How can I redirect all output to /dev/null?

Question

I want to run a program (`google-chrome`) in the background, but prevent it from outputting any messages to the terminal. I tried doing this: ``` google-chrome 2>&1 1>/dev/null & ``` However, the terminal still fills up without messages like: [5746:5746:0802/100534:ERROR:object_proxy.cc(532)] Failed to call method: org.chromium.Mtpd.EnumerateStorag... What am I doing wrong? How do I redirect all the output to `/dev/null`?

Accepted Answer

Redirection operators are evaluated left-to-right. You wrongly put `2>&1` first, which points `2` to the same place, as `1` currently is pointed to which is the local terminal screen, because you have not redirected `1` yet. You need to do either of the following:

```
2>/dev/null 1>/dev/null google-chrome &
```

Or

```
2>/dev/null 1>&2 google-chrome &
```

The placement of the redirect operators in relation to the command does not matter. You can put them before or after the command.

How can I redirect all output to /dev/null?

Solution

Problem