bg

Resume suspended jobs in the background

TLDR

Resume the most recently stopped job in the background

$ bg

Resume a specific job by number

$ bg %[1]

Resume a job whose command begins with a string

$ bg %[string]

bg resumes suspended jobs in the background. It is a shell built-in command that continues execution of jobs that were stopped (typically with Ctrl+Z) while allowing continued use of the terminal. If no job is specified, the most recently stopped job is resumed.The command is part of POSIX shell job control functionality and is available in bash, zsh, ksh, and other POSIX-compatible shells.

PARAMETERS

job-spec

Job identifier (%1, %2, etc.)

If no job specified, bg operates on the most recently stopped job.

JOB SPECIFICATIONS

Job number n

%string

Job whose command begins with string

%?string

Job whose command contains string

%% or %+

Current job

Previous job

WORKFLOW

$ # Start long-running command
./long_process

# Suspend with Ctrl+Z
[Ctrl+Z]

# Resume in background
bg

# Or resume specific job
bg %1

# List jobs
jobs

# Bring to foreground
fg %1

CAVEATS

Only works with job control enabled shells. Backgrounded jobs may stop if they try to read from terminal. Output still goes to terminal unless redirected. Jobs terminate when shell exits unless using nohup or disown.

HISTORY

bg has been part of job control in Unix shells since the C shell (csh) introduced the feature in the late 1970s.

bg