If for some reason C-a C-l does not work (e.g., you remapped the escape character, or your terminal emulator is buggy), you can force a terminal clear by sending the raw ANSI escape sequence for "clear screen."
#!/bin/bash # Clear the terminal before starting Picocom clear echo "Starting Picocom on $1 at baud $2" echo "Press Ctrl+A Ctrl+L to clear screen during session" picocom $1 -b $2 picocom clear screen
You enter a pass-through terminal. Keystrokes are sent directly to the serial device, and incoming data is displayed on your screen. The usual terminal control sequences (like clear or Ctrl+L ) are not interpreted by picocom itself—they are passed to the remote device. Unless the remote device understands the escape sequence for clearing its own display (e.g., an embedded Linux shell or a microcontroller firmware that parses ANSI codes), pressing Ctrl+L will have no effect or may send an unexpected byte. If for some reason C-a C-l does not work (e
Exit picocom ( Ctrl+A then Ctrl+X ), run clear in your host shell, then restart picocom . This gives a fresh, clean view—but you lose the previous session’s output. Unless the remote device understands the escape sequence
This is clunky, but it works for rare cases.