How to Clear PowerShell History (Session and PSReadLine)

To clear PowerShell history completely, clear the session list and delete the PSReadLine history file, which is what the Up arrow reads from:

Clear-History
Remove-Item -Path (Get-PSReadLineOption).HistorySavePath

Then close and reopen PowerShell. Below I show both kinds of history, how to remove only one sensitive line, and how to stop PowerShell from saving commands.

PowerShell keeps two kinds of history

	Session history	PSReadLine history file
What it is	Commands run in the current window	Every line you’ve typed, saved to disk
Where it lives	In memory only	ConsoleHost_history.txt in your AppData folder
Read it with	Get-History	Get-Content or the Up arrow
Clear it with	Clear-History	Remove-Item on the file
Survives a restart?	No	Yes

That’s why Clear-History alone seems not to work: the Up arrow still shows old commands, because they come from the file. Microsoft covers the session side in about_History.

Clearing history doesn’t clear variables, which are covered in printing variables in PowerShell.

View the session history with Get-History

I don’t want to show my real history, so I loaded four sample commands with Add-History. This is sample-history.ps1, and the examples below start by dot-sourcing it:

$time = Get-Date -Date '2026-10-04 09:15:00'
$commands = 'Get-Service -Name Spooler',
            'Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Reports -Filter *.csv',
            'cmdkey /add:fs01 /user:CONTOSO\jsmith /pass:Summer2026!',
            'Get-Process | Sort-Object -Property CPU -Descending'
foreach ($command in $commands) {
    Add-History -InputObject ([pscustomobject]@{
        CommandLine = $command; ExecutionStatus = 'Completed'
        StartExecutionTime = $time; EndExecutionTime = $time.AddSeconds(2)
    })
    $time = $time.AddMinutes(3)
}

Get-History lists the commands with their Id numbers:

. .\sample-history.ps1
Get-History

Output:

  Id     Duration CommandLine
  --     -------- -----------
   1        2.000 Get-Service -Name Spooler
   2        2.000 Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Reports -Filter *.csv
   3        2.000 cmdkey /add:fs01 /user:CONTOSO\jsmith /pass:Summer2026!
   4        2.000 Get-Process | Sort-Object -Property CPU -Descending

PowerShell 7 adds the Duration column. Windows PowerShell 5.1 shows only Id and CommandLine. Note command 3: it has a password in plain text, which is the most common reason to clear history.

Remove one command with Clear-History

You don’t have to wipe everything. -CommandLine removes matching commands and accepts wildcards:

. .\sample-history.ps1
Clear-History -CommandLine '*/pass:*'
Get-History | Format-Table -Property Id, CommandLine

Output:

Id CommandLine
-- -----------
 1 Get-Service -Name Spooler
 2 Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Reports -Filter *.csv
 4 Get-Process | Sort-Object -Property CPU -Descending

The other commands keep their Id numbers. You can also remove commands by Id, or the newest ones with -Count and -Newest:

. .\sample-history.ps1
Clear-History -Id 1, 4
Clear-History -Count 1 -Newest
Get-History | Format-Table -Property Id, CommandLine

Output:

Id CommandLine
-- -----------
 2 Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Reports -Filter *.csv

Ids 1 and 4 went first, then -Count 1 -Newest removed command 3.

Clear all session history

Run Clear-History with no parameters to empty the list for the current window:

. .\sample-history.ps1
Clear-History
"Commands left in this session: $((Get-History).Count)"

Output:

Commands left in this session: 0

This only affects the session list. Commands you typed are still in the PSReadLine file, so the Up arrow keeps finding them in new windows.

Find and delete the PSReadLine history file

Get-PSReadLineOption tells you whe