In Bash, the default behavior of the <kbd>tab</kbd> key (command-line completion) is to list all files and folders, including hidden ones (those starting with a .). To exclude hidden files and folders from tab completion, you can modify the behavior of the readline library, which Bash uses for input handling.

Solution

Add the following line to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile file to exclude hidden files and folders from tab completion:

bash
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export FIGNORE=".??*"

Explanation:

• FIGNORE is a shell variable that specifies suffixes to ignore during filename completion.
• The pattern .??* matches all hidden files and folders (those starting with a . and followed by at least one more character).

Steps:

1. Open your ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile file in a text editor:

   bash
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   nano ~/.bashrc

   or

   bash
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   nano ~/.bash_profile

2. Add the line export FIGNORE=".??*" to the file.

3. Save the file and exit the editor.

4. Reload your Bash configuration to apply the changes:

   bash
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   source ~/.bashrc

   or

   bash
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   source ~/.bash_profile

Now, when you press <kbd>tab</kbd>, hidden files and folders will not appear in the completion list.