iTerm2 should require little explanation for users accustomed to terminal emulators. Even if you are an experienced user, take the time to read through the highlights section of this document. It will familiarize you with some features of iTerm2 that you may not have seen in other terminal emulators that can make a real difference in the way you work.

If you're having problems, please use the Bug Reporter.

Introduction

Highlights for New Users
General Usage

User Interface

Features

Advanced

Highlights for New Users

This chapter describes features of iTerm2 that go beyond basic usage and are not generally found in other terminal emulators.

Text Selection

There are several ways to select text to copy to the clipboard:

You can use the mouse.
You can use the find feature's "mouseless copy" feature.
To select text without using the mouse, press cmd-f to open the find field. Enter the beginning of the text you wish to copy and the find feature will select it in your window. Then press tab and the end of the selection will advance by a word. To move the beginning of the selection to the left, press shift-tab. At most one line of text can be selected this way.
You can use Copy Mode.
You can bind keystrokes to create and adjust selections.
In Prefs > Profiles > Keys you can assign keys to move the beginning or end of the selection by a single character, word, or line. No such keys are bound by default.

Split Panes

iTerm2 allows you to divide a tab into many rectangular "panes", each of which is a different terminal session. The shortcuts cmd-d and cmd-shift-d divide an existing session vertically or horizontally, respectively. You can navigate among split panes with cmd-opt-arrow or cmd-[ and cmd-]. You can "maximize" the current pane--hiding all others in that tab--with cmd-shift-enter. Pressing the shortcut again restores the hidden panes.

Hotkey Window

iTerm2 offers a special terminal window that is always available with a single keystroke. This window is called the "hotkey window" and is most commonly used for occasional administrative tasks. It is described in Hotkeys.

Swap Cmd and Option

iTerm2 allows you to remap modifiers. You have separate control over left and right command and option keys. One common need is to exchange cmd and option. To do this, go to Settings > Keys. Set Left option key to Left command key and Left command key to Left option key (and do the same for Right command and Right option if you please). You can add exceptions if you don't want certain combinations to be remapped (for example, cmd-tab) by adding a new global shortcut with the action "Do Not Remap" and the keystroke of the (unremapped) key you wish to keep unaffected by modifier remapping.

Save Mark/Jump to Mark

You can mark a location in a session with cmd-shift-M and then jump back to it with cmd-shift-J. This is useful, for instance, if you suspend your editor to compile a program and it emits errors. You can save a mark at that point and then return to your editor to fix the errors. As you work, you can jump back to the compilation errors with cmd-shift-J.

Regular Expression Search

When you open the find field (cmd-f) there is a down-arrow on the left of the field by the magnifying glass. Clicking it opens a menu of options in which you can enable regular expression search. The ICU syntax is used.

Autocomplete

Any text that exists in a tab or its scrollback buffer can be autocompleted in that tab. To use autocomplete, type the beginning of a word and then press cmd-;. An autocomplete window opens showing the top 20 choices for words beginning what you have entered. The list can be filtered by typing a subsequence. The filter can be reset by pressing backspace. If you make a selection and press return, it will be entered for you. If you make a selection and press tab, your autocomplete will be extended with the selection.

Paste History

Whenever text is copied or pasted in iTerm2 it is added to the paste history. You can access paste history with cmd-shift-H. It can be filtered by typing a subsequence, and the filter can be cleared by pressing backspace. You can choose to have your paste history saved to disk by turning that option on under Settings > General > Save copy/paste history to disk.

Instant Replay

Sometimes interactive programs will overwrite something of interest on the screen (for example, top(1) does this all the time). Normally, this would be lost forever. With Instant Replay, you can step back in time to see exactly what was on your screen at some point in the recent past. To enable, press cmd-opt-B. Once you are in instant replay mode, you can use the left and right arrow keys to navigate back and forward through time. Esc exits instant replay mode. By default, each session uses up to 4MB to save its instant replay history, and this can be adjusted under Settings > General > Instant Replay uses __ MB per session.

Another benefit of Instant Replay is that it shows you the exact time that something appeared on your screen down to the second. This is useful when trying to figure out when an error occurred, for example.

Full Screen

You can press cmd-enter and iTerm2 will take up the entire screen. If you had a transparent background configured, it will be turned off upon entering full screen mode to reduce distractions. You can re-enable it with cmd-U. Unlike most macOS apps, iTerm2 can open a fullscreen window in the same desktop with no annoying animation if you disable Settings > General > Native full screen windows.

High-Color Modes

iTerm2 supports 256 color mode. To enable this for csh shells, set your terminal to xterm-256color (under Settings > Profiles > Terminal > Report Terminal Type). Some applications may need to be configured to support this mode. In vim, add this to your .vimrc:

set t_Co=256

iTerm2 also supports 24-bit color.

Focus Follows Mouse

This option is off by default, but can be enabled under Settings > Pointer > Focus follows mouse. It only affects iTerm2 windows.

Middle Button Paste

If you have a three-button mouse, by default the middle button performs "paste". You can configure the behavior of the middle button, as well as many other kinds of clicks and gestures, in Prefs > Pointer.

Cursor Finery

When using a block cursor, it's hard to pick a cursor color that's visible against every background color. If you enable Smart cursor color (under Settings > Profiles > Colors) then the cursor color will be dynamically chosen to be visible against the text it is over and the adjacent cells.

If you prefer a white or black cursor, you can use the "cursor boost" feature (under Settings > Profiles > Colors) to make all colors other than the cursor dimmer.

Do you have trouble finding your cursor? You can turn on the cursor guide by toggling the View > Show Cursor Guide menu item or turning on Settings > Profiles > Colors > Cursor Guide. This can also be toggled by an escape sequence. For example, add this to your .vimrc:

let &t_ti.="\<Esc>]1337;HighlightCursorLine=true\x7"
let &t_te.="\<Esc>]1337;HighlightCursorLine=false\x7"

If you've lost your cursor, press Cmd-/ or select View > Find Cursor and the cursor's position on the screen will be indicated very clearly

Minimum Contrast

Sometimes an application will display text with a color combination that is hard to read. Colorblind users in particular may find certain combinations hard to see if the colors differ only in hue and not brightness. If you enable minimum contrast (under Settings > Profiles > Colors > Minimum contrast, then iTerm2 will guarantee a minimum level of brightness difference between the foreground and background color of every character. If you set this to its maximum value, then all text will be black or white.

Notification Center Support

If you enable notifications (Settings > Profiles > Terminal > Send Notification Center alerts) then you'll receive messages when a terminal beeps, has output after a period of silence, or terminates. There's also a proprietary escape sequence to send a notification. You can adjust the kinds of notifications that get posted in Settings > Profiles > Terminal > Filter Alerts.

Window Arrangements

You can take a snapshot of your open windows, tabs, and panes with the menu option Window > Save Window Arrangement. You can restore this configuration with Window > Restore Window Arrangement, or you can choose to have it automatically restored when you start iTerm2 with Settings > General > Open saved window arrangement.

Smart Selection

Performing a quad-click does a "smart selection," which selects text under the pointer in a way appropriate to its content. For example, URLs, quoted strings, and email addresses (among many other objects) are recognized and selected in their entirety. You can also bind actions to a smart selection rule. The first action takes effect when you cmd-click on text matching the rule. All actions are added to the context menu when you right click on text matching the rule.

Triggers

Triggers are user-configurable regular expressions with associated actions that run when text is received that matches the regex. Actions include highlighting the matching text, showing an alert, sending text back, and more.

One advanced use of a trigger is to capture output matching a regex and display just those matching lines in the toolbelt. For example, you could create a trigger that matches compiler errors. When you run Make the errors will appear on the side of your window and you can click each to jump right to it. More information is available at the Captured Output manual.

Tmux Integration

iTerm2 is tightly integrated with tmux. The integration allows you to see tmux windows as native iTerm2 windows or tabs. The tmux prefix key is not needed, as native menu commands operate on tmux windows. For more information, please see the iTerm2-tmux Integration document.

Coprocesses

Coprocesses are programs that run alongside iTerm2 and are bound to a single session. All output bound for the session is also routed as input to the coprocess. The coprocess's output acts like the user typing at the keyboard. Coprocesses can be used to automate tasks. For more information, see the Coprocess document.

Dynamic Profiles

If you have hundreds or thousands of profiles, look in to Dynamic Profiles. This feature allows you to define profiles in JSON.

Automatic Profile Switching

You can automatically change the current session's profile using Automatic Profile Switching. For example, this would allow you to change the background color when you are on a production system.

Inline Images

iTerm2 can display images inline, including animated GIFs. The easiest way to use this feature is to install Shell Integration and Utilities, which adds an imgcat script.

Undo Close

If you accidentally close a session, you get five seconds (by default; configurable in Settings > Profiles > Session) to undo it by pressing Cmd-Z.

Shell Integration

Shell Integration is a feature exclusive to iTerm2 that uses knowledge about your shell prompt to help you navigate from one shell prompt to another, record your command history, suggest most used directories, helps you re-run commands, download files from remote hosts with a click, upload files to remote hosts with drag and drop, and more. See the Shell Integration documentation for all the details.

Password Manager

iTerm2 can save your passwords in the Keychain. Use the Window > Password Manager menu item to open the password manager and enter your passwords.

Timestamps

Toggle View > Show Timestamps to indicate the time each line was last modified. This is useful for telling how long operations took or when a message was printed.

Tab Bar on Left

You can position the tab bar on the left side of the window. This is useful if you have a really large number of tabs.

Open Quickly

Shell Integration and Utilities

Shell integration consists of a shell script that's loaded when you create a new session or ssh to a remote host. It modifies your prompt so iTerm2 knows where it is. This enables a number of features, such as Copy Output of Last Command, Automatic Profile Switching when changing hosts, and more as described in Shell Integration. When you install Shell Integration you'll be prompted to also install its Utilities. The Utilities are a collection of shell scripts that use iTerm2's unique features and make them easy to use. For example, you can upload or download files from a remote host, copy to the pasteboard from the command line (even over ssh!), and make fireworks explode from the cursor. It's described in Utilities.

General Usage

Tabs

When you first start iTerm2, a window opens showing a terminal session. If you want to open more that one session at a time, you have a few options: You can create a new window (Shell > New Window), you can create a new tab (Shell > New Tab), or you can split the current session into two panes (Shell > Split Horizontally, Shell > Split Vertically), each of which is a separate session.

Tabs in iTerm2 behave like tabs in other programs, most notably web browsers like Safari, Firefox, and Google Chrome. Note that you can drag and drop tabs to reorder them within a window. You can drag tabs from one window to another, and you can drag a tab from a window into a new window by dropping it outside any iTerm2 window's tab bar.

By default, the label of each tab is the name of the job that's running in that session. Some systems are configured to augment this with additional information such as the hostname you're logged in to or your current directory (this is done by sending a special code of ESC]0;string ^G).

Tab labels have indicators that tell you their status. A blue dot means new input was received. An activity indicator means new out is being received. When the session ends, a ⃠ icon appears in the tab. You can customize these indicators in Settings > Appearance.

Edit Current Session

The Edit Current Session panel lets you modify the appearance of a single session. If you customize some attribute of the session (for example, by changing the default text color) then subsequent changes to that same attribute in the profile will not affect the customized session. However, changes to other attributes of the profile will affect the customized session.

Pointer

The primary use of the mouse in iTerm2 is to select text, and (by default) text is copied to the clipboard immediately upon being selected. You can click and drag to perform a normal selection. Double-clicking selects a whole word. Triple-clicking selects an entire line. Quadruple-clicking performs a "smart select", matching recognized strings such as URLs and email addresses. You can add custom pointer actions in Settings > Pointer. I recommend using three-finger tap for smart selection, but you must ensure that System Settings > Trackpad does not have any other action already assigned to three-finger tap.

If you hold shift while clicking the existing selection is extended. In fact, you can single click in one location and shift click in an other location to make a selection: no dragging needed.

If you hold cmd while dragging it will create a noncontinguous selection.

If you hold cmd and click on a URL it will be opened. If you hold cmd and click on a filename, it will be opened. There is special support for MacVim, TextMate, and BBEdit when you cmd-click on a text file's name: if it is followed by a colon and line number, the file will be opened at that line number. The current directory is tracked if you have your shell prompt set the window title, as described here, or if you have Shell Integration installed.

If you hold cmd and option while selecting, a rectangular selection will be made.

If mouse reporting is enabled (in Settings > Profile > Terminal) and the currently running terminal application is using it, pressing option will temporarily disable it so you can make a selection.

Right clicking on certain values shows helpful information in the context menu:

Right-clicking on a number shows its conversion to or from hex, or if it looks like a unix timestamp its representation in local time will be shown.
Right-clicking on a non-ASCII character shows its code point and UTF-8 representation.

You can configure your pointing device's scroll gesture to send arrow keys in interactive programs by turning on Settings > Advanced > Scroll wheel sends arrow keys when in alternate screen mode, but it will only work if Settings > Profiles > Terminal > Disable save/restore alternate screen is turned off.

A three-finger swipe left or right on a trackpad (if configured to "navigate") will select an adjacent tab.

Middle clicking on a tab (if your pointing device has a middle button) closes it.

Keyboard

Every aspect of the keyboard can be configured in iTerm2. These keystrokes may be useful to remember:

Cmd+left arrow, Cmd+right arrow navigates among tabs. So does Cmd-{ and Cmd-}.
Cmd+number navigates directly to a tab.
Cmd+Option+Number navigates directly to a window.
Cmd+Option+Arrow keys navigate among split panes.
Cmd+] and Cmd+[ navigates among split panes in order of use.

You can configure any key combination to perform any action in two places: in Settings > Keys, you can define global key shortcuts that affect all profiles. In Settings > Profiles > Keys, you can define key shortcuts that affect only a single profile.

You can remap modifiers like Option and Cmd within iTerm2. Some users find that pressing Option frequently is uncomfortable, and configure iTerm2 to swap the function of the Option and Cmd keys. This is done in Settings > Keys under Remap Modifier Keys. If there is some key combination that you don't want to be affected by this change (such as Cmd-tab) add a new global shortcut key with the action Do Not Remap.

iTerm2 allows you to define a global hotkey. This is a single keystroke that iTerm2 listens for even when another application has keyboard focus. When it is pressed, iTerm2 comes to the front. Press it again, and iTerm2 goes away. You can choose to bind the hotkey to a single dedicated window. For more on the hotkey window and other uses of hotkeys, see Hotkeys.

Context menus

By right-clicking in a session a context menu opens. You can use it to open a new session, perform various actions on selected text, or access frequently used features to affect the clicked-on session.

Profiles

Many settings are stored in profiles. A profile is a named collection of settings, and you can have as many of them as you like. Most users only have one profile, but if you find that you often connect to different servers, they may be useful for you. A key feature of a profile is that you can associate a command with it that is run when it begins. For instance, if you often ssh to a particular host, you could create a profile with the command "ssh example.com" to automate that process.

General Preferences

General

Startup

Window restoration policy

This setting determines how windows will be opened when iTerm2 is launched. Most users will want Use System Window Restoration Setting as it works best with Session Restoration. Users who exclusively use the Hotkey Window may prefer Only Restore Hotkey Window, which will not restore regular windows but will restore the hotkey window. If you have a default window arrangement saved then Open Default Window Arrangement will be available.

Open profiles window

If selected, the Profiles Window will automatically open when iTerm2 is started.

Restore windows to same Spaces

macOS apps do not typically restore windows to the same Space (aka Desktop) that they were originally on except on system restart. When this setting is enabled, iTerm2 will attempt to restore windows to their original Spaces.

Always open at least one terminal window at startup

If you have a hotkey window defined then iTerm2 won't open a regular window on launch. If you'd prefer to always have a visible window in addition to the hotkey window, enable this setting.

Closing

Quit when all windows are closed

If selected, iTerm2 will automatically quit when its last terminal window is closed.

Confirm closing multiple sessions

If selected, commands that close one session will not be confirmed, but commands that close multiple sessions (such as clicking the red button on a window with two or more tabs) will be confirmed with an alert box.

Confirm Quit iTerm2 Command

If selected, the Quit iTerm2 (cmd-Q) command will be confirmed if any terminal windows are open.

Even if there are no windows

Modifies Confirm Quit iTerm2 COmmand to disable the prompt when there are no open windows.

Disable all confirmations on system shutdown, restart, and log out

When enabled, iTerm2 will never block system shutdown, restart, and log out by asking for confirmation. Enabling this setting could cause you to lose work.

Magic

Instant Replay Uses X MB per Session

This setting specifies the maximum amount of memory allocated to instant replay for each tab or split pane. More memory means instant replay is able to go farther back into the past. You can enter instant replay with View > Step Back in Time.

Save copy/paste and command history to disk

If selected, every time text is copied or pasted in iTerm2 it will be saved to disk. The last 20 values are recorded. They can be accessed with Edit > Open Paste History.... If you use Shell Integration then when this is enabled your command history, directory history, and remote hostname and usernames will also be saved to disk. Unchecking this will erase all of the saved information.

Enable Python API

Toggles the availability of the Pythono API. See Python API Authentication for details on the security model.

Custom Python API Scripts Folder

Normally Python API scripts go in ~/Library/Application Support/iTerm2/Scripts but if you'd prefer to have them elsewhere you can specify the path with this setting.

GPU Rendering

The GPU renderer improves drawing performance, but it may use more energy. You can also configure when it is enabled in Advanced GPU Settings.

The advanced settings are:

Disable GPU renderer when disconnected from power - Use this to conserve energy when not plugged in and to get the best drawing performance when connected to power.
Prefer integrated to discrete GPU - If your machine has two GPUs, enable this to use the slower but less power-hungry GPU.

Maximize throughput at the cost of higher latency

When this is enabled:

The frame rate will be reduced when a lot of data is being received.
Input handling is prioritized over redrawing, reducing the maximum frame rate.

You probably need to disable this to hit 120 FPS.

Compress scrollback history in the background

When enabled, scrollback history gets compressed when the app is idle. This causes slightly higher CPU utilization when the app is not in use but can significantly reduce memory usage when there are large scrollback buffers.

AI

OpenAI API Key

Because AI features depend on ChatGPT's API, which is not free, users must provide their own API keys. You can get one from https://platform.openai.com/api-keys after creating an account.

AI Prompt

When using the "Engage Artificial Intelligence" feature, the text you've provided (such as an English sentence in the Composer) is transformed with this string. This value is an interpolated string. The variable ai.prompt is defined, containing the string the user entered. Other variables come from the session context. See https://iterm2.com/documentation-variables.html for a list of all variables.

Model

Gives the name of the ChatGPT model to use. Models have different capabilities and size limits. Since new models are released periodically, you can enter a free-form value. You can see a list of models and their token limits here: https://platform.openai.com/docs/models

Token Limit

Gives the maximum number of tokens that the selected ChatGPT model accepts. Since you are billed by the token, you can control costs by reducing this value. When a conversation gets too long iTerm2 will truncate the earlier parts of it to stay under the limit, which can reduce the quality of the AI experience.

Services

Add Bonjour hosts to profiles

If selected, all Bonjour hosts on the local network have a profile created for them as long as they're around.

Notify only for cricial shell integration updates

When disabled, iTerm2 will let you know whenever your shell integration scripts are out of date. When enabled, it will warn you only when a very important update is available (e.g., because of a security issue).

Check for updates automatically

If enabled, iTerm2 will periodically check if a new version of iTerm2 exists, and if so it will prompt you to download and upgrade.

Update to Beta test releases

If enabled, iTerm2 will periodically check if a new unstable version of iTerm2 exists, and if so it will prompt you to download and upgrade.

Selection

Copy to pasteboard on selection

If enabled, text is copied to the clipboard immediately upon selection. If not selected, you must select Edit > Copy to copy it.

Copied text includes trailing newline

If enabled, a terminal newline will be copied to the pasteboard when the selection includes one; otherwise, no selection will ever include a terminal newline.

Applications in terminal may access clipboard

If enabled, clipboard access will be granted via escape code to programs running in iTerm2. They will be able to set the contents of the system pasteboard. For more details, see Shell Integration Utilities.

Allow sending of clipboard contents?

An app running in the terminal can request that the terminal transmit the clipboard contents to it. Since this is a security risk, it normally requires you to consent each time.

Triple-click selects full wrapped lines

If enabled, a triple click selects a whole line, even if it was longer than one row in the terminal. If off, then triple click selects exactly one row.

Double-click performs smart selection

If enabled, double click performs smart selection instead of word selection as is standard on macOS.

Automatically enter copy mode on Shift+Arrow Key with selection

If enabled, pressing shift-left or shift-right will enter copy mode when a selection exists.

Characters considered part of a word for selection

When you double-click in the terminal window, a "word" is selected. The OS's algorithm for word selection is used, but it's extended to also include characters in this set. For example, by adding / to this field, double-clicking on a path/like/this would select the entire path instead of just one component.

Window

Smart window placement

If enabled, new windows will be opened where they least overlap existing windows.

Adjust window when changing font size

If enabled, a change to a session's font will cause the window to grow or shrink.

Zoom button maximizes vertically only

If enabled, the green "Zoom" button expands a terminal window vertically but does not affect its width. This can be overridden by holding down shift while clicking the zoom button.

Native full screen windows

If enabled, fullscreen windows will animate into a special desktop, as is typical in macOS 10.7 and later. If disabled, fullscreen windows will instantly go fullscreen without changing desktops.

Separate window title per tab

The OSC 0 and OSC 2 control sequences set the window title. This setting controls whether such a control sequence changes the window title associated with all sessions in the window, or only with the one in which it was received.

Settings

Load settings from a custom folder or URL:

If enabled, iTerm2 will load its settings from the specified folder or URL. After setting this, you'll be prompted when you quit iTerm2 if you'd like to save changes to the folder.

Save changes to folder when iTerm2 quits

When you've turned on Load settings from a custom folder and this is on then any changes you make to your settings will be written to the custom folder.

Export/Import All Settings and Data

If you need to back up/restore all of your settings, such as when moving to a new computer, use these buttons. The following are included:

Python API Runtimes
Secure user defaults (settings that require your password to change)
Everything in the Settings window
The contents ~/.iterm2, such as shell integration scripts.
The contents of ~/Library/Application Support/iTerm2 which has your toolbelt notes, dynamic profiles, and more.
Python API scripts

tmux

When attaching, restore windows as…

The first dropdown box in the tmux Integration section allows you to define how tmux windows should be mapped to native constructs. When attaching to a new tmux session with the tmux integration, tmux windows not seen by iTerm2 before will open in either new windows or tabs, as specified by this preference.

Automatically bury the tmux client session after connecting

When the tmux integration is entered by running tmux -CC, the window in which that command was run will be buried.

Use "tmux" profile rather than profile of connecting session

This used to on by default, but is no longer so as of version 3.3. When enabled, a copy of the Default profile is created, called tmux. When using tmux integration all tmux sessions will use this profile.

When disabled, the profile of the session in which you ran tmux -CC will be used for all tmux sessions.

Status bar shows tmux status bar content, not native components.

When enabled, the status bar will contain the same content as the tmux status bar in its text-mode UI. When disabled, the status bar defined in the profile used for a tmux integration session will be used.

Pause a pane if it would take more than X seconds to catch up.

When both a tmux integration and tmux text-mode UI client are attached to the same tmux session, the text-mode UI can sink data much faster than tmux integration can because it drops information between frames. In this case, a large buffer can grow in the tmux integration window. Once the time to catch up exceeds this number of seconds, the tmux integration session will be paused. That means it stops receiving new data. While paused, no more data will be added to its buffer and may be lost forever. You will be prompted by a notification at the top of the window to unpause the session. This feature is only available in tmux 3.2 and later.

Warn Before Pausing

If enabled, a notification is shown when a pause is projected to occur within half of the pause deadline. See Pause a pane if it would take more than X seconds to catch up for more detail on pausing.

Unpause Automatically

When enabled, this unpauses the tmux session as quickly as possible after it is paused by tmux. It does not completely eliminate the possibility of data loss.

Mirror tmux paste buffer to local clipboard

tmux has a "paste buffer" which acts like its clipboard. When this option is enabled, the contents of the tmux paste buffer and copied into the system clipbloard.

Appearance Preferences

Appearance

General

Theme

Allows you to select the theme. The theme affects how the areas outside the main terminal view are drawn, including colors and fonts.

The options are:

Regular - The standard macOS theme. Switches between dark and light mode automatically based on the system setting.
Minimal - This is inspired by the appearance of Electron apps. It is modern and streamlined.
Compact - A combination of Regular and Minimal. The standard colors are used, but the title bar is eliminated to save space.
Light - Regular theme but ignores system light/dark mode.
Dark - Regular theme but ignores system light/dark mode.
Light High Contrast - High contrast version of Light
Dark High Contrast - High contrast version of Dark

In Minimal and Compact, tabs go in the title bar if the tabs are on top. The area between the red, yellow, and green buttons and the first tab can be used to drag the window. If tabs are on the bottom or the left, you can move the mouse to the top left of the window to reveal the red, yellow, and green buts. The area around them, when revealed, can be used to drag the window.

Tab Bar Location

Defines whether tabs appear at the top, bottom, or left side of your windows.

Status Bar Location

Defines where the status bar appears, if enabled.

Auto-hide menu bar in non-native fullscreen

When native fullscreen mode is disabled (in Prefs > General), this option is available. If you'd like the menu bar to remain visible when a fullscreen window is present on a screen with a menu bar, turn this on.

Exclude from Dock and Cmd-Tab Application Switcher

When this setting is enabled, iTerm2 will disappear from the dock and you won't be able to switch to it with Cmd-Tab. An icon will be added to the right side of the menu bar that lets you get back to iTerm2's Settings. This is useful if you only use hotkey windows and you want iTerm2 to keep a low profile. You should be warned that this is a buggy part of macOS and sometimes things misbehave in small ways when this is enabled.

When selected, you can also enable but only if all windows are hotkey windows to bring back the dock icon when a non-hotkey window exists.

Windows

Show window number in title bar

If selected, window titles include the window number. You can navigate to a window by pressing cmd-opt-N where N is the window number. You can also change which modifiers are used in Settings > Keys.

Heavy border around windows in light mode

In light mode (or when there is a pane with transparency), window borders can be hard to see. Enabling this setting draws a thicker border around windows.

Hide scrollbars

If selected, scrollbars will be hidden in terminal windows.

Disable transparency for fullscreen windows by default

If enabled, entering fullscreen mode will automatically turn off transparency for that window.

Show line under title bar when tab bar is not visible

Turn this off for a sleek appearance with the dark theme.

Show proxy icon in window title bar

When enabled, an icon representing the current directory is added to the window's title bar. You can drag it.

Tabs

Show tab bar even when there is only one tab

If selected, the tab bar will remain visible when a window contains exactly one tab.

Preserve window size when tab bar shows or hides

When enabled, the window will not change size as the tab bar is shown or hidden. Instead, the number of rows of text inside the window may change.

Show tab numbers

If selected, tabs will indicate their keyboard shortcut.

Show tab close buttons

If selected, tabs show close buttons. If not selected, the close buttons only appear when the mouse hovers over the tab.

Show activity indicator

If selected, the activity indicator in each tab will be displayed when new output is recevied and the tab is not selected.

Show new-output indicator

If selected, non-selected tabs will indicate they have unseen output with a blue circle in the tab.

Flash tab bar when switching tabs in fullscreen

If selected, the tab bar will show briefly when switching tabs in a fullscreen window. It will also show briefly when the number of tabs changes.

Show tab bar in fullscreen

If selected the tab bar will be visible in fullscreen windows.

Stretch tabs to fill bar

If selected, tabs will grow large enough to fill the entire tab bar, like system native tab bars. This is on by default.

Support basic HTML tags in tab titles

When enabled the following HTML tags are supported in tab titles: <b>, <i>, <u>.

Panes

Show per-pane title bar with split panes

When a tab has split panes, this option controls whether each split pane will have its own title bar.

Separate status bars per pane

When enabled, each pane gets its own status bar. When disabled, the window has a single status bar that shows information pertaining to the current pane.

Separate background images per pane

When disabled, the current pane's background image fills the window, spanning all panes.

Side/Top & Bottom margins

Margins are the area around terminal content that is usually empty. This values are in points. Note that the right and bottom margins may be larger than the value you specify here if the window size is not evenly divisible by the size of a single character. These values are in points.

Dimming

Dimming amount

This slider controls how much to dim inactive windows or panes.

Dim inactive split panes

If selected, split panes that do not have keyboard focus will be slightly dimmed.

Dim background windows

If enabled, windows in the background (that is, those not receiving keyboard input) are dimmed according to the above settings.

Dimming affects only text, not background

When a window or pane is dimmed, this option controls whether the background color is dimmed or only the text colors.

General Profile Preferences

Profiles

General

Name

Gives the name of the profile which is shown in menus, Settings, and the profiles window. This serves as the default session name for sessions created with this profile, which is an interpolated string.

Shortcut key

This shortcut can be used to open a new window or tab. By default, it opens a new tab, but if you hold down the option key while pressing the shortcut, a new window will be opened instead.

Badge

The badge is a large label visible in the top right of a terminal session behind its text. For more information see Badges. This is an interpolated string.

Click the Edit... button to configure the position, maximum size, and typeface of the badge.

Title

This menu contains items which may be separately enabled. They are combined to form the session's title. The session's title is shown in per-pane title bars, when visible; it is also the default tab title. The current tab title also serves as the window title. The standard items in this menu are:

Session Name - The session name defaults to the profile name but may be changed later through the Edit Session dialog.
Profile Name - Gives the current name of the profile the session uses. If the session's profile changes, this profile name will be updated.
Profile & Session Name - Shows both names if they are different or just the shared name if they are the same.
Job - The name of the foreground job.
User - The current user name. Use Shell Integration to enable this to work when connected to a remote machine.
Host - The current host name. Use Shell Integration to set the host name.
PWD - The present working directory. Use Shell Integration to enable this to work when connected to a remote machine.
TTY - The path to the TTY device associated with this session.

If a script that installs a custom title provider is running, its offerings will be added to the bottom of the list. For a working demo, see the George's Title Algorithm example.

Learn more about session titles.

Applications in terminal may change the title

When enabled, a control sequence can change a session's or window's title.

Subtitle

A tab's subtitle is a second line in a smaller typeface beneath the main title. It can be set by a control sequence or you can define it as an interpolated string. If your configuration has a legacy "short tabs" setting then you'll be prompted to enable "tall tabs" first, to make room for subtitles. That makes room for the second line of text and brings tab height up to the standard used by the most recent version of macOS.

Icon

You may assign an icon to the profile, elect to use the built-in icon (which is based on the foreground application), or to have no icon at all. Icons appear in the tab bar and the window title bar.

Command

This is the command that is executed when a new session with the profile is created. If login shell is chosen, then login is invoked. You can put special terms surrounded by $$ in this field (example: $$USERNAME$$). When a new session is created, you will be prompted to enter a value for each such term. See the description of URL Schemes below for details about the special "$$" value that can go in this field.

When custom shell is selected, you should enter the path to a shell (e.g., /usr/local/bin/bash) and it will be run as a login shell.

If Command is set to SSH then SSH integration will be used. SSH integration adds some features that regular SSH does not have:

Set environment variables automatically
Load shell integration automatically
Copy over local files to remote host
Features like CPU utilization in the status bar will show values from the remote host.

Consider SSH integration to be a beta quality feature.

To take full advantage of it the remote host must have Python 3 installed.

It is not recommended for SSHing to non-Unix hosts.

When you have selected SSH you can click the Configure button to further configure the SSH connection.

In this configuration window you can turn off SSH Integration to fall back to the system ssh command. You can also list environment variables to copy to the remote host. The values come from the current session. You can also edit the list of files to copy upon connection and where to place them on the remote host.

Send Text at Start

This text will be sent when a session begins. If it is not empty then a newline will be sent afterwards. It does not accept any special characters or require any escaping.

Working directory

Normally, new sessions begin in your home directory. You can choose to open new sessions in the same directory as the current session (but only when creating a new tab), or you can specify a starting directory.

URL Schemes

You can configure a profile to handle a URL scheme, such as ssh. When a hyperlink is clicked on with that scheme, a new tab is opened with the selected profile. It is recommended that you set the command to "$$", in which case an ssh command line will be auto-generated. For other schemes, you can uses these variables in the Command field and they will be replaced with the appropriate part of the URL:

$$URL$$ The complete url
$$HOST$$ The host portion of a url like scheme://host/
$$USER$$ The username portion of a url like scheme://user@host/
$$PASSWORD$$ The password portion of a url like scheme://user:password@host/
$$PORT$$ The port number of a url like scheme://host:port/
$$PATH$$ The path portion of a url like scheme://host/path
$$RES$$ The portion of a url following the scheme.

Color Profile Preferences

Profiles

Colors

Clicking on any of the color wells opens a color picker that lets you change the setting for the selected color. iTerm2 has a custom color picker. If you don't like it you can revert to the system color picker by clicking the rectangular icon to the right of the eyedropper.

Use different colors for light mode and dark mode

When enabled, a second set of color settings becomes available which takes effect in dark mode. When enabled, the colors will be the same regardless of the mode.

Editing: Light/Dark Mode

When Use different colors for light mode and dark mode is enabled, use this to select which colors you're editing.

Smart cursor color

When selected, a block cursor will be displayed in reverse video. If this would result in confusion, then a different color is chosen that will be most visible given the surrounding cells' background colors.

Minimum contrast

If text is displayed against a similar background color, the minimum contrast setting will move the text color towards black or towards white to ensure some minimum level of visibility. Setting this slider all the way to maximum will make all text black and white.

Cursor Boost

Cursor Boost dims all colors other than the cursor colors to make the cursor stand out more.

Tab Color

If enabled, this color will decorate the tab control. Tabs indicate the color of their current session if there is more than one split pane.

Underline Color

If enabled, this color will be used for all underlining, independent of the color that underlined characters have themselves.

Cursor Guide

The cursor guide is a horizontal rule that indicates the vertical position of the cursor. You can adjust its color, including alpha value, to make it more visible against your background color.

Color Presets...

iTerm2 ships with some color presets, which you may load from this popup menu. You can import and export color presets to files with the extension "itermcolors". There is an online color gallery where users may share color presets, and a link to it is provided in this menu. When importing a color preset, the name it is assigned is based on the filename imported.

Bold

When enabled, this color is used for bold text.

Selected Text

When enabled, you can specify a color for selected text. When disabled, the regular color is used (which may be difficult to read if the text color is similar to the selection color).

Faint text opacity

Selects how prominent "faint" text is.

Minimum Contrast

Sometimes text in a terminal can be hard to read because the background and text colors are too similar. Because ANSI colors are configurable, apps have a hard time avoiding this problem. To ensure legibility, you can increase the Minimum Contrast setting. It has the effect of shifting text colors that are similar to their background colors closer to black or white. As this setting is increased, more colors are affected and the effect is greater. At 100, all text will be pure black or pure white. Minimum contrast never modifies background colors.

Text Profile Preferences

Profiles

Text

Cursor

This lets you select a cursor shape.

Blinking cursor

If checked, the cursor will blink slowly to improve visibility.

Shadow

This option is available for the underline and vertical bar cursors. It improves their visibility by adding a second line in a constrasting colorr next to the regular cursor.

Draw bold text in bold font

If selected, bold text will be drawn in a bold version of the selected font. If the font does not have a bold version, then a bold appearance is simulated by "double striking" the text: that is, drawing it twice, shifting it one pixel horizontally the second time.

Blinking text

If selected, text with the blink attribute set will actually blink. Oh, the humanity.

Italic text

If selected, text with the italic attribute set will be rendered in italics. The font you select must have an italic face.

Use thin strokes for anti-aliased text

Anti-aliased text will be drawn with thinner strokes by default on Retina displays when the background color is darker than the foreground color. The effect may be more or less visible depending on your particular hardware and OS version. You can configure when thin strokes are used depending on display type and colors.

Use built-in Powerline glyphs

When enabled, iTerm2 renders Powerline glyphs itself rather than using what is built-in to the font. These glyphs tend to line up better with other elements than font-provided glyphs.

Enable subpixel anti-aliasing (macOS 10.15 only)

When enabled, subpixel anti-aliasing is enabled throughout the application. You must restart iTerm2 for this to take effect. Subpixel anti-aliasing uses artifacts of LCD displays to improve the perceived resolution. Enabling this incurs a minor performance penalty for drawing operations.

This is not available in macOS 11.0 and later because Apple has removed support for it.

Use Unicode Version 9 Widths

Unicode version 9 offers better formatting for Emoji. If your applications have been updated to use these tables, you should enable this setting.

Ambiguous characters are double-width

Some characters (e.g., Chinese ideograms) are double-width, and take two cells to display. Other characters (e.g., Latin letters) are single width and take only one cell to display. There is another category of characters known as "ambiguous width". One example of ambiguous-width characters are Greek letters. Depending on your application, you may prefer to display them as double-width or single-width. If most of the text you deal with is double-width, then you should enable this setting as it will help things to line up correctly in that context.

Unicode normalization form

This affects how text is processed on input. Most users will want no normalization. HFS+ normalization preserves the fullwidth attribute of composed characters.

Regular font

ASCII text (latin letters, numbers, and some symbols) will be drawn using this font. Select "Anti-aliased" to draw the text with smooth edges.

Non-ASCII font

All non-ASCII text (many accented Latin letters, non-Latin text, less-common symbols, and thousands of miscellaneous unicode characters) will be drawn with this font. It is recommended that you use the same point size for both regular and non-ASCII fonts. Select "Anti-aliased" to draw the text with smooth edges.

Ligatures

When enabled and you have a font that supports ligatures (such as FiraCode) then text will be rendered with ligatures. This makes drawing much slower for two reasons: first, it disables the GPU renderer. Second, it uses a slower API. Users on less-than-stellar hardware may not want to enable it.

Special Exceptions

When the non-ASCII font is enabled you'll have the option to manage special exceptions. A special exception is a rule that maps a range of codes from another font into the terminal, possibly at a different range. This is useful if you work in multiple languages. For example, if you want to use a different font for Korean versus Chinese, you could create sepcial exceptions for Korean characters to pull from a different font.

This is more frequently used by Powerline (or "nerd font") users to mix graphical characters from different fonts. You can use the Install Nerd Font Bundle to get a good default configuration of powerline glyphs from a number of fonts.

You can import and export special exceptions to share them with others.

Window Profile Preferences

Profiles

Window

Transparency

This sets the transparency of the window background. It can be temporarily disabled with View > Use Transparency.

Keep background colors opaque

If selected, non-default background colors will be opaque. This is only available when transparency is greater than zero.

Blur

If selected, the window background is blurred provided the background has some transparency. Selecting a large radius will blur the background more, but (especially on Retina displays on older machines) comes with a performance penalty.

Rows/Columns

When creating a new window with this profile, it will be created with this many rows and columns.

Hide after opening

If enabled, a window created with this profile will immediately miniaturize after its creation.

Open Toolbelt

If enabled, a window created with this profile will feature an open toolbelt.

Custom window title

New windows created with this profile will use this title by default, overriding the default behavior of using the current tab's title as the window's title. This is an interpolated string.

Force this profile to always open in a new window, never in a tab.

If you ask for a new tab with this profile, it will just open in a window instead. This is for people who hate tabs.

Use Transparency

Sets whether the transparency setting is respected for new windows created with this profile. It can then be toggled with View > Use Transparency.

Custom Tab Title

New tabs created with this profile will use this tab title by default. This is an interpolated string.

Background Image

This allows you to select an image to display behind the terminal's text.

Mode

This allows you to select how the image is scaled to fit the window:

Stretch - The image is distorted to exactly fill the window.
Tile - The image is not scaled. It is tessellated.
Scale to Fill - The image is scaled up or down preserving the aspect ratio so that it completely fills the window. Parts of the image may be cropped out.
Scale to Fit - The image is scaled to exactly fill the window either horizontally or vertically. Its aspect raio is preserved. Letterboxes or pillarboxes may be added.

See also: Settings > Appearance > Panes > Separate background images per pane.

Blending

The blending slider determines how strongly the image dominates over the text's background color.

Style

This defines the window style.

Normal - A regular window with a title bar.
Full Screen - A full screen window. See Settings>General>Window>Native full screen windows.
Maximized - The window has a normal title bar but is forced to be as large as possible on the the screen it is on.
No title bar - A window without a title bar. It is hard to move but is as minimal as can be.
Full-width bottom/left/top/right of screen - A window that fills the display edge-to-edge along one dimension and is stuck to one edge of the screen. The rows or columns setting will be disregarded.
Bottom/left/top/right of screen - A window that is stuck to one edge of the screen.

Screen

If you have more than one screen connected, this lets you select the screen on which a new window should open. It is particularly useful for fullscreen and top-of-screen window styles. The Screen with Cursor option affects the initial screen of the window, but it won't follow your cursor from screen to screen.

Space

If you have enabled Spaces (or your OS uses Desktops instead of spaces) and have set Spaces/Mission Control to use Control+Number to switch spaces/desktops, then you can use this setting to select the initial space/desktop to open a new window using this profile.

Current Space means the window opens on the visible Space at the time it was created. For hotkey windows, Current Space causes them to move to the current Space each time they are opened.

All Spaces means the window follows you around from Space to Space.

Terminal Profile Preferences

Profiles

Terminal

Scrollback lines

The number of lines of scrollback buffer to keep above the visible part of the screen. Unlimited scrollback will allow it to grow indefinitely, possibly using all available memory.

Save lines to scrollback when an app status bar is present

Some programs (such as vim or tmux) keep a status bar at the bottom of the screen. For some applications (like vim) it is undesirable to save lines to the scrollback buffer when the application scrolls. For others (like tmux) you may want to save scrolled-off lines into the scrollback buffer. When this setting is enabled, lines scrolled off the top of the screen in the presence of a status bar are added to the scrollback buffer. The screen is considered to have a status bar if it has a scroll region whose top is the first line of the screen and whose bottom is above the bottom of the screen.

Save lines to scrollback in alternate screen mode

When in alternate screen mode, lines that scroll off the top of the screen will be saved to the scrollback buffer only if this option is enabled.

Drag-to-scroll disabled in alternate screen mode

Normally you can use the mouse to scroll by starting a selection and moving the pointer above or below the session's bounds with the button pressed. Interactive apps (like vim or emacs) signal their interactivity by entering alternate screen mode. When this setting is enabled, you won't be able to accidentally scroll by dragging in an interactive app.

Character encoding

The encoding to send and receive in. For most people, "Unicode (UTF-8)" is the right choice.

Report terminal type

The TERM variable will be set to this value by default. If xterm-256color is selected and your system is missing the terminfo file, you will be prompted to install it when you open a new session.

ENQ answer back

Text to send when the ENQ sequence is received. Not normally used.

Enable mouse reporting

If selected, applications may choose to receive information about the mouse. This can be temporarily disabled by holding down Option.

Report mouse wheel events

If disabled, the mouse wheel will always perform its default action (such as scrolling history) rather than being reported to an app that has enabled mouse reporting.

Report mouse clicks & drags

If disabled, the mouse buttons will always perform their default action (such as making a selection) rather than being reported to an app that has enabled mouse reporting.

Terminal may report window title

Programs running in a terminal may send an escape code to request the current window title. You may disable this feature by enabling this option. It should be disabled if you're communicating with an untrusted party, as there are possible injection attacks.

Terminal may change cursor blink

If enabled apps running in the terminal can cause the cursor to start or stop blinking with a control sequence.

Terminal may enable paste bracketing

Paste bracketing is a feature that can be enabled by an app running in iTerm2 by sending a control sequence. When enabled, iTerm2 transmits a control sequence before and after paste operations (e.g., pressing Cmd-V). This can be useful because editors like vim may disable auto-indenting when pasting already-indented code. Sometimes paste bracketing can be left on, causing unexpected behavior when you paste. For example, if a program running in an ssh session enables paste bracketing and then your ssh connection ends unexpectedly it won't have a chance to turn it off. Your next paste will include the bracketing control sequences, which will be mishandled by whatever program receives them. For that reason, some people prefer to disable paste bracketing. If you install Shell Integration it can detect when this occurs and automatically disable paste bracketing for you, making it safe to leave it enabled here.

Terminal may set tab/window title

If enabled the terminal may set the window or tab title with an escape sequence.

Disable session-initiated printing

If enabled, escape codes that initiate printing will be ignored.

Disable save/restore alternate screen

Some programs (such as vim, tmux, and less) switch into a so-called "alternate screen". A characteristic of this behavior is that when these programs terminate the screen's contents are restored to their state from before the program was run. If this option is selected, alternate screen mode is disabled and the screen cannot be restored by an application.

Disable session-initiated window resizing

If the host sends an escape code to resize the window, it will be ignored if this option is selected..

Silence bell

If selected, the bell (control-G) will not make an audible sound.

Send Notification Center alerts

If selectedinstalled, iTerm2 will post a notifications when sessions receive output, become idle, ring the bell, close, or get a proprietary escape sequence to post a notification.

Filter Alerts

This button opens a panel that lets you customize which notifications will be posted.

Flash visual bell

If selected, a bell graphic will be flashed when the bell character is received.

Show bell icon in tabs

If selected, tabs will indicate that a bell has rung by displaying a bell graphic.

Environment

You have the following options:

Set locale environment variables automatically - If enabled, LANG and LC_CTYPE environment variables will be set based on your machine's language settings.
Do not set locale environment variables - LANG and LC_CTYPE will be unset.
Use custom locale... - Lets you specify the locale variables you wish to use. You will be limited to those that are supported by your Mac.

The current locale is shown beneath this setting.

Insert newline before start of command prompt if needed

If you have Shell Integration installed and a command's output does not end in a newline, this setting will ensure your prompt does not begin in the middle of the line.

Show mark indicators

If you have Shell Integration and this setting is selected then a blue or red arrow appears next to each shell prompt. Turn this off to hide the arrow.

Show offscreen command line at top of session

When the session shows part of a command's output but the command is above the top of the screen, the command can be shown in a box at the top when this is enabled.

Session Profile Preferences

Profiles

Session

After a session ends

Defines what happens when a session ends.

No Action - The session stays open and you will be prompted to restart it.
Close - The session is automatically closed.
Restart - The session is automatically restarted with the same command that launched it.

Warn about short-lived sessions

When enabled, you'll be given a warning if a session ends within a short time after it starts. This gives you a chance to see what went wrong and fix it.

"Undo" can revive a session that has been closed for up to X seconds

When you close a session, window, or tab the shell is not terminated until X seconds pass. While that time period has not elapsed, Undo will reopen the session, tab, or window.

Prompt before closing

When a session will close, you can choose when to be prompted with a modal alert. If you select If there are jobs besides then the prompt will only be shown when an app besides those specified (which are often present when nothing is happening) is running.

Automatically log session input to files in:

If enabled, every session's output will be logged to a file in the specified directory. The filename format can also be specified here as an interpolated string.

Log format

You can log in the following formats:

Raw data - An exact copy of the input that was received including control sequences.
Plain text - Excludes control sequences. Just text and newlines. This is very readable when running CLI apps but becomes utter chaos for interactive programs like vim or emacs.
HTML - Like Plain text, it excludes control sequences. Colors and various font attributes are preserved. The resulting file can be viewed in a web browser.
asciinema - Produces a file viewable with asciinema, which preserves time as well as more font attributes.

Open password manager automatically

If enabled the password manager will be opened when a session with this profile is created.

When idle, send ASCII code X every Y seconds.

If selected, the specified ASCII code "X" (a number from 0 to 255) will be transmitted every Y seconds while nothing is happening. Don't use this unless you know what you're doing as it can have unexpected consequences. Seriously, it's probably not what you want.

Avoid repainting while cursor is hidden to reduce flicker while scrolling

When selected, the screen will slightly delay redraws while the cursor is hidden. This improves the visual appearance of scrolling in many programs but might introduce noticeable delays for some users.

Status bar enabled

See Status Bar for details on the status bar.

Keys Profile Preferences

Profiles

Keys > General

Allow Application Keypad Mode

Some full-screen progarms (like emacs) switch the keyboard into application keypad mode, which changes how the numeric keypad behaves. Disabling this option causes iTerm2 to never enter application keypad mode.

Report modifiers using CSI u

Enables a more powerful keyboard reporting algorithm that some applications may use to enable the use of modifiers on more keys and more combinations of modifiers.

Apps can change how keys are reported

When enabled apps running in the terminal can change the key reporting mode.

Page up, page down, home and end scroll outside interactive apps

When enabled, these keys move the viewport unless you are running an interactive application.

Left/Right Option Key

It is common to use a modifier to send so-called "meta keys". For most users, selecting "+Esc" here is the right choice. The "Meta" option sets the high bit of the input character, and is not compatible with modern systems.

The corresponding Apps can change this setting can be disabled to prevent apps in the terminal from modifiying your setting with a control sequence.

A hotkey opens a dedicated window with this profile

When enabled, a dedicated hotkey window is attached to this profile. The Configure Hotkey Window button lets you configure the hotkey and other attributes of the window. For more information, see Hotkey Windows.

Keys > Key Mappings

This panel shows key mappings. You can double-click on a mapping to edit it. When the "Keyboard Shortcut" field has focus, you should press the keystroke that you want to modify (even if it involves modifiers like Cmd). The following actions are available:

Ignore - The keypress will do nothing.
Select Menu Item... - This action allows you to enter the name of an iTerm2 menu item. It must be entered exactly the same as it appears in the menu. Ellipses can be typed with option-semicolon.
Do not remap modifiers - If modifier remapping is in effect (set under Settings > Keys), it can be disabled for certain key combinations. When you choose this action, modifier remapping is temporarily disabled so you can press the key combination unremapped in the key field.
Remap modifiers in iTerm2 only - If modifier remapping is in effect (set under Settings > Keys), it can be set to not affect other applications that may listen for global hotkeys. When you choose this action, modifier remapping is temporarily disabled so you can press the key combination unremapped in the key field.
Cycle Tabs Forward/Backward - This implements tab switching the same way Cmd-Tab (or Cmd-Shift-Tab) switches windows, with the most-recently-used stack.
Run Coprocess - This action launches a Coprocess. Learn more about coprocesses.
Start Instant Replay - This is equivalent to the menu item View > Start Instant Replay.
Undo - Invokes the Undo action. Could be used to undo closing a session/tab/window.
Send tmux command - Used in tmux integration to send a command directly to the tmux server of the current session.
Alert on next mark - Toggles the Alert on next mark feature.
New Window with Profile - Creates a new window with a profile you specify here.
New Tab with Profile - Creates a new tab with a profile you specify here.
Duplicate Tab - Creates another tab exactly like the current one.
Split horizontally/vertically with Profile - Creates a new split pane by cleaving the current session. Uses the profile you specify here.
Split/New Window/Tab with Profile - These actions allow you to create a new session with a specified profile when a key is pressed.
Change Profile - This action changes the profile of the current session.
Load Color Preset - This action changes the colors of the current session using the specified preset.
Next/Previous Tab/Window/Pane - These actions navigate among tabs, windows, and split panes.
Move tab left/right - Changes the tab's position in the order.
Next/Previous Window - Selects the next or previous window in window order.
Next/Previous Pane - Selects the next or previous pane in left-to-right, top-to-bottom order.
Select Split Pane Above/Below/Left/Right - These actions navigate split panes.
Increase/Decrease Width/Height - Changes the size of the current session.
Scroll to End/Top/Up/Down - These actions move through the scrollback buffer.
Scroll one Line/Page Up/Down - These actions move through the scrollback buffer.
Swap with Split Pane Above/Below/Left/Right - Exchanges the current session with an adjacent session in a split pane in the same tab.
Swap with Next/Previous Pane - Exchanges the current session with the next/previous pane in the same tab.
Move Session to Split Pane - After invoking this, click a different session. The current pane will be moved to share half its former space.
Send ^? / ^H Backspace - Modern systems use ^? for backspace, while some legacy systems use ^H.
Send Escape Sequence - This action allows you to enter some text that will be sent when the associated key is pressed. First, the ESC character is sent, and then the text you entered is sent. There are no special characters and no escaping is necessary.
Send Hex Code - This action allows you to enter a sequence of hex codes that will be sent. Each value should begin with "0x" followed by one or two hex digits (0-9, a-f, or A-F). Each code should be separated by a space. You can see a list of hex codes on http://asciitable.com/ in the "Hx" column.
Send Text - This action allows you to enter a text string that will be sent when the associated key is pressed. The following escape characters are supported: \n (newline), \e (escape), \a (bell), \t (tab).
Send Text with "vim" Special Characters - This action allows you to enter a text string that will be sent when the associated key is pressed. The following special sequences are supported, where the "." characters are placeholders: ... (three-digit octal number), .. (two-digit octal number; must be followed by non-digit), . (one-digit octal number; must be followed by non-digit), \x.. (two-digit hex number), \x. (one-digit hex number), \u.... (four-digit hex number), \b (backspace), \e (escape), \f (form feed), \n (newline), \r (carriage return), \t (tab), \ (backslash), \" (double quote), \\ (control key), \\ (meta key)
Send Snippet - You can choose a snippet to send.
Compose... - Open the Composer.
Find Regular Expression - Performs a search for a saved regular expression.
Find Again Up/Down - Repeats the search, finding the next result at an earlier/later position.
Paste - Like Edit > Paste, but you can set advanced paste settings to use.
Paste From Selection - Like Edit > Paste and Edit > Paste Special > Paste Selection, but you can set advanced paste settings to use.
Copy or send ^C - If there is a selection, copy it. Otherwise, send the literal Control-C keystroke.
Paste or send ^V - If there is text in the pasteboard, paste it. Otherwise, send a literal Control-V keystroke.
Toggle Fullscreen - This action enters or exits full screen mode.
Toggle Pin Hotkey Window - Toggles whether the hotkey window hides when it loses focus.
Toggle Mouse Reporting - Temporarily enable or disable mouse reporting.
Move Start/End of Selection Back/Forward - Adjusts the range of selected text.
Invoke Script Function - Calls a function registered by a script. See Scripting Fundamentals for details on functions.
Sequence... - Lets you create a keybinding from a sequence of key bindings.

You can add a new keymapping by pressing "+". You can remove an existing mapping by selecting it and pressing "-". Three presets are provided: "Xterm defaults" is the normal key mappings, while "Xterm defaults with numeric keypad" disables the "application keypad" in favor of the numbers and symbols that the numeric keypad typically emits. "Terminal.app Compatibility" tries to emulate the way that Terminal.app sends keys by default.

You can also import and export your key bindings to share with others.

Delete sends ^H

If you are on a legacy system that does not accept ^? for backspace, select this and it will add a key mapping for you.

Advanced Profile Preferences

Profiles > Advanced

Triggers

Triggers are actions that are performed when text matching a regular expression is received. Each trigger has a regular expression, which defines when it runs. It has an action, which defines what it performs, and it has an optional parameter, whose meaning depends on the action. When the parameter is textual, \0 is replaced with the entire match, and \1...\9 are replaced with match groups. Each trigger has a checkbox in the "Instant" column. Instant triggers run as soon as text matching the regular expression is matched; triggers that are not instant only match after the cursor moves off the current line (such as whena newline is received).

Full details can be found at Triggers.

Semantic History

Semantic history is used to open a file when you Cmd-Click on it. The current working directory for each line in the terminal is tracked to help find files. If Semantic History is set to "Open with default app," then files are passed to the OS to be opened with whatever is associated. Alternatively, you can choose "Open URL..." to open a specific URL (with \1 replaced with the filename and \2 replaced with the line number, if applicable). If you choose "Open with editor..." then text files will be opened with the designated editor, while other files are opened with the default app for their file type. For more flexibility, choose "Run command..." and specify a command to execute. \1 will be replaced with the file name, \2 will be replaced with the line number (if applicable), \3 with text in the line prior to the click location, \4 with text in the line subsequent to the click location, and \5 for the working directory of the line clicked on. Finally, "Always run command..." is like "Run command...," but takes effect even if the object clicked on is not an existing filename.

Automatic Profile Switching

You can specify rules that, when satisified, changes any session's profile to this one. See Automatic Profile Switching for all the details.

Snippets Filter

The Snippets feature lets you save a collection of strings to re-send later on. Each snappit may have one or more tags associated with it. If you would like to show only certain snippets when working in a particular profile, you can name tags in the Snippets Filter that are required for a snippet to be available in the context of a session with this profile.

Keys Preferences

Keys

Key Bindings

This interface works like the keyboard shortcut system in profiles (described above) but it affects all profiles. Settings here are overridden by those in a profile's key mappings.

See the list of key binding actions at Settings > Profiles > Keys.

Add Touch Bar Item

This button is only visible if your OS version supports touch bars. By pressing this button, you can define a new custom touch bar button with any of the actions you can assign to a key (see below). You can then add the custom button to your touch bar with View > Customize Touch Bar.

Touch Bar Mitigations

This opens a panel with these options:

Haptic feedback when pressing esc When you press esc on a touchbar, this makes the trackpad vibrate to provide feedback.
Key click for virtual esc key When you press esc on a touchbar, this causes a click sound to be played.
Visual esc key indicator When you press esc on a touchbar, make the cursor change shape briefly to provid feedback.

Presets > Factory Defaults

Restores key bindings to the iTerm2 defaults.

Presets > Import/Export

Lets you share key bindings with others.

Interpret key bindings based on physical key, ignoring input language

When enabled key bindings refer to a particular key rather than a particular character. For example, suppose you have bound Cmd-Opt-A to perform some action while using a US keyboard and then switch to an AZERTY layout. With this setting enabled, you'd press Cmd-Opt-Q to invoke the action since the AZERTY Q is where the QWERTY A goes.

Note that only key bindings created with iTerm2 version 3.5.0beta19 or later will adapt to different keyboard layouts. Older key bindings did not store the keycode and will continue to behave as though this setting was not enabled.

Leader

By defining a "leader" key you can create shortcuts that consist of two keystrokes. Command-B is the recommended leader. After setting the leader, you can define a new keybinding by pressing Leader followed by another keystroke. For example, if your leader is Command-B, you could define a key binding as the sequence Command-B N.

In tmux integration key bindings are automatically created for you based on tmux's configured command key bindings. For example, if tmux is configured for C-b c to create a new window, then in tmux integration [leader] c will do the same.

Navigation Shortcuts

Shortcut to activate a tab

Tabs are normally navigated with cmd+number, but you can change the modifier used for that function here.

Shortcut to activate a window

Windows are normally navigated with cmd+opt+number, but you can change the modifier used for that function here.

Shortcut to choose a split pane

You can use this to configure a modifier+number shortcut to select a split pane in the current tab.

Emulate US Keyboard

If your keyboard layout requires you to hold Shift (or some other modifier) to press a number, enable this to treat the top row of keys as number keys even when Shift is not pressed. This only affects switching panes, tabs, and windows by keyboard as configure in the preceding settings.

Hotkey

Create a Dedicated Hotkey WIndow

Sets up a new hotkey window profile if you don't already have one. For more information, see Hotkey Windows.

Show/Hide iTerm2 all windows with a system-wide hotkey

When enabled, you can focus the Hotkey: field and press a keystroke. From then on, pressing that keystroke (even when iTerm2 is not the front application) will cause iTerm2 to come to the front. If it is the foreground app, it will be sent to the back. This requires that you enable access for assistive devices in the Universal Access panel of System Settings. For more information, see Hotkey Windows.

Remap Modifiers

iTerm2 allows you to change the meanings of the modifier keys only within iTerm2. This is useful, for example, if you find it difficult to press "option" for "meta" and would prefer to use "command" for that purpose.

Input Locale

Force keyboard

You can enable this setting to force iTerm2 to use a specific keyboard layout rather than the current system keyboard.

Arrangement Preferences

Arrangements

This tab lets you view saved window arrangements. You can delete them with the minus button and select the default arrangement.

Pointer Preferences

Pointer

General

Cmd-Click Opens Filename/URL

If enabled, then clicking on a filename (of an existing file on the local machine) or a URL will open it.

Ctrl-click reported to apps, does not open menu

If enabled, ctrl-click will be sent to applications that support Xterm mouse reporting (if mouse reporting is enabled).

Option-Click moves cursor

If enabled, option-click will move the cursor to where the mouse pointer is. If you install shell integration, this will be well-behaved at the shell prompt by not sending up and down arrow keys.

Three-finger tap reports middle click to apps

If enabled, a three-finger tap acts like a middle click for the purposes of mouse reporting.

Focus follows mouse

If enabled, moving the mouse over an inactive window will cause it to receive keyboard focus.

Focus window after right or middle click

When enabled, right-clicking or middle-clicking on a window will give it keyboard focus.

Bindings

Mouse Button and Trackpad Gesture Actions

You may assign custom actions to mouse clicks and trackpad gestures. The left mouse button is not configurable because its behavior is rather complex, however. This is especially useful if you have a mouse with many buttons. Any combination of mouse button + number of clicks + modifiers may be assigned an action. For gestures, three finger taps and swipes may be configured in combination with modifiers. The following actions are available:

Extend selection - The text selection will grow, either from its beginning or end, to the location of the pointer.
Ignore - Preform no action
Invoke script function - Call a Python API-defined function.
Move pane - The current pane will turn green. Click in another window's tab bar or in another pane to split to move the now-green pane.
New Horizontal/Vertical split with profile - The pane under the pointer will be split and the new split will use the specified profile.
New Split/Tab/Window With Profile - A new split pane/tab/window will be opened with the specified profile.
Next/Previous Tab/Window - Navigates through tabs and windows.
Open Context Menu - Opens the menu normally opened by a right click.
Open URL in background - Opens the URL under the pointer in your web browser without bringing the browser to the foreground.
Open URL/Semantic History - Opens the URL under the pointer, bringing the web browser to the foreground. If what's under the cursor is a filename on the local machine, it will be opened with Semantic History.
Paste from Clipboard - Pastes the contents of the pasteboard (like Edit > Paste) but you can also configure advanced paste settings.
Paste from Selection - Pastes the most recent selection made in iTerm2, even if it's not what's in the pasteboard. Allows you to configure advanced paste settings.
Quicklook - Defines the word under the cursor or, if it's a URL, opens it in a web browser popover.
Select Next/Previous Pane - Navigates panes according to how recently they were used.
Select menu item - Select an item from the app's main menu.
Select pane Above/Below/Left/Right - Navigates panes by their layout.
Send Escape Sequence... - This action allows you to enter some text that will be sent when the associated key is pressed. First, the ESC character is sent, and then the text you entered is sent.
Send Hex Code - This action allows you to enter a sequence of hex codes that will be sent. Each value should begin with "0x" followed by one or two hex digits (0-9, a-f, or A-F). Each code should be separated by a space. You can see a list of hex codes on http://asciitable.com/ in the "Hx" column.
Send Text - This action allows you to enter a text string that will be sent when the associated key is pressed. The following escape characters are supported: \n (newline), \e (escape), \a (bell), \t (tab).
Smart Selection - Performs smart selection on the text under the pointer.
Smart Selection ignoring Newlines - Performs smart selection on the text under the pointer, ignoring newlines (e.g., if a URL is split by a hard newline, it can still be selected as a single item).

Advanced Preferences

Advanced

Advanced Settings are self-documenting. Use the search field to find what you're looking for, as there are quite a few of them. Some work better than others. Proceed with caution.

Scripting

iTerm2 features Applescript support which allows you to automate many aspects of its behavior. Quite a bit of customization is also possible by writing shell scripts.

Applescript

iTerm2 has sophisticated Applescript support allowing one to write stand-alone scripts to launch the application and open multiple sessions with profiles into either new tabs or new windows. You can also set some other parameters for a session such as foreground and background colors, and transparency.

These scripts can then be saved as stand-alone executable applications.

Autolaunching Scripts

iTerm2 also supports autolaunching of an Applescript on startup. On startup, iTerm2 looks for an Applescript file in "~/Library/Application Support/iTerm2/Scripts/AutoLaunch.scpt". If it is found, the "AutoLaunch.scpt" script is launched and executed.

If that folder does not exist, the legacy path of "~/Library/Application Support/iTerm/Scripts/AutoLaunch.scpt" will be used.

User-Defined Scripts

iTerm2 also supports launching of user defined scripts from the "Scripts" menu. The scripts need to be stored under the ~/Library/Application Support/iTerm/Scripts directory. You can create this directory if it does not already exist. iTerm2 checks this directory on startup. Scripts must be named with the extension .scpt or .app.

Reference

Objects

The basic objects are: window, tab, and session. The application has zero or more windows, each window has one or more tabs, and each tab has one or more sessions. Multiple sessions in a tab happen when there are split panes.

Application

The application exposes various properties and provides functions that are described in this section. For example:

tell application "iTerm2"
  create window with default profile
end tell

create hotkey window with profile "name"
Creates a hotkey window with the specified profile. The profile must be configured to have a hotkey. Example: create hotkey window with profile "Hotkey Window"

create window with default profile
create window with default profile command "command"

These commands create a window with the default profile. If you specify a command, it overrides the profile's command (which by default is to invoke `login`). Examples: set newWindow to (create window with default profile) set newWindow to (create window with default profile command "ls -l -R /")

create window with profile "name"
create window with profile "name" command "command"

These commands create a window with a named profile. If you specify a command, it overrides the profile's command (which by default is to invoke `login`). Returns a reference to the new window. Examples: set newWindow to (create window with profile "Name Of Some Profile") set newWindow to (create window with profile "Name Of Some Profile" command "ls -l -R /")

current window

A reference to the window that most recently had keyboard focus. tell current window ... end tell

windows

A windows property exposes an array of terminal windows. Other windows, like the Settings panel, are not included. The following are standard Applescript idioms for accessing elements of an array of objects:

tell first window
...
end tell

repeat with aWindow in windows
...
end repeat

Windows

These functions and properties are provided by windows. For example:

tell application "iTerm2"
  tell current window
    create tab with default profile
  end tell
end tell

There are many standard Applescript functions (e.g., to get the window's size and position) that are not documented here.

create tab with default profile
create tab with default profile command "command" create tab with profile "name"
create tab with profile "name" command "command"

Creates a tab with the default profile or a profile by name. If the command is specified, it is run instead of the profile's command/login shell.

Returns a reference to the new tab.

current session

The current session is the session that would receive keyboard input if the window had keyboard focus.

current tab

The current tab is the tab that is selected in the window.

hide hotkey window

If this is a hotkey window, it hides it with the standard hotkey window animation and makes the previously active application active, if appropriate.

hotkey window profile

Returns the name of the hotkey window profile associated with this window, if any.

The window ID. Useful for commands like screencapture.

is hotkey window

Returns a boolean value which is true if the window is a hotkey window associated with a profile.

name

The window's name, as appears in the title bar.

reveal hotkey window

If this is a hotkey window, it reveals it with the standard hotkey window animation and makes it key and the application active.

select

Gives the window keyboard focus and brings it to the front.

tabs

An array of tabs. See the methods on Tab, below.

toggle hotkey window

Either shows or hides the hotkey window, if this is a hotkey window, using the standard animation. May make the app active or inactive.

Sessions

These functions and properties are provided by sessions. For example:

tell application "iTerm2"
  tell current session of current window
    split horizontally with default profile
  end tell
end tell

background image

This is a string property that gives a path to the background image of the session.

Terminates the session and closes its pane.

Color properties

Various properties which are readable and settable affect the session's colors:

background color
bold color
cursor color
cursor text color
foreground color
selected text color
selection color
ANSI black color
ANSI red color
ANSI green color
ANSI yellow color
ANSI blue color
ANSI magenta color
ANSI cyan color
ANSI white color
ANSI bright black color
ANSI bright red color
ANSI bright green color
ANSI bright yellow color
ANSI bright blue color
ANSI bright magenta color
ANSI bright cyan color
ANSI bright white color

An example:

set foreground color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}

Because Applescript is kind of a dumpster fire, the standard syntax for a color is {red, green, blue, alpha} where each value is a number between 0 and 65535.

answerback string

The string sent when the ENQ escape sequence is received.

columns

The width of the session in character cells.

contents

Returns the visible contents of the session as a string. Each row is terminated with a newline.

Returns the session's unique identifier.

is at shell prompt

Indicates if the session is at a shell prompt accepting a command. Only works if Shell Integration is installed; if not it will return false.

is processing

Returns a boolean indicating if the session received output recently.

name

A string property with the session's name as seen in its title bar.

profile name

The name of the profile the session was created with. A string. Read-only.

rows

The height of the session in character cells.

set columns to number
set rows to number

Changes the size of the session.

split horizontally with default profile
split vertically with default profile
split horizontally with default profile command "command"
split vertically with default profile command "command"

Splits the session either horizontally or vertically. If the optional command is provided then it is run in place of the profile's command. A horizontal split has a horizontal divider, while a vertical split has a vertical divider.

Returns a reference to a session.

split horizontally with profile "name"
split vertically with profile "name"
split horizontally with profile "name" command "command"
split vertically with profile "name" command "command"

Like the "default profile" commands, but uses a named profile instead of the default profile.

split horizontally with same profile
split vertically with same profile
split horizontally with same profile command "command"
split vertically with same profile command "command"

Like the "default profile" commands, but uses the current session's profile.

select

Makes the session active in its tab. Does not affect which tab is selected or which window has keyboard focus.

text

A synonym for contents.

transparency

A floating-point value from 0 to 1 giving how transparent the session is.

tty

The name of the session's tty (e.g., /dev/ttys01). Returns a string.

unique id

A string uniquely identifying the session.

variable "name"
set variable named "name" to "value"

Gets and sets the value of a variable by name. Variables are described in Badges. You may only set user-defined variables, whose names always begin with "user.".

write text "text"
write text "text" newline NO

Writes text to the session, as though you had typed it. Optionally without a newline.

write contents of file "filename"

Writes the contents of a file to the session as though you had typed it.

Tabs

These functions and properties are provided by tabs. For example:

tell application "iTerm2"
  tell current tab of current window
    select
  end tell
end tell

Closes the tab.

current session

The session in this tab that most recently had keyboard focus.

index

The index of the tab in the window, starting from 0.

select

Selects the tab, making it the current tab for the window.

sessions

An array of sessions.

sessions

An array of sessions in this tab.

The index from 0 of the tab in its window.

Supporting both old and new versions of iTerm2

If your application needs to support both the old and new Applescript syntax, this is the recommended technique:

on theSplit(theString, theDelimiter)
    set oldDelimiters to AppleScript's text item delimiters
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theDelimiter
    set theArray to every text item of theString
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelimiters
    return theArray
end theSplit

on IsModernVersion(version)
    set myArray to my theSplit(version, ".")
    set major to item 1 of myArray
    set minor to item 2 of myArray
    set veryMinor to item 3 of myArray
    
    if major < 2 then
        return false
    end if
    if major > 2 then
        return true
    end if
    if minor < 9 then
        return false
    end if
    if minor > 9 then
        return true
    end if
    if veryMinor < 20140903 then
        return false
    end if
    return true
end IsModernVersion

on NewScript()
    -- Return the modern script as a string here; what follows is an example.
    return "create window with default profile"
end NewScript

on OldScript()
    -- Return the legacy script as a string here; what follows is an example.
    return "
    set myTerm to (make new terminal)
    tell myTerm
        launch session \"Default\"
    end tell"
end OldScript

tell application "iTerm"
    if my IsModernVersion(version) then
        set myScript to my NewScript()
    else
        set myScript to my OldScript()
    end if
end tell

set fullScript to "tell application \"iTerm\"
" & myScript & "
end tell"

run script fullScript

Applescript Examples

This is an example of the Applescript syntax available in version 3.0 and later.

Note: Applescript support is no longer receiving improvements. Use the Python API instead.

tell application iTerm2
  -- application-level commands
  -- These commands return a window.
  set newWindow to (create window with default profile)
  set newWindow to (create window with default profile command "ls -l -R /")

  select first window
  set newWindow to (create window with profile "Default")
  set newWindow to (create window with profile "Default" command "ls -l -R /")

  -- window-level commands
  repeat with aWindow in windows
    tell aWindow
      tell current session
        set newSession to (split horizontally with default profile)
        -- Optional command argument added 12/5/2015
        set newSession to (split horizontally with default profile command "ssh example.com")
      end tell
    end tell
  end repeat
  tell current window
    -- These commands return a tab
    set newTab to (create tab with default profile)
    set newTab to (create tab with profile "Projection")
  end tell
  tell current window
    tell current session
      set columns to 40
      set rows to 40
    end tell
  end tell

  -- tab-level commands
  tell current window
    tell second tab
      select
    end tell
    tell first tab
      close
    end tell
    tell current tab
      repeat with aSession in sessions
        tell aSession
          write text "Hello"
        end tell
      end repeat
       end tell
   end tell

  -- session-level commands
  tell current session of first window
    write text "cat > /dev/null"
    write text "cat > /dev/null" newline NO
    write contents of file "/etc/passwd"
    -- Get the path to the current session's tty and write it
    write text (tty)
    -- Get the content of the session and write it back
    write text (text)
    -- Get the session's unique identifier and write it back
    write text (unique ID)

    -- These commands return a session
    set newSession to (split vertically with default profile)
    set newSession to (split vertically with profile "Default")
    set newSession to (split vertically with same profile)
    
    -- Optional command argument added 12/5/2015
    set newSession to (split vertically with default profile command "ssh example.com")
    set newSession to (split vertically with profile "Default" command "ssh example.com")
    set newSession to (split vertically with same profile command "ssh example.com")

    set newSession to (split horizontally with default profile)
    set newSession to (split horizontally with profile "Default")
    set newSession to (split horizontally with same profile)

    -- Optional command argument added 12/5/2015
    set newSession to (split horizontally with default profile command "ssh example.com")
    set newSession to (split horizontally with profile "Default" command "ssh example.com")
    set newSession to (split horizontally with same profile command "ssh example.com")

    set foreground color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set background color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set bold color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set cursor color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set cursor text color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set selected text color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set selection color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set underline color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI black color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI red color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI green color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI yellow color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI blue color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI magenta color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI cyan color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI white color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}

    set ANSI bright black color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI bright red color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI bright green color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI bright yellow color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI bright blue color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI bright magenta color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI bright cyan color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}
    set ANSI bright white color to {65535, 0, 0, 0}

    set background image to "/usr/share/httpd/icons/small/rainbow.png"
    set name to "New Name"
    set transparency to 0.5
    -- The name of the session's profile (different from the
    -- session's name, which can be changed by editing the Session
    -- Title field in Edit Session or by an escape sequence).
    -- Added 10/6/15.
    write text (profile name)

    -- is processing means it has received output in the last two seconds.
    if (is processing) then
      set foreground color to { 65535, 65535, 65535, 65535 }
    end if

    -- This will only work if shell integration is installed.
    -- Otherwise it always returns false.
    if (is at shell prompt) then
      set background color to { 65535, 0, 65535, 65535 }
    end if

    -- New in 2.9.20160104
    set answerback string to "Hello world"

    -- New in 2.9.201601. See https://iterm2.com/badges.html for more on variables.
    variable named "session.name"
    set variable named "user.phaseOfTheMoon" to "Gibbous"
  end tell
end tell

Supporting both old and new versions of iTerm2

If your application needs to support both the old and new Applescript syntax, this is the recommended technique:

on theSplit(theString, theDelimiter)
    set oldDelimiters to AppleScript's text item delimiters
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theDelimiter
    set theArray to every text item of theString
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelimiters
    return theArray
end theSplit

on IsModernVersion(version)
    set myArray to my theSplit(version, ".")
    set major to item 1 of myArray
    set minor to item 2 of myArray
    set veryMinor to item 3 of myArray
    
    if major < 2 then
        return false
    end if
    if major > 2 then
        return true
    end if
    if minor < 9 then
        return false
    end if
    if minor > 9 then
        return true
    end if
    if veryMinor < 20140903 then
        return false
    end if
    return true
end IsModernVersion

on NewScript()
    -- Return the modern script as a string here; what follows is an example.
    return "create window with default profile"
end NewScript

on OldScript()
    -- Return the legacy script as a string here; what follows is an example.
    return "
    set myTerm to (make new terminal)
    tell myTerm
        launch session \"Default\"
    end tell"
end OldScript

tell application "iTerm"
    if my IsModernVersion(version) then
        set myScript to my NewScript()
    else
        set myScript to my OldScript()
    end if
end tell

set fullScript to "tell application \"iTerm\"
" & myScript & "
end tell"

run script fullScript

Legacy Note

Note: in iTerm2 3.0.0, sessions had a property called contents. That conflicted with a reserved word, and has been renamed to text. The example below reflects proper usage for version 3.0.1 and up.

Buried Sessions

A buried session is a session that continues to run but is not a part of any window. If you have a long-running job that you want out of the way, it can be convenient to bury its session. It is used by default for the session where you initiate a tmux integration client using tmux Integration.

To bury the current session, select Session > Bury Session. To restore a session, select it from the list of buried sessions in Session > Buried Sessions.

Copy Mode

Copy Mode allows you to make selections using the keyboard. To enter or exit Copy Mode, select Edit > Copy Mode. You can also enter copy mode by pressing Shift+Arrow key immediately after making a selection with the mouse. A special cursor rendered as a downward-pointing arrow is visible while in Copy Mode.

While in Copy Mode, the session's contents will not change. You can use the keyboard to move the cursor and modify the selection using these keystrokes:

Changing Modes

Keystroke	Action
C-space	Stop selecting
Esc, q, C-c, C-g	Exit copy mode
C-v	Toggle rectangular selection
Space, v	Toggle selection by character
V	Toggle selection by line

Basic Movement

Keystroke	Action
h, Left arrow	Move left
j, Down arrow	Move down
k, Up arrow	Move up
l, Right arrow	Move right

Content-Based Movement

Keystroke	Action
Meta-Left arrow, M-b, Shift-tab, b	Move back one word, treating symbols as word breaks.
M-Right arrow, M-f, Tab, w	Move forward one word, treating symbols as word breaks.
B	Move back one word, treating symbols as part of a word.
W	Move forward one word, treating symbols as part of a word.
[	Move to previous mark
]	Move to next mark

Screen Movement

Keystroke	Action
C-b, Page Up	Move up one screen
C-f, Page Down	Move down one screen
H	Move to top of visible area
M	Move to middle of visible area
L	Move to bottom of visible area

Line Movement

Keystroke	Action
^, M-m	Move to start of indentation
0	Move to start of line
$	Move to end of line
Return	Move to start of next line

Document Movement

Keystroke	Action
g	Move to start
G	Move to end

Other Commands

Keystroke	Action
o	Swap cursor and other selection endpoint
C-k, y	Copy selection

Menu Items

iTerm2 Menu

iTerm2 > Show Tip of the Day

When you start using iTerm2 it will offer to show you a daily tip describing a feature. You can show a tip immediately by selecting this item.

iTerm2 > Check for Updates

Checks to see if a new version of iTerm2 is available. If Settings > General > Prompt for test-release updates is turned on then this includes beta versions; otherwise only stable versions are downloaded.

iTerm2 > Toggle Debug Logging

This saves helpful debugging information in memory. When it is toggled off it is saved to /tmp/debuglog.txt.

iTerm2 > Copy Performance Stats

This copies information about drawing speed to the pasteboard. This is useful when reporting issues relating to poor performance.

iTerm2 > Capture GPU Frame

This saves information about how the current session is drawn. This is useful when reporting issues relating to drawing errors in the GPU renderer.

iTerm2 > Secure Keyboard Entry

When this is enabled, the operating system will prevent other programs running on your computer from being able to see what you are typing. If you're concerned that untrusted programs might try to steal your passwords, you can turn this on, but it may disable global hotkeys in other programs.

iTerm2 > Make iTerm2 Default Term

Makes iTerm2 the default terminal for opening .command, .tool, .zsh, .csh, and .pl files.

iTerm2 > Make Terminal Default Term

You must hold down Option for this entry to be visible. Makes Terminal.app the default terminal for opening .command, .tool, .zsh, .csh, and .pl files.

iTerm2 > Install Shell Integration

This opens a window that guides you through the installation of the Shell Integration features.

Shell Menu

Shell > New Window/Tab

This creates a new window or tab with the default profile. If the current session is a tmux integration session, then you will be prompted for whether to create a local or tmux session.

Shell > New Tab with Current Profile

This creates a new tab using the same profile as the current session rather than the default profile.

Shell > Duplicate Tab

Creates another tab with the same arrangement of split panes, profile, etc.

Shell > Split Vertically/Horizontally

These menu items allow you to divide a tab into two or more split panes. The panes can be adjusted by dragging the line that divides them. They will use the default profile.

Shell > Split Vertically/Horizontally with Current Profile

These menu items allow you to divide a tab into two or more split panes. The panes can be adjusted by dragging the line that divides them. They will use the profile of the current session.

Shell > Save Selected Text

Saves the selected text to a file.

Shell > Close

Terminates the current session.

Shell > Close Terminal Window

Terminates all sessions in the current window.

Shell > Close All Panes in Tab

Terminates all sessions in the current tab.

Shell > Broadcast Input > ...

These options allow you to send keyboard input to more than one session. Be careful.

Send input to current session only: The default setting.
Broadcast to all panes in all tabs: Anything you type on the keyboard goes to all sessions in this window.
Broadcast to all panes in current tab: Anything you type on the keyboard goes to all sessions in this tab.
Toggle broadcast input to current session: Toggles whether this session receives broadcasted keystrokes within this window.
Show Background Pattern Indicator: If selected, sessions receiving broadcast input get an obnoxious red-stripe background.

Shell > tmux > ...

These commands let you interact with the tmux integration

Detach: Detaches from the tmux session associated with the current pane. It remains running in the tmux server.
New tmux Window/Tab: Creates a new tmux window, which appears in either a native window or tab, as requested. 8 Dashboard: The tmux dashboard is a view that lets you see all your tmux sessions and windows at a glance, adjust which are visible, rename them, and change the current tmux session.

Edit Menu

Edit > Undo Close Session/Tab/Window

After you close a session, tab, or window then you have five seconds to undo it. The amount of time is configurable in Settings > Profiles > Session.

Edit > Copy (With Styles)

Hold down Option to turn Copy into Copy With Styles, which includes fonts and color information in the copied text.

Edit > Copy with Control Sequences

Copies the selected text, including control sequences that will reproduce the appearance (bold, colors, etc.) of the copied text when pasted into a terminal. Note that these will not be exactly the control sequences that were originally received, but instead a reconstruction that has the same effect.

Edit > Copy Mode

Enters Copy Mode which lets you make selections using the keyboard. See Copy Mode for details.

Edit > Paste Special > Advanced Paste

This opens the Advanced Paste window which lets you select a string from the pasteboard in recent history, select different representations of the current pasteboard, and modify the string before pasting it. You can modify it by appling a regex substitution, using various built-in modifiers (such as base-64 encoding), or edit it by hand.

Edit > Paste Special > Paste Selection

Pastes the currently selected text (which may differ from the text in the pasteboard).

Edit > Paste Special > Paste File Base64-Encoded

If there is a file on the pasteboard then this is enabled. When invoked, it base64-encodes the file and pastes the encoded value.

Edit > Paste Special > Paste Escaping Special Characters

"Paste Escaping Special Characters" pastes the current string in the clipboard, but places a backslash before spaces and backslashes.

Edit > Paste Special > Paste Slowly

"Paste Slowly" pastes the current string in the clipboard, but it doesn't send the whole string at once. It is sent in batches of 16 bytes with a 125ms delay between batches.

Edit > Paste Special > Paste Faster/Slower

Adjusts the speed of pasting to be faster or slower.

Edit > Paste Special > Paste Slowly Faster/Slower

Adjusts the speed of slow pasting to be faster or slower. You must hold down option for this menu item to be visible.

Edit > Paste Special > Warn Before Multi-Line Paste

When enabled, you'll be warned before pasting more than one line.

Edit > Paste Special > Limit Multi-Line Paste To Shell Prompt

If Warn Before Multi-Line Paste is on, then this restricts it to warn only when you're at the shell prompt. It only works if shell integration is installed, since otherwise iTerm2 cannot tell when you're at the shell prompt.

Edit > Paste Special > Warn Before Pasting One Line Ending in a Newline at Shell Prompt

This requires shell integration to be installed to work. If you try to paste one line that ends in a newline while at the shell prompt and this is enabled, you'll get a confirmation dialog before the text is pasted.

Edit > Snippets

Gives access to Snippets, which are saved bits of text that can be pasted quickly. You can change snippets in Prefs>Shortcuts>Snippets.

Edit > Actions

Gives access to Actions, which are user-defined actions similar to those that can be bound to a keystroke. You can change actions in Prefs>Shortcuts>Actions.

Edit > Selection Respects Soft Boundaries

When enabled, vertical lines of pipe characters | will be interpreted as pane dividers (as in vim or emacs) and selection will wrap at them.

Edit > Select Output of Last Command

Requires shell integration to be installed. Selects the output of the last command.

Edit > Select Current Command

Requires shell integration to be installed. Selects the text of the current command entered at the command prompt.

Edit > Find > Find

Opens or focuses the find panel. Select the down arrow to the left of the search field to open the options menu, which lets you select case insensitivity and regular expression options. The default case sensitivity option of "Smart Case Sensitivity" performs a case-sensitive search if the search query contains any upper case letters. Otherwise, a case-insensitive search is performed.

Edit > Find > Find Globally

Opens a window that lets you search all tabs at once.

Edit > Find > Find URLs

Searches the current session for URLish looking strings.

Edit > Marks and Annotations > Set Mark

Records the current scroll position. Use Edit > Jump to Mark to restore the scroll position.

Edit > Marks and Annotations > Add Annotation at Cursor

Adds an annotation to the word beginning at the cursor. An annotation is a scratchpad for you to write notes about a chunk of text in your history.

Edit > Marks and Annotations > Alerts > Alert on Next Mark

When a mark is set (typically by Shell Integration when the currently running shell command terminates) then show an alert.

Edit > Clear Buffer

Clears the entire terminal history and the mutable area.

Edit > Clear Scrollback Buffer

Clears scrollback history, preserving the mutable area.

View Menu

View > Show Tabs in Fullscreen

If enabled, tabs are shown in fullscreen windows.

View > Toggle Full Screen

Enters or exists full screen mode. iTerm2 supports both the standard macoS full screen mode, where the window occupies its own Space, and its traditional full screen mode that shares a Space with other windows. You can control which is used in Settings > General > Native full screen windows.

View > Use Transparency

This toggles transparency. It only has an effect if you have configured your session to be transparent under Settings > Profiles > Window > Transparency. When Full Screen mode is entered, transparency is turned off by default, but you can select this menu item to re-enable it.

View > Zoom In on Selection

When a selection is present this is enabled. Zooming on a selection removes all other text from the session and lets you focus on just the zoomed-in-on text. Pressing escape will invoke Zoom Out when you are in the Zoom In state.

View > Zoom Out

Exits the Zoom In on Selection mode.

View > Find Cursor

Reveals the current cursor position.

View > Show Cursor Guide

Toggles the visiblity of the cursor guide which is a horizontal rule showing the location of the cursor.

View > Show Timestamps

Indicate the time of last modification of each line on the screen.

View > Show Annotations

Toggles the visibility of annotations.

View > Auto Command Completion

Automatically shows a window with command completion suggestions as you type. Only usable when you have command history built up with Shell Integration.

View > Auto Composer

Replaces the shell prompt with a macOS native text editing control. It offers filename and command completion, including over ssh when using SSH Integration. It requires Shell Integration to be installed in order to work.

View > Open Quickly

If you have lots of sessions you can quickly find the one you're looking for with Open Quickly. Select the View > Open Quickly menu item (cmd-shift-O) and then enter a search query. You can search by tab title, command name, host name, user name, profile name, directory name, badge label, and more. Queries are scored according to relevance and sorted by score. Open Quickly also lets you create new tabs, change the current session's profile, and open arrangements. If you start your query with a / then that gives you a shortcut to various commands. /a followed by an arrangement name restores the arrangement. /f restricts the query to existing sessions, excluding options to open new tabs, etc. /p restrics the query to profile names to switch the current session to. /t restricts the results to "open new tab" for matching profile names.

View > Maximize Active Pane

When there are split panes present, this toggles whether a given pane expands to fill the tab. When a maximized pane is present, the tab will be inscribed with a dotted outline.

View > Start Instant Replay

Stepping through time allows you to see what was on the screen at a previous time. This is different than going back through the scrollback buffer, as interactive programs sometimes overwrite the screen contents without having them scroll back. Once in this mode, you can use the left and right arrow keys to step back and forward, respectively. The "esc" key exits this mode, as does clicking the close button in the bar that appears on the bottom. You can adjust the amount of memory dedicated to this feature in Settings > Instant Replay uses xx MB per session. The more memory you assign, the further back in time you can step.

View > Tab Color

Allows you to select a tint color for the tab, to make it easier to distinguish. You can also change the tab color in Settings > Profiles > Colors.

Session Menu

Session > Edit Session

This opens a window that lets you change the settings of the current session without affecting any other sessions. Changes made in this panel will not be overridden by subsequent changes to the profile. Settings not cahnged in this panel will be affected by changes to the profile.

Session > Run/Stop Coprocess

Allows you to start and stop a coprocess linked to the current session. Learn more about coprocesses.

Session > Restart Session

After a session ends (e.g., because the shell exits) this menu item becomes enabled. It will re-run your profile's command in the same viewport as the terminated session.

Session > Open Autocomplete...

Shows the autocomplete window, which offers to finish typing a word that you've begun. Learn more about autocomplete on highlights page.

Session > Open Command History...

If you use Shell Integration then Open Command History presents a list of recently used commands to select from.

Session > Open Recent Directories...

If you use Shell Integration then Open Recent Directories presents a list of recently used directories to select from.

Session > Open Paste History...

"Open Paste History" opens a window showing up to the last 20 values that were copied or pasted in iTerm2. You can search its contents by typing a (non-necessarily-consecutive) subsequence of characters that appear in the value. You can use arrow keys and enter to make a selection, or you can click on an item to choose it, and it will be pasted. If you enable the Save copy/pate history to disk preference then these values will persist across sessions of iTerm2.

Session > Reset

Resets the internal state of the emulator and clears the screen. Use this if you get wedged in a bad state, like the wrong character set or mouse reporting mode is stuck.

Session > Log > Start/Stop

Logging saves all input received in a session to a file on disk.

Session > Bury Session/Buried Sessions

Buries or unburies a session. See Buried Sessions for details.

Scripts Menu

If you have scripts located in $HOME/Library/Application Support/iTerm2/Scripts they'll be added to this menu. The menu will not exist if there are no scripts.

For backward compatibility, $HOME/Library/Application Support/iTerm/Scripts will be used if $HOME/Library/Application Support/iTerm2/Scripts does not exist.

Profiles Menu

This menu contains a list of profiles. Selecting one opens it in a new tab. Hold option while selecting a profile to open it in a new window, instead.

Profiles > Open Profiles...

This opens the "Profiles Window" which allows you to create new windows, tabs, or panes from one or more profiles. You can perform a search by entering text in the search field. Profile names and tags are searched, and the listed profiles are filtered as you type. You can use the up and down arrow keys to make a selection. Pressing enter will open a new tab, while shift-enter will open a new window. You can make multiple selections by holding down shift or cmd and clicking on profiles. The "New Tabs in New Window" button is enabled only when more than one profile is selected: it will open a new window and create a new tab for each profile selected.

Profiles > Open All

Opens all profiles in tabs (or in windows, if Option is pressed).

Toolbelt Menu

Toolbelt > Set Default Width

Saves the current window's toolbelt width as the default width for new windows' toolbelts.

Toolbelt > Captured Output

This toggles the visibilty of the Captured Output tool. It shows captured output located with the Capture Output trigger. See Captured Output for more information.

Toolbelt > Command History

This toggles the visibility of the Command History tool. It shows recently used commands. You must install Shell Integration for this to know your command history.

Toolbelt > Show Toolbelt

This toggles the visibility of the Toolbelt on the right side of all windows.

Toolbelt > Jobs

This toggles the visibility of the Jobs tool, which shows the running jobs in the current session, and allows you to send them signals.

Toolbelt > Notes

This toggles the visibility of the Notes tool, which provides a freeform scratchpad in the toolbelt.

Toolbelt > Paste History

This toggles the visibility of the Paste History tool, which shows recently pasted strings in the toolbelt.

Toolbelt > Profiles

This toggles the visibility of the Profiles tool, which lets you select profiles to open new windows, tabs, and split panes.

Toolbelt > Recent Directories

This toggles the visibility of the Recent Directories tool. It shows recently used directories sorted by a combination of recency and frequency of use. You must install Shell Integration for this to know your directory history. You can right click a directory to open a context menu that allows you to "start" a directory. This keeps it pinned at the bottom of the list so it's easy to find.

Window Menu

Window > Save/Restore Window Arrangement

The current state and positions of windows, tabs, and spit panes is recorded and saved to disk with Save Window Arrangement. Restore Window Arrangement opens a new collection of windows having the saved state. You can automatically restore the arrangement in Settings > General > Open saved window arrangement.

Window > Restore Window Arrangement as Tabs

Restores the windows in the selected window arrangement as tabs in the current window.

Window > Password Manager

Opens the password manager.

Hotkeys

A hotkey is a keypress that iTerm2 responds to even if another application is active. iTerm2 recognizes three kinds of hotkeys: Toggle All Windows, Session Hotkeys, and Profile Hotkeys.

Toggle All Windows

This hotkey shows or hides all iTerm2 windows. It does not change their positions. It is meant for quickly switching between iTerm2 and other applications. Configure this in Settings > Keys > Show/hide all windows with a system-wide hotkey. Turn on the checkbox and then click in the text field beneath it and type the hotkey you'd like to use.

Session Hotkeys

You can assign a hotkey to a particular session. Select Session > Edit Session to modify properties of the current session. The preference window will open, and at the bottom of the General tab is a field where you can set a hotkey that opens iTerm2 to reveal that session.

Dedicated Hotkey Windows

A dedicated hotkey window is a window that is associated with a profile and has a hotkey attached to it. By pressing the hotkey, the window opens or closes. This is similar to the old Visor app. In its simplest form, it's a system-wide terminal window that you can open with a hotkey. iTerm2 allows you to assign multiple hotkeys to a single profile or even a single hotkey to multiple profiles. You can also assign the double-tap of a modifier.

To create your first dedicated hotkey window, go to Settings > Keys and click Create a Dedicated Hotkey Window. This will create a new profile called Hotkey Window. You'll be prompted to configure the window. The following settings are available:

Pin hotkey window: If selected, the hotkey window remains open when another window gets keyboard focus. When off, the window will automatically hide when you select another window (whether in iTerm2 or another app)
Automatically reopen on app activation: If selected, this dedicated hotkey window will reveal itself when iTerm2 is activated (such as by clicking the dock icon or another iTerm2 window).
Animate showing and hiding: Controls whether hotkey windows animate in and out or quickly jump-cut in and out.
Floating window: When selected, the dedicated hotkey window can appear over other apps' full screen windows (provided the profile's Window > Space setting is All Spaces). Floating windows overlap the dock.
On Dock icon click: This setting configures what happens when the dock icon is clicked.

If you want to assign multiple hotkeys to a single dedicated hotkey window, add them by clicking Additional Hotkeys.

You can configure an existing hotkey window by clicking Configure Hotkey Window in Prefs > Profiles > Keys.

tmux Integration

iTerm2 is integrated with tmux, allowing you to enjoy a native user interface with all the benefits of tmux's persistence.

Introduction

Normally, when you use tmux, multiple virtual windows are displayed in a single "physical" window. You can manipulate the environment by issuing commands to tmux. This poses a few problems:

Some keystroke must be dedicated to tmux to enter its command mode (^B, by default, which means moving the cursor to the left in emacs or an interactive shell becomes more difficult).
You have to ssh to the remote host more than once to get more than one view of your tmux session's window.
You have to learn tmux commands.
To adjust split panes, you have to enable mouse reporting, even if you don't want it otherwise.
Some built-in features of your terminal emulator don't work as well as they would if you weren't using tmux: for instance, you can't access tmux's scrollback history as easily or quickly as you can in a normal terminal window. Also, tmux's find feature isn't as good as iTerm2's.

For many users, a terminal multiplexer would be a great way to work, but they don't want to accept the drawbacks.

iTerm2's tmux integration solves these problems.

When you run "tmux -CC", a new tmux session is created. An iTerm2 window opens and it acts like a normal iTerm2 window. The difference is that when iTerm2 quits or the ssh session is lost, tmux keeps running. You can return to the host you were ssh'ed into and run "tmux -CC attach" and the iTerm2 windows will reopen in the same state they were in before. A few use cases come to mind:

For users who do most of their work in ssh:

Restore the environment you had at work when you get home.
No more anxiety about letting System Update reboot!

For everyone:

Collaborate with another user by having two people attach to the same tmux session.

Usage

You should be able to use tmux as always. Just add the -CC argument to its invocation. In practice, this means running one of these commands:

tmux -CC
tmux -CC attach

When you run tmux -CC, what you'll see on that terminal is a menu:

** tmux mode started **

Command Menu
----------------------------
esc    Detach cleanly.
  X    Force-quit tmux mode.
  L    Toggle logging.
  C    Run tmux command.

If you press esc, the tmux windows will close and the tmux client will exit.
If you press esc and nothing happens, then the tmux client may have crashed or something else has gone wrong. Press "X" to force iTerm2 to exit tmux mode. You may need to run "stty sane" to restore your terminal's state if the tmux client did crash.
If you want to report a bug, press L and reproduce the issue. The tmux protocol commands will be written to the screen.
If you want to run a tmux command that isn't available through the menus, you can press C. A dialog box opens and you can enter a command. For example, "new-window".

In general, you don't need to run commands to perform the most common actions. The following iTerm2 actions affect tmux:

Close a session, tab, or window: Kills the tmux session or window.
Split a pane: Splits the tmux window using the split-window command.
Resize a split pane: Resizes tmux split panes using the resize-pane command.
Resize a window: Tells tmux that the client size has changed, causing all windows to resize. Windows are never larger than the smallest attached client. A gray area on the right or bottom of a window indicates that a physical window is larger than the maximum allowed tmux window size. One consequence of this rule is that all tmux windows/tabs will contain the same number of rows and columns.
Create a window or tab using the Shell->tmux menu: Creates a new tmux window.
Detach using Shell->tmux->Detach: Detaches from the tmux session. All tmux windows are closed. You can get them back with tmux -CC attach.

Limitations

There are a few limitations of tmux integration which are related to the design of tmux.

A tab with a tmux window may not contain non-tmux split panes.
A tab with split panes may have "empty" areas. This is because tmux wants every tmux window to be the same size, but our split pane dividers are not exactly one cell by one cell in size.

Configuration

Check Settings > General > tmux for configuration settings. You can also adjust whether to open the tmux Dashboard when connecting to a session with a large number of windows. You can open the tmux Dashboard by selecting the menu item Shell > tmux > Dashboard.

See also the tmux section of General Settings.

Best Practices

For practical tips on how to configure iTerm2 for use with tmux integration in the real world, please see tmux Integration Best Practices.

Touch Bar

As with many applications, you may customize the controls on the touch bar with View > Customize Touch Bar. The following controls are available:

Man Page

Opens the manpage for the command behind the cursor.

Color Preset

When selected, this opens a scrollable list of color presets. Choosing one changes the current terminal's colors to use the preset.

Function Keys

There are two function keys controls. The first, labeled Function Keys Popover, opens a scrollable list of function keys when pressed. It is compact but requires two taps to press a function key. The second, labeled Function Keys, shows a scrollable list of function keys at all times. It takes more space but is quicker to use.

If you install Shell Integration and Utilities, then you'll get a command it2setkeylabel that lets you configure what each function key's label says. You can configure each application you use (such as vim or emacs) to set the labels appropriately.

Add Mark

The Add Mark touch bar control saves the current location in history. You can navigate among marks with Cmd-Shift-Up and Cmd-Shift-Down. There are also touch bar controls to navigate marks.

Next/Previous Mark

Navigates to the next or previous mark. If you have Shell Integration installed, each command prompt inserts a mark, so the previous mark is usually the previous shell prompt.

Autocomplete Suggestions

If you have Shell Integration installed, iTerm2 can remember you command history. That history is used to make suggestions for commands, which appear in this touch bar control.

Status

The status touch bar control shows a user-configurable message. If you install Shell Integration and Utilities, then you'll get a command it2setkeylabel that lets you configure what the status control says. For example, it could display the git branch of the current directory. Tapping it scrolls to the location where the status was last changed.

For example, suppose you want to show your current git branch in the touch bar.

Select the menu item View > Customize Touch Bar
Drag "Your Message Here" button into the touch bar
Modify PS1 to include \[$(it2setkeylabel set status "$message")\]. For example:

PS1='\s-\v\$\[$(~/.iterm2/it2setkeylabel set status \
"$(test -d .git && (git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD) || (echo -n "Not a repo"))")\] '

Custom Buttons

You can define custom touch bar buttons in Prefs > Keys > Add Touch Bar Item. You can then add the item to you touch bar from View > Customize Touch Bar.

Shell Integration

iTerm2 may be integrated with the unix shell so that it can keep track of your command history, current working directory, host name, and more--even over ssh. This enables several useful features.

Shell integration is compatible with zsh, bash, fish (2.3 and later), and tcsh.

How To Enable Shell Integration

This section describes the four ways to enable shell integration:

Load it automatically.
Use the Install Shell Integration menu item.
Install it by hand.
Configure triggers appropriately.

Load Automatically

In iTerm2 version 3.5 and later you can enable shell integration by enabling Load shell integration automatically in Settings > Profiles > General in the Command section. This is available if your Command is set to SSH or if it's set to Login Shell and your shell is supported.

Install Shell Integration Menu Item

To modify your shell's dotfiles to load shell integration, you can select the menu item iTerm2 > Install Shell Integration. You'll first be asked whether you wish to install the Utilities. Utilities consist of a number of shell scripts that provide useful functionality, such as displaying inline images, performing file transfer, or customizing the display.

Next you can choose to download and run an installer or to do an internet-free install.

The download-and-run option will type this command for you:

curl -L https://iterm2.com/shell_integration/install_shell_integration.sh | bash

Alternately, select Internet-Free Install. This runs a sequence of commands to determine your shell, install files, and modify your dotfiles to load shell integration automiatcally.

Install By Hand

If you prefer to have control over the process of modifying your environment, you can manually install shell integration by creating files and editing your shell's configuration. Select your shell to see the appropriate instructions:

bash | fish | tcsh | zsh

curl -L https://iterm2.com/shell_integration/bash \
-o ~/.iterm2_shell_integration.bash

Next, you need to load the script at login time. You need to add the following command to ~/.bash_profile or ~/.profile. If you already have .profile then add it there, otherwise add it to .bash_profile. Put it at the end because other scripts may overwrite the settings it needs, such as `PROMPT_COMMAND`.

source ~/.iterm2_shell_integration.bash

curl -L https://iterm2.com/shell_integration/zsh \
-o ~/.iterm2_shell_integration.zsh

Next, you need to load the script at login time. Add this to the end of ~/.zshrc:

source ~/.iterm2_shell_integration.zsh

curl -L https://iterm2.com/shell_integration/fish \
-o ~/.iterm2_shell_integration.fish

Next, you need to load the script at login time. Add this to the end of ~/.config/fish/config.fish:

source ~/.iterm2_shell_integration.fish

curl -L https://iterm2.com/shell_integration/tcsh \
-o ~/.iterm2_shell_integration.tcsh

Next, you need to load the script at login time. Add this to the end of ~/.login:

source ~/.iterm2_shell_integration.tcsh

Triggers

Installing a login script on every host you connect to is not always an option. To be sure, modifying root's login script is usually a bad idea. In these cases you can get the benefits of shell integration by defining triggers. The following triggers are of interest:

Report User & Host
Report Directory
Prompt Detected

Use these triggers to tell iTerm2 your current username, hostname, directory, and the location of the shell prompt. Suppose you have a shell prompt that looks like this:

[email protected]:/home/george%

It exposes the username, hostname, and working directory. We can harvest those with a regular expression. First, define a trigger with this regex:

^(\w+)@([\w.]+):.+%

It captures the username and hostname from the example prompt above. Select the action "Report User & Host". Set the trigger's parameter to:

\1@\2

Then create another trigger with the action Report Directory. This regular expression will extract the directory from the example prompt:

^\w+@[\w.]+:([^%]+)%

Set this trigger's parameter to

\1

Make sure both triggers have their Instant checkbox enabled so they'll take effect before a newline is received.

Finally, add a regular expression that matches the start of your prompt and give the "Prompt Detected" action. This causes a "mark" to be added, which is a blue triangle visible to the left of this line (or a horizontal line above, if Auto Composer is enabled).

You may specify a user name or host name alone to Report Host & User. If you give just a user name then the previous host name will be preserved; if you give just a host name then the previous user name will be preserved. To change the user name only, give a parameter like user@. To change the host name only, give a parameter like example.com.

Features

Shell Integration enables numerous features:

Marks

These are saved locations in history. They make it easy to navigate to previous shell prompts or other locations of interest.

Select Output of Last Command

The menu item under Edit selects the output of the last-run command.

Alert when current command finishes running.

iTerm2 will present a modal alert when a long-running command finishes, if you ask it to.

View information about commands.

You can see the return status code, working directory, running time, and more for shell commands entered at the prompt in the past.

Download files from remote hosts with a click.

You can right click on a filename (e.g., in the output of ls) to download it.

Drag-drop files to upload with scp.

Hold down option and drag-drop a file from Finder into iTerm2 to upload it.

View command history.

It can be seen and searched in the toolbelt or quickly accessed in a popup window.

Easy access to recently and frequently used directories.

iTerm2 remembers the directories you use, sorting them by "frecency" and giving you access to them in the toolbelt and in a popup window.

Assign profiles to hostnames, usernames, or username+hostname combinations.

Sessions will automatically switch profiles as you log in and out according to rules you define.

Ensures the command prompt always starts at the left column, even when the last command didn't end in a newline.

Each of these features are described in more detail below.

Offscreen Command Line

When part of a command's output is scrolled off the top of the screen, the originating prompt is shown there.

Auto Composer

Auto Composer replaces your shell's prompt with a macOS-native text view that uses native editing conventions.

Command Selection

Click on a command to select it; then Find, Filter, and Select All will be restricted to that command's output.

How it works

Shell Integration works by configuring your shell on each host you log into to send special escape codes that convey the following information:

Where the command prompt begins and ends.
Where a command entered at the command prompt ends and its output begins.
The return code of the last-run command.
Your username.
The current host name.
The current directory.

How to use it

Marks

When shell integration is enabled, iTerm2 automatically adds a mark at each command prompt. Marks are indicated visually by a small blue triangle in the left margin.

You can navigate marks with Cmd-Shift-Up and Down-arrow keys.

If you have a multi-line prompt and would like to customize the mark's location, add this to your PS1 at the location where the mark should appear:

For zsh:

%{$(iterm2_prompt_mark)%}

For bash:

\[$(iterm2_prompt_mark)\]

Fish users can place this line somewhere in their fish_prompt function:

iterm2_prompt_mark

This feature is not supported in tcsh.

For zsh and bash users: if you are unable to modify PS1 directly (for example, if you use a zsh theme that wants to control PS1), you must take an extra step. Add export ITERM2_SQUELCH_MARK=1 before the shell integration script is sourced. Add the iterm2_prompt_mark as directed above to your prompt through those means available to you.

Alert on next mark

iTerm2 can show an alert box when a mark appears. This is useful when you start a long-running command. Select Edit>Marks and Annotations>Alert on next mark (Cmd-Opt-A) after starting a command, and you can go do something else in another window or tab. When the command prompt returns, a modal alert will appear, calling attention to the finished job.

Command status

The mark on a command line will turn red if a command fails. You can right click the mark to view its return code.

Download with scp

You can right-click on a filename (e.g., in the output of ls) and select Download with scp from hostname, and iTerm2 will download the file for you.

A new menu bar item will be added called Downloads that lets you view downloaded files and track their progress.

Upload with scp

If you drop a file (e.g., from Finder) into iTerm2 while holding the option key, iTerm2 will offer to upload the file via scp to the remote host into the directory you were in on the line you dropped the file on. A new menu bar item will be added called Uploads that lets you view uploaded files and track their progress.

Command history

With shell integration, iTerm2 can track your command history. The command history is stored separately for each username+hostname combination. There are four places where this is exposed in the UI:

Command history popup

You can view and search the command history with Session>Open Command History... (Shift-Cmd-;).

Autocomplete

Commands in command history are also added to Autocomplete (Cmd-;). If Settings>General>Save copy/paste history and command history to disk is enabled, then command history will be preserved across runs of iTerm2 (up to 200 commands per user/hostname).

Toolbelt

A command history tool may be added to the toolbelt by selecting Toolbelt>Command History.

Bold commands are from the current session. Clicking on one will scroll to reveal it. Double-clicking enters the command for you. Option-double-clicking will output a "cd" command to go to the directory you were in when it was last run.

Command Completion

iTerm2 will present command completion suggestions automatically when View>Auto Command Completion is selected.

Recent Directories

With shell integration, iTerm2 will remember which directories you have used recently. The list of preferred directories is stored separately for each username+hostname combination. It is sorted by "frecency" (frequency and recency of use). There are two places it is exposed in the UI:

Recent Directories popup

You can view and search your recently and frequently used directories in Session>Open Recent Directories... (Cmd-Opt-/).

Toolbelt

A Recent Directories tool may be added to the toolbelt by selecting Toolbelt>Recent Directories.

Double-clicking a directory will type its path for you into the current terminal. Option-double-click will enter a "cd" command for you. You can also right-click on a directory to toggle its "starred" status. A starred directory will always appear at the bottom of the list so it is easy to find.

Automatic Profile Switching

Please see the documentation at Automatic Profile Switching.

Shell Integration for root

If you'd like to be able to use shell integration as root, you have two options. The first option, presuming you use bash, is to become root with sudo -s (which loads your .bashrc as root) and add this to your .bashrc:

test $(whoami) == root && source "${HOME}/.iterm2_shell_integration.bash"

The alternative is to use Triggers to emulate shell integration as described above.

Limitations

By default, shell Integration does not work with tmux or screen. If you'd like to use it with tmux, add this to your login script prior to loading shell integration:

export ITERM_ENABLE_SHELL_INTEGRATION_WITH_TMUX=1

It works well with tmux integration (tmux -CC) but not with the regular tmux UI.

A Note on SCP

iTerm2 can do uploads and downloads with scp as described above. There are a few things you should know.

iTerm2 links in libssh2, and does not shell out to scp. It respects /etc/known_hosts and ~/.ssh/known_hosts, and will update the latter file appropriately. Host fingerprints are verified. Password, keyboard-interactive, and public-key authentication are supported. Private keys by default come from ~/.ssh/id_rsa, id_dsa, id_ed25519, or id_ecdsa, and may be encrypted with an optional passphrase.

iTerm2 respects ssh_config files, but only a subset of the commands are understood:

Host
HostName
User
Port
IdentityFile

Settings pulled from ssh_config override the hostname and user name provided by shell integration. The shell integration-provided host name is used as the text against which Host patterns are matched.

The following files are parsed as ssh_config files, in order of priority:

~/Library/Application Support/iTerm/ssh_config
~/.ssh/config
/etc/ssh_config

If you have trouble, see SCP Not Connecting on the wiki.

If you use SSH Integration then file transfer happens over the SSH Integration framing protocol rather than by using scp. This is generally more reliable because it doesn't require opening a new connection.

Smart Selection

iTerm2 offers a Smart Selection feature that simplifies making selections on semantically recognizable objects.

How do I use Smart Selection?

A quad-click (four clicks of the left mouse button in quick succession) activates Smart Selection at the mouse cursor's position. By default, the following kinds of strings are recognized:

Words bounded by whitespace or line boundaries.
C++-style pairs of identifiers separated by double colons, such as "namespace::identifier".
Filesystem paths, such as "/foo/bar/baz.txt".
Quoted strings such as "foo bar".
Java or Python-style include paths, such as "foo.bar.baz".
URIs with the schemes: mailto, http, https, ssh, or telnet.
Objective-C selectors like "@selector(foo:bar:)".
Email addresses.

How do I Change Smart Selection Rules?

Under Settings>Profiles>Advanced, you may edit the smart selection rules. In addition to a regular expression, each rule also has a Precision attribute, which takes a value of Very Low, Low, Normal, High, or Very High. Intuitively, it refers to how sure one can be that when a rule's regular expression finds a match that it is what the user intended. For example, the "Word" rule is low precision (it matches almost every time), while the "HTTP URL" rule is very high precision (it almost never produces false positives). This allows the "HTTP URL" rule to take precedence when both match, unless the "Word" rule matches a much longer string. That might happen, for instance, if there were a non-URL character after a URL followed by a lot more text. The precision levels have a very strong effect, so it's very rare for a lower precision rule to take precedence over a higher precision rule.

When editing rules, it is advised that you experiment with different precision levels and different kinds of strings to find one that works well. A collection of test cases may be found at smart_selection_cases.txt.

When Smart Selection is activated, iTerm2 tries each regular expression. For a given regex, various strings on the screen are tested until the longest match is found. Only matches that include the character under the cursor are of interest. The longest such match is added to a pool of "selection candidates". Each candidate is assigned a score equal to its length in characters. Among the candidates in the highest precision class (where Very High is the highest class and Very Low is the lowest) with any matches, the higheset scoring one is used as the selection.

Actions

Actions may be associated with smart selection rules. When you right click in a terminal, smart selection is performed at the cursor's location. Any smart selection rule that matches that location will be searched for associated actions, and those actions will be added to the context menu. A cmd-click on text matching a smart selection rule will invoke the first rule.

The following actions are defined:

Open File: Opens the file using the default system application.
Open URL: Opens the URL using the default system browser.
Run Command: Runs the command using /bin/sh -c in the background. Output goes to the Script Console.
Run Coprocess: Starts a coprocess.
Send Text: Sends text as though it was typed by the user.
Run Command in Window: Opens a new window and runs the command in it.
Copy: Copies the string to the pasteboard.

Each action has a parameter. The meaning of the parameter depends on the action. For example, for the Open URL action the parameter should be a URL. The value you put in the Parameter field may contain special substrings which get substituted with values determined at runtime. By default, a legacy syntax is used with the following substitutions:

\0: The full text of the match.
\1: The first match group (captured using parentheses in the regular expression).
\2...\9: Subsequent match groups.
\d: The current directory.
\u: The current user name. If you're sshed then you must install Shell Integration for this to be known.
\h: The current host name. If you're sshed then you must install Shell Integration for this to be known.

If you check the Use interpolated strings for parameters checkbox, then a more modern syntax is used. See the interpolated string documentation for details. For example, a parameter of \(path) is equivalent to the legacy syntax \d. In addition to the standard variables that are available in an interpolated string evaluated in a Session context, an array of strings called matches is defined. matches[0] is the full text of the match and matches[i] is the ith capture group for i > 0.

Regular Expressions

Regular expressions conform to the ICU regular expressions rules.

Triggers

A trigger is an action that is performed when text matching some regular expression is received in a terminal session.

How to Create a Trigger

To create a trigger, open the Settings panel. Select the Profiles tab. Choose the profile to which you wish to add a trigger. Then select the Advanced tab. Click the Edit button in the Triggers section. A panel opens that displays any existing triggers. You can click the + button to add a new trigger.

Triggers have a regular expression, an action, an optional parameter, and may be marked as Instant.

Regular Expression

Regular expressions conform to the ICU regular expressions rules. Text that is written to the screen including the BEL control code are sent to the regex matcher for evaluation. Only one line at a time is matched. By default, matching is performed when a newline or cursor-moving escape code is processed. If a line is very long, then only the last three wrapped lines are used (that is, the last three lines as seen on the display). This is done for performance reasons. You can change this limit in Advanced Settings > Number of screen lines to match against trigger regular expressions.

Actions

The following actions are available:

Bounce Dock Icon: Makes the dock icon bounce until the iTerm2 window becomes key.
Capture Output: Save the line to the Captured Output toolbelt tool. See Captured Output. The parameter is text to send (as though it had been typed) when you double-click on an entry in the Captured Output tool.
Highlight Text: The text matching the regex in the trigger will change color. The parameter sets the color.
Make Hyperlink: The text matching the regex in the trigger will become a hyperlink which you can open with Cmd-Click. The parameter sets the URL.
Open Password Manager: Opens the password manager. You can specify which account to select by default.
Post Notification: Posts a notification with Notification Center.
Prompt Detected: Informs iTerm2 that the shell prompt begins at the start of the match. Used to emulate Shell Integration features. If the prompt is one line long then use Instant.
Report Directory: Tells iTerm2 what your current directory is. You can use this to enable Shell Integration features without installing the scripts. The parameter is your current directory.
Report User & Host: Tells iTerm2 what your user or host name is. You can use this to enable Shell Integration features without installing the scripts. To specify just a user name, say `user@`. For just a host, say `@host`. For both, say `user@host`.
Ring Bell: Plays the standard system bell sound once.
Run Command: Runs a user-defined command.
Run Coprocess: Runs a Coprocess.
Send Text: Sends user-defined text back to the terminal as though the user had typed it.
Set Mark: Sets a mark. You can specify whether you'd like the display to stop scrolling after the trigger fires.
Set Title: Sets the session's title.
Show Alert: Shows an alert box with user-defined text.
Stop Processing Triggers: When this action is invoked no triggers further down the list will be invoked for the current text.

Parameter?

Various actions (Run Command, Run Coprocess, Post Notification, Send Text, and Show Alert) require additional information. This is specified in the "Parameters" field. When the paramter is a text field with freeform entry, some special values are defined:

Value	Meaning
\0	The entire value matched by the regular expression.
\1, \2, ..., \9	The nth value captured by the regular expression.
\a	A BEL character (^G).
\b	A backspace character ^H.
\e	An ESC character (ascii 27).
\n	A newline character.
\r	A linefeed character.
\t	A tab character.
\xNN	A hex value NN (for example: \x1b sends ascii code 27, an ESC).

Instant

When Instant is set, the trigger will fire once per line as soon as the match occurs, without waiting for a newline. This was added for the benefit of the Open Password Manager trigger, since password prompts usually are not followed by a newline. This may cause certain regular expressions (for example, ".*") to match less than they otherwise might.

Example

The iTerm2-zmodem project demonstrates hooking up iTerm2 to zmodem upload and download.

Captured Output

iTerm2 has a feature called "Captured Output" which helps you find and track important lines of output from logs, build processes, and such.

What does it do?

Captured Output is a tool that may be added to iTerm2's toolbelt (a view on the right side of terminal windows). It works in conjunction with user-defined Triggers. A Trigger whose action is Capture Output looks for lines of output that match its regular expression. When one is found, the entire line is added to the Captured Output tool. When the user clicks on a line in the Captured Output tool, iTerm2 scrolls to reveal that line. Double-clicking on a line in the Captured Output tools run a user-defined Coprocess.

Shell Integration Required

Shell Integration must be installed because Captured Output ties in to command history.

Ensure you have enough scrollback history to contain the full output of your build command. The default of 1000 may not be sufficient. You can adjust this in Prefs > Profiles > Terminal > Scrollback lines.

Example

One way to use Captured Output is to view compiler output. Suppose you run make and get thousands of lines of output, some of which may contain errors or warnings. You'd like to examine each one and take some action on it. Here's how you would use Captured Output to assist with this task:

Step 1: Create Triggers

Create a Trigger with the Capture Output action that matches your compiler's errors and warnings. Clang's errors look like this:

filename.c:54:9: error: use of undeclared identifier 'foo'

The following regular expression matches errors and warnings from Clang:

^([_a-zA-Z0-9+/.-]+):([0-9]+):[0-9]+: (?:error|warning):

There are two capture groups defined. We'll come back to those later.

Step 2: Open the Toolbelt

Open the Toolbelt by selecting the menu item Toolbelt > Show Toolbelt. Enable the Toolbelt > Captured Output menu item to ensure it is visible.

Step 3: Run make

Kick off the build by running make. It spits out thousands of lines of output.

Step 4: Examine the Captued Output tool

Any errors or warnings that appear in the compiler output will appear in the Captured Output tool.

Select an entry in the tool. iTerm2 scrolls to display the line and briefly highlights it in blue.

Step 5: Open the file containing the error

The Trigger created in step 1 takes an optional parameter. It is a command for iTerm2 to exceute as a Coprocess when you double-click an entry in the Captured Output tool. An example command is:

echo vim \1; sleep 0.5; echo \2G

This coprocess command assumes you are at the command line, and it enters a command to open the offending file to the line number with an error. This is where the capture groups in the regular expression from step 1 become useful. For example, if the filename was "filename.c" and the error was on line 20, as in this error message:

filename:c:20:9 error: use of undeclared identifier 'foo'

The coprocess would:

Type "vim filename.c", followed by enter, as though you were typing it at the keyboard.
Wait half a second.
Type "20G".

Step 6: Check it off the list

You can right-click on an entry in Captured Output to open a menu, which contains a single item: "Toggle Checkmark". This helps you remember which entries have been dealt with as you go through errors and warnings in your compiler output.

Navigation

Captured Output is linked to the Command History tool. If no command is selected in the Command History tool, then the most recent captured output is displayed. Otherwise, the captured output from the selected command is displayed. You can remove a selection from the Command History tool by cmd-clicking on it.

Clearing Captured Output

You can use the ClearCapturedOutput control sequence to remove captured output. This is useful to do before starting a compilation which may produce errors. Doing so ensures the only captured errors are from the most recent build. Use the following command in bash to produce the control sequence:

printf "\e]1337;ClearCapturedOutput\e\\"

Fonts

While iTerm2 does not require monospaced fonts, they look much better than proportionately spaced fonts. If you want to use Consolas, you'll need to correct its baseline offset as described at how to fix Consolas baseline.

iTerm2 has the capability of rendering text with thin strokes to improve readability. You can change how this works in the Text panel of the Profiles tab of Settings.

You can also specify the a "non-ASCII" font in the Text panel of profile Settings. This font will be used for all code points greater than or equal to 128 or for characters with combining marks.

Some fonts, such as FiraCode, support ligatures if enabled in iTerm2. You can enable ligatures in Prefs > Profiles > Text. Ligatures are rendered using CoreText, which is significantly slower than Core Graphics. NOTE: Ligatures are not supported by the GPU renderer and will reduce performance.

Inline Images

iTerm2 is able to display images within the terminal. Using a similar mechanism, it can also facilitate file transfers over any transport (such as ssh or telnet), even in a non-8-bit-clean environment.

Just want to try it out and don't care about the protocol? Use the imgcat tool. Download imgcat here

Example: imgcat

Using the imgcat script, one or more images may be displayed in a terminal session. For example:

Critically, animated GIFs are supported as of version 2.9.20150512.

Retina

Starting in iTerm2 version 3.2.0, Retina displays are properly supported. Previously, they would be double-size (one display "point" per image pixel rather than one display pixel per image pixel). If you prefer the old behavior, change Prefs > Advanced > Show inline images at Retina resolution.

Protocol

iTerm2 extends the xterm protocol with a set of proprietary escape sequences. In general, the pattern is:

ESC ] 1337 ; key = value ^G

Whitespace is shown here for ease of reading: in practice, no spaces should be used.

For file transfer and inline images, there are two control sequences. The original one, which works on all remotely modern versions of iTerm2 is:

ESC ] 1337 ; File = [optional arguments] : base-64 encoded file contents ^G

The optional arguments are formatted as key=value with a semicolon between each key-value pair. They are described below.

A new way of sending files was introduced in iTerm2 version 3.5 which works in tmux integration mode by splitting the giant control sequence into a number of smaller ones:

First, send:

ESC ] 1337 ; MultipartFile = [optional arguments] ^G

Then, send one or more of:

ESC ] 1337 ; FilePart = base64 encoded file contents ^G

What size chunks should you use? Older versions of tmux have a limit of 256 bytes for the entire sequence. In newer versions of tmux, the limit is 1,048,576 bytes. iTerm2 also imposes a limit of 1,048,576 bytes.

Finally, send:

ESC ] 1337 ; FileEnd ^G

Key		Description of value
name		base-64 encoded filename. Defaults to "Unnamed file".
size		File size in bytes. Optional; this is only used by the progress indicator.
width		Width to render. See notes below.
height		Height to render. See notes below.
preserveAspectRatio		If set to 0, then the image's inherent aspect ratio will not be respected; otherwise, it will fill the specified width and height as much as possible without stretching. Defaults to 1.
inline		If set to 1, the file will be displayed inline. Otherwise, it will be downloaded with no visual representation in the terminal session. Defaults to 0.

The width and height are given as a number followed by a unit, or the word "auto".

N: N character cells.
Npx: N pixels.
N%: N percent of the session's width or height.
auto: The image's inherent size will be used to determine an appropriate dimension.

More on File Transfers

By omitting the inline argument (or setting its value to 0), files will be downloaded and saved in the Downloads folder instead of being displayed inline. Any kind of file may be downloaded, but only images will display inline. Any image format that macOS supports will display inline, including PDF, PICT, or any number of bitmap data formats (PNG, GIF, etc.). A new menu item titled Downloads will be added to the menu bar after a download begins, where progress can be monitored and the file can be located, opened, or removed.

Sample Code

Sample code for displaying images may be found here.

imgls

Provides an augmented directory listing that includes a thumbnail of each image in a directory.

imgcat

Displays one or more images inline at their full size.

it2dl

Downloads a file, but does not display it inline.

divider

Draws a full-width, one line-tall graphical divider.

Badges

A badge is a large text label that appears in the top right of a terminal session to provide dynamic status, such as the current host name or git branch. Its initial value is defined in Settings>Profiles>General>Badge and it can be changed by an iTerm2-proprietary escape sequence. This value is an interpolated string, which means the badge can expose it can display the value of variables.

Here is an example of a session with a badge indicating the current user and host name.

Escape Sequences

The badge may be set with the following control sequence:

OSC 1337 ; SetBadgeFormat=Base-64 encoded badge format ST

Here's an example that works in bash:

# Set badge to show the current session name and git branch, if any is set.
printf "\e]1337;SetBadgeFormat=%s\a" \
  $(echo -n "\(session.name) \(user.gitBranch)" | base64)

Color

The badge's color may be set in Settings>Profiles>Colors. The font and size can be adjusted by selecting Settings>Profiles>General>Edit… next to the Badge field.

Dynamic Profiles

Dynamic Profiles is a feature that allows you to store your profiles in a file outside the usual macOS settings database. Profiles may be changed at runtime by editing one or more plist files (formatted as JSON, XML, or in binary). Changes are picked up immediately.

Availability

Dynamic Profiles are available in iTerm2 2.9.20140923 and later.

Usage

When iTerm2 starts, it creates a folder:

~/Library/Application Support/iTerm2/DynamicProfiles

While iTerm2 runs, it monitors the contents of that folder. Any time the folder's contents change, all files in it are reloaded.

Files in this folder are expected to be formatted as Apple Property Lists. No particular file extension is required. All files in the folder must be valid property lists. If any is malformed, then no changes will be processed.

Property List Format

A property list describes a data structure consisting of arrays, dictionaries, strings, integers, and boolean values. Property lists may be written in JSON or XML. Here's an example of the skeletal structure of a JSON property list that iTerm2 expects for Dynamic Profiles:

{
  "Profiles": [
    {
       [attributes for the first profile go here]
    },
    {
       [attributes for the second profile go here]
    },
    [more profiles]
  ]
}

There are two required fields for each profile:

Guid
Name

The "Guid" is a globally unique identifier. It is used to track changes to the profile over time. No other profile should ever have the same guid. One easy way to generate a Guid is to use the uuidgen program, which comes standard with macOS.

The "Name" is the name, as seen in the Profiles window or in Settings.

Here is a fully formed (but minimal) Dynamic Profiles plist:

{
  "Profiles": [
    {
      "Name": "Example",
      "Guid": "ba19744f-6af3-434d-aaa6-0a48e0969958"
    }
  ]
}

Editing

The only way to change a dynamic profile is to modify its parent profile or to modify the property list file. If you change its properties through the Settings UI those changes will not be reflected in the property list.

Attributes

Every profile preference that iTerm2 supports may be an attribute of a Dynamic Profile. Since there are dozens of attributes, you usually won't specify them all. Any attribute not specified will inherit its value from the default profile, or a specified "parent" profile (see below).

The easiest way to find the name and legal value of a profile attribute is to copy it from a known-good reference. To get the JSON for a profile you already have, follow these steps:

Open Settings > Profiles
Select a profile
Open the Other Actions menu beneath the list of profiles
Select Save Profile as JSON
Open the file in your favorite editor.

If you use this as the basis of a Dynamic Profile, remember to chantge the Guid. A Dynamic Profile with a Guid equal to an existing Guid of a regular profile will be ignored.

Parent Profiles

Normally, a dynamic profile inherits any attributes you don't explicitly specify from the default profile. You may also specify a particular profile to inherit from using the Dynamic Profile Parent Name attribute. The value it takes is a profile name (that is, the name you see listed in the list of profiles in Settings box). Profile names are not guaranteed to be unique, but they are more convenient than GUIDs. If no profile with the specified name is found, the default profile is used instead. For example:

Starting in version 3.4.9, Dynamic Profile Parent GUID is another way to specify a parent. It takes precedence over Dynamic Profile Parent Name.

{
  "Profiles": [
    {
      "Name": "Example",
      "Guid": "ba19744f-6af3-434d-aaa6-0a48e0969958",
      "Dynamic Profile Parent Name": "Light Background"
    }
  ]
}

Minutiae

Dynamic profiles are loaded in alphabetical order by filename. Within a particular file, they are loaded in the order they're listed in. This only matters if one dynamic profile references another dynamic profile as its parent; the parent should be placed so it loads before any of its children. For all other purposes, the filenames don't matter.

The Dynamic will automatically be added to all Dynamic Profiles.

Troubleshooting

If something goes wrong loading a Dynamic Profile, errors will be logged to Console.app.

Triggers

By default, Highlight triggers save colors in a large inscrutable mess of a format. For dynamic profiles, you can use {#rrggbb,#rrggbb} in place of the large inscrutable mess. The first value gives the foreground color and the second value gives the background color. Replace either #rrggbb with an empty string to not change that color. For example, to make the foreground red without changing the background use #{ff0000,}.

Example

Here's an example for a common use case: a list of profiles for sshing to various hosts. In this example, I've used the hostname as the Guid, which makes constructing this file a little easier and works well enough.

{
  "Profiles": [
    {
       "Name": "foo.example.com",
       "Guid": "foo.example.com",
       "Custom Command" : "Yes",
       "Command" : "ssh foo.example.com",
    },
    {
       "Name": "bar.example.com",
       "Guid": "bar.example.com",
       "Custom Command" : "Yes",
       "Command" : "ssh bar.example.com",
    },
  ]
}

Profile Search Syntax

When iTerm2 presents a list of profiles, it usually includes a search box. The search box uses a special syntax that letes you tailor your searches to quickly find what you're looking for.

Searching Profiles

Each word in the search query must match at least one word in either the title or the tags of a profile in order for that profile to be matched by the query. For a word to be a match, it must be a substring.

Query	Profile Name	Matches?
Linux	Linux	Yes
x	Linux	Yes
z	Linux	No
George L	George's Linux Machine	Yes

Operators

You may prefix a phrase in the search query with an operator to narrow your query. These operators are defined:

The name: operator only tries to match words in the profile's name.
The tag: operator only tries to match words in the profile's tags.
The command: operator only tries to match words in the proifle's command. Note that the command is only searched for words that explicitly use the command operator. Available in iTerm2 version 3.5.5 and later.

Quoting

You can require that two or more words occur in order by putting quotes in your query. For example:

Query	Profile Name	Matches?
"Linux machine"	George's Linux machine	Yes
"machine Linux"	Linux machine	No

Anchoring

Normally, words in a query must match a substring of a word in the title or tags of a profile. You can require that a word in your query matches a prefix of a word in the title or tags by inserting a caret (^) before the word. You can require that a word in your query matches the suffix of a word in the title or tags by appending a dollar sign ($) after the word. For example, the query ^a matches only profiles with words starting with "a". The query a$ matches words ending in "a". The query ^a$ matches only the word "a".

Query	Profile Name	Matches?
^root	[email protected]	Yes
^root	Groot!	No
root$	Groot	Yes
^root$	Groot	No
^root$	root	Yes

Combining Features

You may combine quoting, operators, and anchors. The operator always comes first, followed by a caret, followed by a quoted string, followed by a dollar sign. Consider the following examples:

name:^"George's Linux Machine"$

Three consecutive whole words in the profile's name must equal "George's Linux Machine".

name:"George's Linux Machine"$

Would match a profile named "XGeorge's Linux Machine", unlike the previous example.

name:^"George's Linux Machine"

Would match a profile named "George's Linux MachineX", unlike the first example.

name:"George's Linux Machine"

Would match a profile named "XGeorge's Linux MachineX", unlike the first example.

name:^George's
name:George's$
name:^George's$

A word having the prefix, suffix, or exactly matching "George's" must occur in the profile's name to match these queries, respectively.

Automatic Profile Switching

iTerm2 can use information it knows about your current path, host name, user name, and foreground job name to change profiles. For example, your window's background color or the terminal's character encoding could change when connecting to different hosts.

Shell Integration Required

You must install Shell Integration on all machines and all user accounts where you plan to use Automatic Profile Switching (either by using the scripts or the Triggers workaround described in the Shell Integration docs).

Rule Syntax

In Settings>Profiles>Advanced, you may specify a set of rules.

When any session satisfies a rule in a given profile, it will switch to that profile. Rules consist of three optional components: the user name, the hostname, and the path. At least one component must be present, since an empty rule is not allowed. The hostname is required only when both a user name and a path are specified.

A user name is a unix accont name (e.g., root) followed by an @.

A path always begins with a /. Any time a hostname is followed by a path, they are separated by a :. For example, iterm2.com:/users/george. It may include * wildcards.

A hostname can be a DNS name, like iterm2.com or an IP address like 127.0.0.1. A hostname may contain one or more * characters, which act as a wildcard (like globbing in Unix).

The job name is the name of the executable. For example, "vim" or "bash". It must be prefixed with an ampersand &. For example, &emacs*.

Additionally, a rule may be designated as sticky by beginning with a !. This will be described below, in the Automatic Reversion section.

Some examples:

[email protected]:/users/george
george@*:/users/george
*:/users/george
*.iterm2.com:/users/george
dev.*.com:/users/george
[email protected]
iterm2.com
george@
iterm2.com:/users/george
/users/george
/users/*
&vim
iterm2.com&vim
!iterm2.com

Because more than one rule may match at any given time, rules with higher quality matches prevail over those with lower-quality matches. Quality is determined by a rule's score, which is computed by summing the scores for its matching parts. In order for a rule to be considered, all of its parts that are specified must match the current state.

The scoring is defined as:

An exact match for the hostname scores 16 points.
A partial match for the hostname using a wildcard scores 8 points.
A match on the job name (wildcard or not) scores 4 points.
A match on the user name scores 2 points.
An exact match on the path scores one point.
A partial match on the path using a wildcard scores zero points, but does count as a match for the rule.

The highest scoring rule, if any, will be used and the session's profile will be switched.

The UI tries to prevent you from entering the same rule in two different profiles, but if that does happen then one profile is chosen arbitrarily.

Automatic Reversion

After APS switches a session's profile, its rules may eventually cease to match (for example, the hostname changes back to "localhost" because an ssh session ends). If no profile has a matching rule, the session's original profile will be restored. The exception is if the last-matched rule was "sticky". A sticky rule is prefixed with an !.

Implementation

Each session maintains a stack of profiles. Initially, the stack contains the profile the session was created with. When the username, hostname, or path changes, iTerm2 finds the best-matching profile. If some profile has a matching rule, one of two things happens:

If that profile is already on the stack, profiles above that one will be removed from the stack and the session will switch to that profile.
Failing that, the profile will be pushed on the stack and the session will switch to that profile.

If no profile has a matching rule, the stack is emptied (except for the first entry, the original profile for the session) and the session reverts to its original profile.

Rules may begin with ! to indicate "stickiness". A sticky rule causes its profile to stay even after the rule no longer applies, so long as no other rule matches.

Triggers

Since it's impractical to install shell integration everywhere (for example, as root), there will be times when you need to write a trigger to detect the current username or hostname. Please see the Triggers section of Shell Integration for details.

Troubleshooting

There are a few ways things can go wrong. Please see the Why doesn't secure copy/automatic profile switching work? document for help diagnosing and fixing these issues.

Coprocesses

iTerm2 offers support for "coprocesses". This very powerful feature will allow you to interact with your terminal session in a new way.

What is a Coprocess?

A coprocess is a job, such as a shell script, that has a special relationship with a particular iTerm2 session. All output in a terminal window (that is, what you see on the screen) is also input to the coprocess. All output from the coprocess acts like text that the user is typing at the keyboard.

One obvious use of this feature is to automate interaction. For instance, suppose you want to automate your presence in a chat room. The following script could be used as a coprocess:

#!/usr/bin/python
import sys
while True:
  line = raw_input()
  if line.strip() == "Are you there?":
    print "Yes"
  sys.stdout.flush()

You could disappear for years before your friends discover you're gone.

How Do I Start a Coprocess?

There are two ways to start a coprocess.

Select "Run Coprocess..." from the Session menu. Enter the name of a command to run as a coprocess.
Create a Trigger in Prefs>Profiles>Advanced and select Run Coprocess... as the action. Give the script to run as a parameter. Triggers also have Silent Coprocesses, which prevent any output from going to the screen. This is useful for ZModem, for example.

Usage

A session can not have more than one coprocess at a time. When a coprocess is active, an icon will indicate that in the top right of the session.

Technical Details

The coprocess's stdin is a byte-for-byte copy of the input from the session's pty, beginning at the time the coprocess starts. In the case of a trigger-started coprocess, the line of input that triggered it MAY be the first line of input to the coprocess, but this is not guaranteed. If a coprocess is running, triggers with a Run Coprocess action will not fire. The coprocess's stdout stream will be treated the same as keyboard input. A small amount of buffering is provided for both input and output of the coprocess. When a buffer fills, the coprocess will block.

Session Restoration

Session restoration works by running your jobs within long-lived servers rather than as child processes of iTerm2. If iTerm2 crashes or upgrades, the servers keep going. When iTerm2 restarts, it searches for running servers and connects to them. The OS's window restoration feature preserves the content of your window, including scrollback history. iTerm2 marries the restored session to the appropriate server so you can pick up where you were.

tl;dr watch this: Demo Video

Notes

You must turn off System Prefs > General > Close windows when quitting an app. For more information on system window restoration, please see Apple's docs.
You must set Prefs > General > Startup to Use system window restoration settings.
Force quitting iTerm2, causing it to crash, or upgrading it when prompted should restore your sessions. NOTE: Quitting iTerm2 with Cmd-Q will terminate your jobs and they won't be restored. There is an advanced preference to change this behavior, though.
You can toggle this feature with Prefs>Advanced>Enable session restoration., but you must restart iTerm2 after changing this setting.
A session that has had only its window contents restored and not the running processes will get a reverse video Session Restored banner. A properly restored session will pick up right where you left it.
If you reboot, your jobs will terminate and not be restored. The window contents should be restored.

If you prefer for sessions not to be terminated when you quit iTerm2, turn off Prefs>Advanced>User-initiated quit (cmd-q) of iTerm2 will kill all running jobs.

Utilities

iTerm2 has a collection of shell scripts that help you take advantage of some of its unique features. When you install Shell Integration from the iTerm2 > Install Shell Integration menu, you're asked if you'd like to install the Utilities Package as well. This page describes these utilities.

If you prefer to install only the utilities (without also installing Shell Integration) you can find them here. Most of the utilities work without Shell Integration.

Components

The Utilities Package contains the following programs:

imgcat

The imgcat program displays images inline in your terminal.

It supports all standard image formats, including animated GIFs.

Usage:
imgcat filename [filename...]

or

cat image | imgcat

imgls

Lists the files in a directory with thumbnail previews for images.

Usage:
imgls [filename...]

it2attention

Requests attention. Can bounce the dock icon or show a fireworks animation at the cursor position.

Usage:
it2attention start
  Begin bouncing the dock icon if another app is active
it2attention stop
  Stop bouncing the dock icon if another app is active
it2attention fireworks
  Show an explosion animation at the cursor

it2check

Checks if the terminal emulator is iTerm2.

Example:

it2check && echo This is iTerm2 || echo This is not iTerm2

it2copy

Copies text to the pasteboard. Works over ssh. Accepts either standard input or a named file.

Examples:

cat file.txt | it2copy
it2copy file.txt

For this to work you must enable Prefs > General > Applications in terminal may access clipboard.

it2dl

The it2dl program downloads files. This is useful when you are ssh'ed to a remote host. The downloaded files are placed in your Downloads folder.

it2getvar

Fetches a session variable. For a list of session variables, see the Badges page.

Example:

it2getvar session.name

it2setcolor

Configures iTerm2's colors.

Usage

1) To set a specific color to an RGB value:
  it2setcolor name color [name color...]
For example:
  it2setcolor fg fff

name is one of:
  fg bg bold link selbg selfg curbg curfg underline tab
  black red green yellow blue magenta cyan white
  br_black br_red br_green br_yellow br_blue br_magenta br_cyan br_white

color is of the format:
  RGB        (three hex digits, like fff)
  RRGGBB     (six hex digits, like f0f0f0)
  cs:RGB     (cs is a color space name)
  cs:RRGGBB  (cs is a color space name)

  The color space names accepted in the color are:
    srgb       (sRGB, the default if none is specified)
    rgb        (Apple's old device-independent colorspace)
    p3         (Apple's fancy large-gamut colorspace)

2) To switch to a named color preset:
  it2setcolor preset name
For example:
  it2setcolor preset 'Light Background'

3) To reset the current tab's color to the system default:
  it2setcolor tab default

it2setkeylabel

Configures touch bar function key labels.

Usage:
   it2setkeylabel set Fn Label
     Where n is a value from 1 to 20
   it2setkeylabel set status Label
     Sets the Touch Bar "status" button's label
   it2setkeylabel push [name]
     Saves the current labels with an optional name. Resets labels to their default value, unless name begins with a . character.
   it2setkeylabel pop [name]
     If name is given, all key labels up to and including the one with the matching name are popped.

Recommended usage for customizing an application is to set key labels and then push with a name of a concatenation of the app's name (e.g., "emacs") and a random number. When the app exists, pop to that same name.

it2ul

Uploads a file. Works over ssh.

Usage: it2ul [destination [tar flags]]
  If given, the destination specifies the directory to place downloaded files.
  Further options are passed through to tar. See your system's manpage for tar for details.

If used without arguments, the file goes to the current directory. When you run this, you'll be prompted to select one or more files. Next, iTerm2 creates a tar.gz file containing those files and base-64 encodes them. The it2ul script receives it, decodes it, and untars it with -xzfC. Any arguments you provide go after a lone - argument,

it2universion

Sets the unicode version for the current session. The key difference is that unicode 8 and unicode 9 use different width tables for emoji. Most apps aren't updated to use the unicode 9 tables, but Unicode 9 produces nicer results with fewer overlapping characters.

Usage:
  it2universion set 8
  it2universion set 9
  it2universion push [name]
     Saves the current version with an optional name.
  it2universion pop [name]
     If name is given, all versions up to and including the one with the matching name are popped.

Usage:
it2dl filename

Location

The Utilities Package places shell scripts in $HOME/.iterm2/ and creates aliases to them at the bottom of $HOME/.iterm2_shell_integration.$SHELL.

Proprietary Escape Codes

iTerm2 supports several non-standard escape codes. These may not work properly in tmux or screen, and may have unknown effects on other terminal emulators. Proceed with caution.

The control sequences use the following notation:

ESC means "Escape" (hex code 0x1b) .
ST means either BEL (hex code 0x07) or ESC \\.
Spaces in control sequences are to be ignored.
Values in [brackets] are variable parameters, not literals.
OSC means ESC ]
CSI means ESC [
SP means a literal "space" character (not ignored!)

The OSC command 50 used to be used but it conflicts with xterm, so it is now 1337.

Report Foreground/Background Colors (OSC 4)

The xterm-defined OSC 4 control sequence has a mode where it reports the RGB value of a color. iTerm2 extends its reporting mode to add two additional color indices representing the default foreground and background color.

To get the background color:

OSC 4 ; -2; ? ST

And this gets the foreground color:

OSC 4 ; -1 ; ? ST

For background and foreground respectively, the terminal will write back:

OSC 4 ; -2 ; rgb : [red] / [green] / [blue] ST
OSC 4 ; -1 ; rgb : [red] / [green] / [blue] ST

Where [red], [green], and [blue] are either 2 or 4-digit hex values like 14a7 or ff. For 4-digit values, you can get an approximation of the 2-digit value by taking the first two digits.

Anchor (OSC 8)

VTE and iTerm2 support OSC 8 for defining hyperlinks, much like HTML's anchor tag.

OSC 8 ; [params] ; [url] ST

[params] consists of zero or more colon-delimited key-value pairs. A key-value pair is formatted as key=value. The only currently defined key is id. Two adjacent hyperlinks with the same URL but different ids will highlight separately when Command is pressed during hover.

If the url is absent then that ends the hyperlink. Typical usage would look like:

OSC 8 ; ; https://example.com/ ST Link to example website OSC 8 ; ; ST

To open a link, hold Command and click the link.

Note: in iTerm2 version 3.4 and later, if the URL has the file scheme and a # fragment is present then the semantic history rules will apply for opening the file. It may optionally include a line number, like file:///tmp/file.txt#123 or line number and column number like file:///tmp/file.txt#123:45.

Set cursor shape

OSC 1337 ; CursorShape=[N] ST

where [N]=0, 1, or 2.

0: Block
1: Vertical bar
2: Underline

Add this to your .vimrc to change cursor shape in insert mode:

let &t_SI = "\<Esc>]1337;CursorShape=1\x7"
let &t_EI = "\<Esc>]1337;CursorShape=0\x7"

This is derived from Konsole.

Set Mark

The "Set Mark" (cmd-shift-M) command allows you to record a location and then jump back to it later (with cmd-shift-J). The following escape code has the same effect as that command:

OSC 1337 ; SetMark ST

Steal Focus

To bring iTerm2 to the foreground:

OSC 1337 ; StealFocus ST

Clear Scrollback History

To erase the scrollback history:

OSC 1337 ; ClearScrollback ST

Set current directory

To inform iTerm2 of the current directory to help semantic history:

OSC 1337 ; CurrentDir=[current directory] ST

Post a notification

To post a notification:

OSC 9 ; [Message content goes here] ST

Change profile

To change the session's profile on the fly:

OSC 1337 SetProfile=[new profile name] ST

Copy to clipboard

To place text in the pasteboard:

OSC 1337 ; CopyToClipboard=[clipboard name] ST

Where name is one of "rule", "find", "font", or empty to mean the general pasteboard (which is what you normally want). After this is sent, all text received is placed in the pasteboard until this code comes in:

OSC 1337 ; EndCopy ST

Set window title and tab chrome background color

To set the window title and tab color use this escape sequence:

OSC 6 ; 1 ; bg ; red ; brightness ; [N] ST
OSC 6 ; 1 ; bg ; green ; brightness ; [N] ST
OSC 6 ; 1 ; bg ; blue ; brightness ; [N] ST

Replace [N] with a decimal value in 0 to 255.

Example in bash that turns the background purple:

echo -e "\033]6;1;bg;red;brightness;255\a"
echo -e "\033]6;1;bg;green;brightness;0\a"
echo -e "\033]6;1;bg;blue;brightness;255\a"

To reset the window title and tab color, use this code:

OSC 6 ; 1 ; bg ; * ; default ST

For example:

echo -e "\033]6;1;bg;*;default\a"

Change the color palette

To change the current session's colors use this code:

OSC 1337 ; SetColors=[key]=[value] ST

[key] gives the color to change. The accepted values are: fg bg bold link selbg selfg curbg curfg underline tab" black red green yellow blue magenta cyan white br_black br_red br_green br_yellow br_blue br_magenta br_cyan br_white

[value] gives the new color. The following formats are accepted:

RGB (three hex digits, like fff)
RRGGBB (six hex digits, like f0f0f0)
cs:RGB (like RGB but cs gives a color space)
cs:RRGGBB (like RRGGBB but cs gives a color space)

If a color space is given, it should be one of:

srgb (the standard sRGB color space)
rgb (the device-specific color space)
p3 (the standard P3 color space, whose gamut is supported on some newer hardware)

The following alternate schemes are also supported: * If key is preset then value should be the name of a color preset. * If key is tab then a value of default removes the tab color and restores it to the system default.

A second escape sequence is also supported, but its use is not recommended:

OSC P [n] [rr] [gg] [bb] ST

Replace [n] with:

`0`-`f` (hex) = ansi color
`g` = foreground
`h` = background
`i` = bold color
`j` = selection color
`k` = selected text color
`l` = cursor
`m` = cursor text

[rr], [gg], [bb] are 2-digit hex value (for example, "ff"). Example in bash that changes the foreground color blue:

echo -e "\033]Pg4040ff\033\\"

Annotations

To add an annotation use on of these sequences:

OSC 1337 ; AddAnnotation=[message] ST
OSC 1337 ; AddAnnotation=[length] | [message] ST
OSC 1337 ; AddAnnotation=[message] | [length] | [x-coord] | [y-coord] ST
OSC 1337 ; AddHiddenAnnotation=[message] ST
OSC 1337 ; AddHiddenAnnotation=[length] | [message] ST
OSC 1337 ; AddHiddenAnnotation=[message] | [length] | [x-coord] | [y-coord] ST

`[message]`: The message to attach to the annotation.
`[length]`: The number of cells to annotate. Defaults to the rest of the line beginning at the start of the annotation.
`[x-coord]` and `[y-coord]`: The starting coordinate for the annotation. Defaults to the cursor's coordinate.

AddHiddenAnnotation does not reveal the annotation window at the time the escape sequence is received, while AddAnnotation opens it immediately.

Cursor Guide

OSC 1337 ; HighlightCursorLine=[boolean] ST

The [boolean] should be yes or no. This shows or hides the cursor guide.

Attention

OSC 1337 ; RequestAttention=[value] ST

The [value] should be yes to request attention by bouncing the dock icon indefinitely, once to bounce it a single time, or no to cancel a previous request. If it is fireworks then fireworks explode at the cursor's location.

Background Image

OSC 1337 ; SetBackgroundImageFile=[base64] ST

The value of [base64] is a base64-encoded filename to display as a background image. If it is an empty string then the background image will be removed. User confirmation is required as a security measure.

Report Cell Size

OSC 1337 ; ReportCellSize ST

The terminal responds with either:

OSC 1337 ; ReportCellSize=[height];[width] ST

Or, in newer versions:

OSC 1337 ; ReportCellSize=[height];[width];[scale] ST

[scale] gives the number of pixels (physical units) to points (logical units). 1.0 means non-retina, 2.0 means retina. It could take other values in the future.

[height] and [width] are floating point values giving the size in points of a single character cell. For example:

OSC 1337 ; ReportCellSize=17.50;8.00;2.0 ST

Copy to Pasteboard

You can place a string in the system's pasteboard with this sequence:

OSC 1337 ; Copy=:[base64] ST

Where [base64] is the base64-encoded string to copy to the pasteboard.

Report Variable

Each iTerm2 session has internal variables (as described in Scripting Fundamentals). This escape sequence reports a variable's value:

OSC 1337 ; ReportVariable=[base64] ST

Where [base64] is a base64-encoded variable name, like session.name. It responds with:

OSC 1337 ; ReportVariable=[base64] ST

Where [base64] is a base64-encoded value.

Badge

The badge has custom escape sequences described here.

Downloads

For information on file downloads and inline images, see here.

Uploads

To request the user select one or more files to upload, send:

OSC 1337 ; RequestUpload=format=[type] ST

In the future the [type] may be configurable, but for now it must always be tgz, which is a tar and gzipped file.

When iTerm2 receives this it will respond with a status of ok or abort followed by a newline. If the status is ok then it will be followed by a base-64 encoded tar.gz file.

If the user selects multiple files they will be placed in a directory within the tar file.

Set Touch Bar Key Labels

You can configure touch bar key labels for function keys and for the "status" button. The code used is:

OSC 1337 ; SetKeyLabel=[key]=[value] ST

Where [key] is one of F1, F2, ..., F24, to adjust a function key label; or it can be status to adjust the touch bar status button. You can also save and restore sets of key labels using a stack. To push the current key labels on the stack use:

OSC 1337 ; PushKeyLabels ST

To pop them:

OSC 1337 ; PopKeyLabels ST

You can optionally label the entry in the stack when you push so that pop will pop multiple sets of key labels if needed. This is useful if a program crashes or an ssh session exits unexpectedly. The corresponding codes with labels are:

OSC 1337 ; PushKeyLabels=[label] ST
OSC 1337 ; PopKeyLabels=[label] ST

Where [label] is an ASCII string that works best if it is unique in the stack.

Unicode Version

iTerm2 by default uses Unicode 9's width tables. The user can opt to use Unicode 8's tables with a preference (for backward compatibility with older locale databases). Since not all apps will be updated at the same time, you can tell iTerm2 to use a particular set of width tables with:

OSC 1337 ; UnicodeVersion=[n] ST

Where [n] is 8 or 9

You can push the current value on a stack and pop it off to return to the previous value by setting n to push or pop. Optionally, you may affix a label after push by setting n to something like push mylabel. This attaches a label to that stack entry. When you pop the same label, entries will be popped until that one is found. Set n to pop mylabel to effect this. This is useful if a program crashes or an ssh session ends unexpectedly.

File Transfer

OSC 1337 ; File=[args] ST

See Images for details.

Custom Control Sequences

iTerm2 allows scripts to define custom control sequences. See the Create Window example for a working demo. The control sequence is:

OSC 1337 ; Custom=id=[secret]:[pattern] ST

Where [secret] is a secret shared between the script implementing the control sequence and the program producing it, as a security measure to make it more difficult for untrusted text to invoke a custom control sequence. [pattern] is used to identify the sequence and may contain any parameters the script needs to handle it.

Shell Integration/FinalTerm

iTerm2's Shell Integration feature is made possible by proprietary escape sequences pioneered by the FinalTerm emulator. FinalTerm is defunct, but the escape sequences are documented here.

Concepts

The goal of the FinalTerm escape sequences is to mark up a shell's output with semantic information about where the prompt begins, where the user-entered command begins, and where the command's output begins and ends.

[PROMPT]prompt% [COMMAND_START] ls -l
[COMMAND_EXECUTED]
-rw-r--r-- 1 user group 127 May 1 2016 filename
[COMMAND_FINISHED]

Escape Sequences

FinalTerm originally defined various escape sequences in its original spec that are not supported by iTerm2 and are not described in this document. The best remaining references to these codes are in iTerm2's source code.

FTCS_PROMPT

OSC 133 ; A ST

Sent just before start of shell prompt.

FTCS_COMMAND_START

OSC 133 ; B ST

Sent just after end of shell prompt, before the user-entered command.

FTCS_COMMAND_EXECUTED

OSC 133 ; C ST

Sent just before start of command output. All text between FTCS_COMMAND_START and FTCS_COMMAND_EXECUTED at the time FTCS_COMMAND_EXECUTED is received excluding terminal whitespace is considered the command the user entered. It is expected that user-entered commands will be edited interactively, so the screen contents are captured without regard to how they came to contain their state. If the cursor's location is before (above, or if on the same line, left of) its location when FTCS_COMMAND_START was received, then the command will be treated as the empty string.

FTCS_COMMAND_FINISHED

OSC 133 ; D ; [Ps] ST
OSC 133 ; D ST

The interpretation of this command depends on which FTCS was most recently received prior to FTCS_COMMAND_FINISHED.

This command may be sent after FTCS_COMMAND_START to indicate that a command was aborted. All state associated with the preceding prompt and the command until its receipt will be deleted. Either form is accepted for an abort. If the [Ps] argument is provided to an abort it will be ignored.

If this command is sent after FTCS_COMMAND_EXECUTED, then it indicates the end of command prompt. Only the first form with [Ps] should be used in this case. [Ps] is the command's exit status, a number in the range 0-255 represented as one or more ASCII decimal digits. A status of 0 is considered "success" and nonzero indicates "failure." The terminal may choose to indicate this visually.

If neither FTCS_COMMAND_START nor FTCS_COMMAND_EXECUTED was sent prior to FTCS_COMMAND_FINISHED it should be ignored.

iTerm2 Extensions

iTerm2 extends FinalTerm's suite of escape sequences.

SetUserVar

OSC 1337 ; SetUserVar=[Ps1]=[Ps2] ST

Sets the value of a user-defined variable. iTerm2 keeps a dictionary of key-value pairs which may be used within iTerm2 as string substitutions. See Scripting Fundamentals for more information on variables and how they can be used.

[Ps1] is the key.

[Ps2] is the base64-encoded value.

ShellIntegrationVersion

Two forms are accepted. The second form is deprecated and should not be used:

OSC 1337 ; ShellIntegrationVersion=[Pn] ; [Ps] ST
OSC 1337 ; ShellIntegrationVersion=[Pn] ST

Reports the current version of the shell integration script.

[Pn] is the version.

[Ps] is the name of the shell (e.g., bash).

iTerm2 has a baked-in notion of the "current" version and if it sees a lower number the user will be prompted to upgrade. The version number is specific to the shell.

RemoteHost

OSC 1337 ; RemoteHost=[Ps1]@[Ps2] ST

Reports the user name and hostname.

[Ps1] is username. [Ps2] is fully-qualified hostname.

The following synonym is available as a combination of RemoteHost and CurrentDir:

OSC 7 [Ps] ST

where [Ps] is a file URL with a hostname and a path, like file://example.com/usr/bin.

CurrentDir

OSC 1337 ; CurrentDir=[Ps1] ST

Reports the current directory.

[PS1] is the current directory.

The following synonym is available as a combination of RemoteHost and CurrentDir:

OSC 7 ; [Ps] ST

where [Ps] is a file URL with a hostname and a path, like file://example.com/usr/bin.

ClearCapturedOutput

OSC 1337 ; ClearCapturedOutput ST

Erases the current captured output.

DECSCUSR 0

CSI 0 SP q

This will reset the cursor to its default appearance. This is an intentional deviation from the behavior of DEC virtual terminals.

Curly Underlines

CSI 4 : 3 m

This turns on curly underlines.

Extended Device Attributes

Report terminal name and version.

CSI > q

iTerm2 will respond with:

ESC P > | iTerm2 [version] ST

Where [version] is the version of iTerm2, such as 3.4.0.

Table of Contents

Highlights for New Users

Text Selection

Split Panes

Hotkey Window

Swap Cmd and Option

Save Mark/Jump to Mark

Regular Expression Search

Autocomplete

Paste History

Instant Replay

Full Screen

High-Color Modes

Focus Follows Mouse

Middle Button Paste

Cursor Finery

Minimum Contrast

Notification Center Support

Window Arrangements

Smart Selection

Triggers

Tmux Integration

Coprocesses

Dynamic Profiles

Automatic Profile Switching

Inline Images

Undo Close

Shell Integration

Password Manager

Timestamps

Tab Bar on Left

Open Quickly

Shell Integration and Utilities

General Usage

Tabs

Edit Current Session

Pointer

Keyboard

Context menus

Profiles

General Preferences

General

Startup

Window restoration policy

Open profiles window

Restore windows to same Spaces

Always open at least one terminal window at startup

Closing

Quit when all windows are closed

Confirm closing multiple sessions

Confirm Quit iTerm2 Command

Even if there are no windows

Disable all confirmations on system shutdown, restart, and log out

Magic

Instant Replay Uses X MB per Session

Save copy/paste and command history to disk

Enable Python API

Custom Python API Scripts Folder

GPU Rendering

Maximize throughput at the cost of higher latency

Compress scrollback history in the background

AI

OpenAI API Key

AI Prompt

Model

Token Limit

Services

Add Bonjour hosts to profiles

Notify only for cricial shell integration updates

Check for updates automatically

Update to Beta test releases

Selection

Copy to pasteboard on selection

Copied text includes trailing newline

Applications in terminal may access clipboard

Allow sending of clipboard contents?

Triple-click selects full wrapped lines

Double-click performs smart selection

Automatically enter copy mode on Shift+Arrow Key with selection

Characters considered part of a word for selection