SED Cheat-Sheet

sed (“stream editor”) is a Linux and Unix utility that parses and transforms text using a compact programming language. See also Grep and Awk.

On macOS (BSD sed) use sed -i '' instead of sed -i.

Substitution #

COMMAND	DESCRIPTION
`sed 's/old/new/' file`	Replace first match on each line
`sed 's/old/new/g' file`	Replace all matches on each line
`sed -i 's/old/new/g' file`	Edit the file in place
`sed -i.bak 's/old/new/g' file`	Edit in place and keep a `.bak` backup
`sed 's/old/new/2' file`	Replace only the 2nd match on each line
`sed 's/old/new/gI' file`	Case-insensitive replace (GNU sed)
`sed 's\|/usr/local\|/opt\|g' file`	Use another delimiter when the pattern contains `/`
`sed -E 's/([a-z]+)@([a-z]+)/\2 at \1/' file`	Extended regex with capture groups
`sed 's/.*/\U&/' file`	Uppercase each line (GNU sed)
`sed 's/[ \t]*$//' file`	Strip trailing whitespace

Print, Delete and Select Lines #

COMMAND	DESCRIPTION
`sed -n '5p' file`	Print line 5
`sed -n '5,10p' file`	Print lines 5 to 10
`sed -n '/start/,/end/p' file`	Print between two patterns
`sed -n '$p' file`	Print the last line
`sed '5d' file`	Delete line 5
`sed '/^#/d' file`	Delete comment lines
`sed '/^$/d' file`	Delete empty lines
`sed '1d;$d' file`	Delete first and last lines
`sed -n '/error/{p;q}' file`	Print first match then quit

Insert and Append #

COMMAND	DESCRIPTION
`sed '3i\New line' file`	Insert before line 3
`sed '3a\New line' file`	Append after line 3
`sed '/pattern/a\New line' file`	Append after matching lines
`sed '1i\#!/bin/bash' file`	Add a line at the top
`sed '$a\New last line' file`	Add a line at the end
`sed 's/^/ /' file`	Indent every line by 4 spaces
`sed '/pattern/c\Replacement line' file`	Replace the whole matching line

Multiple Commands #

COMMAND	DESCRIPTION
`sed -e 's/a/b/' -e 's/c/d/' file`	Chain expressions
`sed 's/a/b/;s/c/d/' file`	Same, with `;`
`sed -f script.sed file`	Read commands from a file
`sed = file \| sed 'N;s/\n/\t/'`	Number lines

Updated 6 Nov 2026 Edit this page on GitHub