_16_centos dir3]$ pushd
~/test/dir2 ~/test/dir3 ~/test/dir1 ~/test

3. pushd +/-n – jumps directly to the entry at index n. A leading + counts from the top down, while - counts from the bottom up.

[alvin@VM_0_16_centos dir2]$ pushd +2
~/test/dir1 ~/test ~/test/dir2 ~/test/dir3

Removing directories: popd

1. popd (no arguments) – removes the top entry; the new top becomes the current directory.

[alvin@VM_0_16_centos dir3]$ popd
~/test/dir1 ~/test/dir2

2. popd +/-n – deletes the entry at index n without changing the current directory.

[alvin@VM_0_16_centos dir1]$ popd +1
~/test/dir1 ~/test/dir2

By combining pushd to populate the stack and pushd +/-n or popd +/-n to jump or prune entries, you can switch among many deep directories with just a few keystrokes, avoiding the repetitive use of cd.