How to make OS X to read .bash_profile not .profile file

Question

I have read so many suggestions about, not putting your customization aka commands in \".profile\" file. Rather, create a .bash_profile for yourself and add your alias and e

Answer 1

It's also possible that your terminal shell is defaulting to sh instead of bash. You can verify this first:

$ echo $SHELL
/bin/tcsh

To change this to bash, you can go into your Terminal -> Preferences -> Startup tab, and change "Shell Opens With:" from "Default login shell" to Command and value "/bin/bash".

Alternately, you can change your default shell by executing the following command at the command prompt:

chsh -s bin/bash

After you do one of these, open a new shell window, and your .bash_profile should be sourced.