Table of Contents

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.