| Abbreviation | Command | Interpretation |
| \c | clear | terminates input of command. |
| \h | help | displays a list of commands. |
| \q | exit or quit | ends mysql. |
| \s | status | shows status information on the MySQL server. |
| \T [f] | tee [filename] | logs all input and output into the specified file. |
| \t | notee | ends tee. The logging can be resumed at any time with tee or \T. |
| \u db | use database | makes the specified database the default. |
| \. fn | source filename | executes the SQL commands contained in the given file. The commands must be separated by semicolons. |