Macos change default terminal to ghostty. even when Ghostty is not focused), specify this prefix.
Macos change default terminal to ghostty . As such, there is no support team or dedicated resources to help you. It has tab support and splits. So while switching from WezTerm to Ghostty, I've also brought my favorite tools Fish Shell (alternative to bash/zsh) and Zellij (alternative to tmux). Ghostty will be fast, feature-rich, and have a platform-native GUI while being the most standards-compliant terminal emulator available. This post will be short and sweet ramblings based upon my first impressions. app doesn't come with many features or customization options, and performance can be lacking compared to other terminal emulators. And therefore macOS uses that color. Added missing config options added in Ghostty (like macOS icon customization). Dec 27, 2024 · macOS: font-thicken behaviourYes, i also recall using Kitty’s font thickening feature, and landing on somewhere between 0. app. This can be rebound to any keybind using the toggle_command_palette keybind Dec 27, 2024 · I think the web documentation should include default settings, so users can have an expectation what settings change things. Sep 15, 2025 · PRs: #7153 #7156 Ghostty now has a command palette that can invoke most keybind actions, such as creating new terminals, moving focus, changing text selection, copy and paste, etc. But you might be wondering—what exactly is this tool? Ghostty is a terminal emulator written in Zig, designed with these goals in mind: Native support for Linux and macOS (Windows support coming soon) Fast performance The terminal auto-closes, I managed to capture it before closing, it says the same output as if you open Ghostty. And a third part is Ghostty integrates with system capabilities that are unique to the platform it is running on. Ghostty uses different default bindings on macOS and Linux to match the conventions of each platform. Dec 26, 2024 · There are frequent questions from macOS users about creating the Option+ {Left/Right} mappings to mimic Terminal. There is a large, shared core written in Zig but we do a lot of platform-native things: The macOS app is a true SwiftUI-based application with all the things you would expect such as real windowing, menu bars, a settings GUI, etc. Dec 27, 2024 · I see Quick Terminal is listed as a feature on the website, the top feature for macOS. While there are many excellent terminal emulators available, they all force you to choose between speed, features, or native UIs. Learn more at ghostty. Some Ghostty features require integrating with your shell. Ghostty is designed to work out of the box with no configuration for most users. Jan 1, 2025 · Ghostty is a GPU-accelerated terminal emulator known for its speed and feature-rich environment. Terminal features can be divided into two categories: features for end-users and features for terminal application developers. Dec 27, 2024 · However, the application resisted this rule and reverted to its default dimensions a moment after it started. paste Paste the file path into the terminal. Dec 26, 2024 · If you want to avoid cmd+h from hiding the window on MacOS, you can go to Keyboard Shortcuts in the system settings and override it with other keys for Ghostty. Wh I removed iTerm2 completely. it should use the light theme by default, not the dark theme, if I set the light theme as the system-wide MacOS theme. The terminal is nice out of the box. There are a number of excellent terminal emulator options that exist today. 0. I've been using the default terminal in macOS (Terminal. This is particularly useful for multiple languages, symbolic fonts, etc. Ghostty is a very feature-rich terminal. Jan 1, 2025 · Unlocking Ghostty: Hidden Features and Power Tips to Boost Your Terminal Productivity After my last post comparing Ghostty vs iTerm, I was surprised by the amount of interest it generated. Also, create a custom searching function using Apple Automator script. Clearly … Ghostty is a fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform terminal emulator that uses platform-native UI and GPU acceleration. I. Dec 28, 2024 · Ghostty + Zellij + Fish Shell Ghostty just dropped, let's intergrate it with my previous Terminal stack of Zellij and Fish! Ghostty is a terminal emulator that differentiates itself by being fast, feature-rich, and native. app from terminal (that you need to open the GUI app) Ghostty is a personal side project with no commercial backing. and setting the Neovim as the default text editor. But when when running a script that uses ssh:// it opens de default macos terminal. 0 aims to be the best drop-in replacement for your current terminal emulator on macOS and Linux. You can generate the list of valid values using the CLI: ghostty +list-fonts This configuration can be repeated multiple times to specify preferred fallback fonts when the requested codepoint is not available in the primary font. 3. Snapshot of Ghostty configuration documentation detailing terminal emulator settings and features for users and developers. This seems like a popular feature so I must be Jan 26, 2025 · Improving my terminal setup In this article, we will cover: Ghostty Fish My Setup Migrating from zsh ️ Picks of the Week 💡 Today I Learned (TIL) 💬 Quote of the Week I spend quite a lot of time on my terminal throughout the day, whether it be running build scripts, git commands or SSHing (is that a word?) into servers. # Config generated by Ghostty Config # Default shell, here I use fish shell command = /opt/homebrew/bin/fish working-directory = home clipboard-read = allow clipboard-write = allow copy-on-select = clipboard background-opacity = 0. Jan 5, 2025 · The time has finally come! Ghostty Terminal was officially released as version 1. macOS uses a true Metal renderer with CoreText for font Notes on emoji specifically: On macOS, Ghostty by default will always use Apple Color Emoji and on Linux will always use Noto Emoji. Swift, GTK)GUI or app issue regardless of platform (i. This means we just use whatever your system theme is. We are constantly challenging ourself as a project to eliminate any necessary configuration to use Ghostty. It packs a lot of features, is customizable, and has great performance. 9 window-height = 24 window-width = 80 theme = Apple System Colors background = #1e1e1e selection-background 🖥️ How to Set Ghostty as Default Terminal on Mac & Linux | Step-by-Step GuideWant to make Ghostty your default terminal for a faster, smoother experience? I I finally switched away from the default Mac terminal app and you might want to too “Ghostty is a fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform terminal emulator that uses platform-native UI and GPU … Many macOS users migrating from iTerm2 expect an integrated way to set their preferred terminal emulator as the system default. sh in By default, keybinds only work within Ghostty and under the right conditions (application focused, sometimes terminal focused, etc. It offers GPU acceleration, native macOS integration, and a straightforward configuration system, making it ideal for developers seeking speed and flexibility. There's nothing wrong with it if you just need to get a couple things done — but there's also nothing special about it. (specifically, this is whichever screen quick terminal first Nov 21, 2024 · For example, if your color theme is dark, we'll change the window to macOS dark mode (while the rest of your system may still be light). Jan 3, 2025 · font-thicken thickens your terminal font. Mar 31, 2025 · Default keyboard shortcuts for Ghostty terminal emulator Note: These are the default keybindings. The action determines what to do with the filepath. Features for end-users are things like multi-window, tabs, splits, ligatures, auto-update, etc. open Open the file in the default OS editor for text files. even when Ghostty is not focused), specify this prefix. Oct 4, 2024 · guiGUI or app issue regardless of platform (i. Ghostty is a cross-platform, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator that aims to push the boundaries of what is possible with a terminal emulator by exposing modern, opt-in features that enable CLI tool developers to build more feature rich, interactive applications. I am thinking it is part of preferences or settings json, but unsure. The configuration file is located in ~/. Dec 26, 2024 · It seems like a labor of love (which is true for all terminal emulators) and I appreciate that I get all the benefit of that now. Starship is a cross-shell prompt that integrates seamlessly with Zsh, macOS’s default shell since Catalina. Notes on emoji specifically: On macOS, Ghostty by default will always use Apple Color Emoji and on Linux will always use Noto Emoji. I'm also using Oh My Zsh, Powerlevel10k, and a few other little plugins that make my terminal experience a bit better. Ghostty ships with its own terminfo entry to advertise its features. config/ghostty/config, there is no UI based preference dialog (planned for the future). The community is very helpful and may provide assistance, and we try to document as many common issues and solutions as possible. Reworded from "unofficial tool" to "community tool". However, i was not ever able to figure out the set of options that would produce fonts exactly similar to Terminal. It delivers Nov 28, 2024 · I got beta access to Ghostty and set it up on my MacOS (Sonoma) laptop. Swift, GTK)os/macos For example, when showing at the top of the screen, we're setting the height to be 1/4 the height of the screen. Probably not needed most of the time, but MonoLisa's variable font is quite thin the default way Ghostty renders it, so this feature just puts a bit more meat on those bones. Create a modern, GPU-accelerated terminal environment for enhanced development workflow. Currently, Ghostty does not provide an explicit menu item or system-level integration for this, unlike iTerm2, which has a dedicated option. This is Ghostty is a fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform terminal emulator that uses platform-native UI and GPU acceleration. All keybindings can be customized through the configuration file using the keybind option. Apr 30, 2015 · I want to change the default terminal app used by Visual Studio Code for Mac. app) for the past few years. Let's take a look at the Ghostty terminal and see how it can be installed and configured with powerlevel10k theme and zsh-autosuggestions and zsh-syntax-high “In short, Ghostty 1. Instead, Ghostty is aimed at those with plenty of experience. Dec 13, 2024 · For the rare macOS user that disables SIP and uses default bash (???), we can just document they should explicitly opt in. 2 and 0. May 20, 2025 · Ghostty is a cutting-edge terminal emulator built with Zig for exceptional performance. The command palette is bound by default to ctrl+shift+p on GTK and cmd+shift+p on macOS. (3) Maybe instead of (1), we can detect the bash version in the shell integration itself? Hello fellow community, I currently have the problem with settings ghostty as the default-terminal in xfce4. When you specify a light/dark theme, then window-theme becomes system (this is documented on theme by the way). I think in terms of latency-sensitivity I'm probably near the 95th %ile (in that even a small amount of latency when I'm typing causes me to get frustrated). This brings several features, like opening a terminal in the current directory with a ri Terminfo is used to tell software about the terminal's capabilities. The default OS editor is determined by using open on macOS and xdg-open on Linux. ). Open the Terminal app if you haven’t done so yet Aug 4, 2025 · In macOS, there is a hidden default terminal app option that was accessible in earlier versions but has been somewhat restricted since macOS Ventura, primarily due to the new System Settings UI. Dec 26, 2024 · I specifically ask that Ghostty should just follow my system-wide MacOS setting by default. I still needed to adjust the configuration to make some changes to match my taste. 0 at the end of December. Dec 28, 2024 · I've tinkered around with Ghostty and was really impressed of how well it followed standards on macOS. e. Ghostty has sensible defaults, embeds a default font (JetBrains Mono), has built-in nerd fonts, and more. Ghostty provides all three. To that end, if you find yourself needing to configure something other than highly subjective things Jan 8, 2025 · Learn how to install and configure Ghostty terminal on Mac, integrated with powerful tools like Powerlevel10k, zsh plugins, and tmux. Valid actions are: copy Copy the file path into the clipboard. Dec 31, 2024 · Ghostty is a new terminal emulator for macOS and Linux environments. Dec 26, 2024 · it should use simple Mac OS, Linux, Windows locations XDG_CONFIG_HOME is definitely a "simple" location to know - same as /Library/Application Support on macOS or %AppData% on Windows. That’s not to say you can’t use Ghostty with the default minimal configuration; you certainly can, but you’d be missing out on a lot of features. A potential improvement would be to add a direct configuration option to start the application in a maximized state. Jan 1, 2025 · Installing and configuring Ghostty terminal on macOS. Jan 2, 2025 · It seems like all content creators in the Linux space are covering Ghostty these days, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon. How to Change Terminal Apps Default Shell in Mac OS This adjusts the new shell that is used upon Terminal app launch, new terminal windows, and new terminal tabs, becoming the new default Mac shell. Mar 21, 2012 · Here’s how to do both. The default color theme is pleasing. However, i understand Ghostty supports full customization of the color theme, ships with hundreds of built-in themes, supports custom themes for light and dark mode, and more. Ghostty was first publicly released in December 2024, as version 1. Notes on emoji specifically: On macOS, Ghostty by default will Ghostty Docs Ghostty is a fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform terminal emulator that uses platform-native UI and GPU acceleration. Mar 5, 2025 · Ultimate Guide to install Ghostty Terminal on Mac. Updated certain defaults to correctly match Ghostty's updated defaults. In this post, I’ll guide you through how I customized my Ghostty terminal on macOS, focusing on This document describes the configuration options for Ghostty, a terminal emulator. Ghostty is a cross-platform terminal emulator but we don't aim for a least-common-denominator experience. If you want a TheMKat flavored Ghostty post, read on. ” Ghostty config is a beautiful configuration generator for Ghostty Terminal. And I see it as an option in the menu at View > Quick Terminal. I think that could be a good thing to configure by default (on macOS only obviously). org. Dec 30, 2024 · For example when I want to open external terminal via VsCode, it opens native terminal, i want him to open Ghostty, and completely replace my terminal with Ghostty The font families to use. Slightly rearranged settings for better organization. I think it would be great if default font settings in Ghostty were as close to these two apps as possible. It's easy to miss instructions of running the command ghostty +show-config --default --docs. Ghostty can automatically inject shell integration for bash, zsh, fish, and elvish. Anyway, on macOS, there's two options that can be used to effectively make Ghostty the default terminal: (Aforementioned) Right Click -> Services -> "New Ghostty Window/Tab Here" (and a keybind in System Settings, if desired). However, until this week I have been just using the default Terminal Jan 11, 2025 · Ghostty is a new terminal emulator that you can download on macOS and Linux. It's also free and open source! Features The features Ghostty supports and associated documentation. Terminal. so we can search text Feb 13, 2020 · Set as default terminal To set iTerm2 as the default terminal on macOS, you can do the following: Find a file in Finder Right-click on it Select Get Info Expand the Open With tab Choose iTerm2 from the dropdown menu Click Change All Terminal to open iTerm2 To open iTerm2 when you try to open default Terminal app on macOS, you have to do the following: Create a bash file called open_iterm. Is there a way to change that and make Ghostty the default terminal? A new Linux and Mac OS terminal emulator just dropped and we're going to be learning how to customize and go through the configuration (config) files. If you want a keybind to work globally across your system (i. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. You can override this behavior by specifying a font family here that contains emoji glyphs. Learn how to install Ghostty in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). May 31, 2025 · Ghostty is a terminal emulator available for Linux and macOS that aims for high performance and a wide feature-set. In all categories, I am not trying to claim Jan 18, 2025 · For that reason alone, Ghostty isn’t the ideal terminal for those just getting started with the command line. The following sections detail the various settings, grouped by category, with explanations and configuration options formatted for clarity and suitable for PDF export via Pandoc. I’ve been eagerly waiting for this new tool to land in my hands. Features include easily modifiable settings, a font playground, and tons of previews and demos for cursors, selections, and even the color palette. app and TextEdit. We'll change up the theming and much more.