jobs

Overview

jobs lists active jobs of the current shell: running background tasks, stopped jobs, and their job IDs. Essential for job control with fg, bg, kill %n, and wait.

Jobs are not a system-wide process table — use ps/pgrep for that.

Syntax

jobs [options] [job_spec ...]

Common Options (bash)

Option	Description
-l	Include PIDs
-p	PIDs only
-n	Only jobs with status changes since last notification
-r	Running only
-s	Stopped only
-x command	Replace job specs in command with PIDs and run

Job states

State	Meaning
Running	Executing in background
Stopped	Suspended (Ctrl-Z / SIGSTOP)
Done	Completed successfully
Exit N	Exited with status N
Terminated	Killed by signal

Examples with Explanations

List jobs

sleep 300 &
sleep 400 &
jobs
jobs -l
jobs -p
jobs -r
jobs -s

Act on a job

jobs -l
fg %1
bg %2
kill %1
kill -9 %2

Status changes

jobs -n

Useful after many completions to see what finished.

wait integration

longtask &
pid=$!
jobs -l
wait "$pid"

Enable job control in scripts (rare)

set -m
sleep 5 &
jobs -l
wait

disown removes from table

sleep 1000 &
jobs
disown
jobs          # empty regarding that job
# process may still run — check ps

Notes / Pitfalls

• Empty jobs does not mean no processes exist — only no shell jobs.
• Job IDs are not PIDs; use jobs -l or $! for PIDs.
• Subshells have their own job tables: ( sleep 10 & jobs ).
• Non-interactive shells often disable job control until set -m.
• Don’t use jobs for service supervision — use systemd.

2026-relevant notes

• Interactive terminal multiplexers reduced reliance on many concurrent jobs, but % job specs remain daily muscle memory.
• CI shells may not support job control the same way — use PIDs + wait.
• For parallel shell work, GNU parallel or xargs -P may be clearer than raw jobs.

Related Commands

• fg / bg — resume jobs
• kill %n — signal jobs
• wait — wait for completion
• disown — remove from job table
• ps / pgrep — system-wide process view
• set -m — monitor mode

Additional Resources

• help jobs, man bash