How to configure and change Windows Terminal settings in Windows 11

Windows Terminal in Windows 11 is a powerful tool that combines the classic Command Prompt with modern shells such as PowerShell. If you used to be afraid of the black window with a flashing cursor, now is the time to reconsider. With it, you can quickly manage the system, automate tasks, and gain much more control over your computer.

But the standard terminal settings may seem boring or inconvenient. Fortunately, it can be easily customized. You can change not only the appearance, such as the background color or font, but also customize the behavior of different profiles, add new tabs, and even split panels for simultaneous work.

In this article, we'll figure out how to open the settings and which parameters are worth changing first to make working in the terminal more comfortable and efficient. You don't need to be an experienced programmer — it only takes a few minutes to turn a standard window into a personalized work tool.

Installation

In Windows 11, you can install “Windows Terminal”fromMicrosoft Store, or the latest version from the repository atGitHub:https://github.com/Microsoft/Terminal.

How to open Windows Terminal settings

To change and configure Windows Terminal on your PC, open the console settings by doing the following:

1. Launch Windows Terminal, you can find it in the Start menu of your Windows 11 PC.

1. In the open Windows Terminal window, click the (down arrow), located on the top panel of the window. Then select the option from the drop-down menu “Options”. In addition, you can also press the key combination Ctrl Shift / to open the settings.

“Select vCard file”

How to change Windows Terminal startup settings

Like any other application, you can configure the behavior of the terminal when it opens. To do this, select the “Launch” on the sidebar of the screen “Settings”.

“Memory”

To change or select the default profile, click the drop-down menu under the heading“Default profile” which command line interface application can be run in Windows Terminal.

Select the option you want:Option. Windows PowerShell, Cmd, Azure Cloud Shell, WSL (if installed).

Run Terminal automatically when the computer starts

If you want Terminal to start automatically as soon as you log in to your Windows computer, move the switch under the heading “Run on computer startup” to the “On”. If you do not need to start the terminal when the system starts up in the future, return the switch to the position “Off”

How to configure “Startup Mode”

In this section “Launch mode” select your preferred option by selecting the switch in front of any of the options presented.

What each of these options means:

Default: in default mode, the Windows terminal starts in windowed mode with all tabs and the window title visible.

Expanded: if the option is selected “Expanded”, The terminal will occupy the entire screen, while all tabs and the title bar will be visible.

Full screen: “Full screen” speaks for itself, but you will not be able to see the tabs and title bar in this mode.

Focus: in the “Focus” The terminal runs in windowed mode. However, tabs and the title bar will not be visible, and you will have to use keyboard shortcuts to open a new tab or go to the terminal settings.

Expanded focus: same as in mode Focus, but in full-screen mode.

Terminal window behavior when launching a new instance

If you want to customize the behavior of the Terminal window when starting a new instance, click the switch in front of the preferred option in the section “New instance behavior”.This setting determines how new instances of the terminal are attached to existing windows.

This parameter can have the following values:

• Create window: Always create a new window. This is how the terminal always behaved until version 1.7.
• Attach to the last used window: Create new tabs in the last window used on this desktop.
• Attach to the last window used on this desktop: Create new tabs in the window that was last used, regardless of which virtual desktop the window is on.

Set the size of the Terminal window at startup

Now you can also set the size of the Terminal window when running in windowed mode. To do this, in the section This completes the preparation of contacts on your Xiaomi smartphone for transfer to another device using Google Account. Let's move on to the next step of the operation. change the size of the item Columns, to adjust the width, and repeat the action for the item “Lines”, to adjust the height of the window.

Once you have configured the settings to your liking, click the button. “Save”, located in the lower right corner of the window.

The Windows Terminal in Windows 11 is a handy tool for working with commands, and it's easier to customize than you might think. You can quickly change the appearance: font, size, background color, and theme — all through the built-in interface. It's also easy to add new profiles for PowerShell, Command Prompt, or WSL and choose which one will open by default. The settings are available both in the terminal itself and through the configuration file, but you can even do without it. Everything can be done with just a couple of clicks.

Changing Windows terminal interaction settings

Changing the Terminal interaction settings is quite simple and requires almost no effort to configure them according to your preferences. The properties listed below affect the entire terminal window, regardless of the profile settings.

In the window “Parameters” terminal section, go to the sidebar tab Interaction.

Most Android users are aware that this operating system supports the installation of applications from third-party sources. All you need to do is find the executable file on the Internet, download it to your device, run it, and install it, after granting the necessary permissions. You can learn how this method works in a separate article on our website, but we will briefly look at one possible example.

Then, if you want to automatically copy the selected fragment in Terminal to the clipboard, move the switch to the position “On”, under the heading “Automatically copy selected text to clipboard”.

Select text format when copying from Terminal

Now, select the text format when copying from Terminal by clicking the switch in front of each option.

• Unformatted text only
• HTML
• RTF
• Both HTML and RTF formats

If you want to remove the trailing space when using selection, move the switch to the position “On” Under the line with “Remove trailing space in rectangular selection”.

Here you can also delete or add word separators, which are symbols used to indicate the boundary between two words in Terminal. Click on the text field under the inscription “Word Separator” button and delete/add characters according to your preferences.

The following characters must be escaped with a backslash:\,"

Linking window resizing to the character grid

Now, by default, the Windows terminal window will change its width according to the contents of the terminal screen (i.e., the terminal will never display a single word on two lines, but will change the width of the window and resize it according to the length of the word/character).

If you don't want to change the size of the Terminal window according to the length of the word/character, move the switch to the “Off” in the field "Link window resizing to the character grid.

Terminal tab switching interface style

After that, to change the tab switching style, click the switch in front of each option to select the one you want.

Note: The first two settings will cause an overlay window to appear on the screen, referred to here as “Tab switch”, when switching terminal tabs using the Ctrl Tab key combination.

Automatically focus on the panel when hovering the mouse pointer

If you want Windows to automatically switch focus to the bar when you hover over it with the mouse cursor, move the switch to the “On”.

Automatically detect URLs and make them clickable

By default, Terminal detects URLs and makes them clickable in your browser. To do this, hold down the Ctrl key and click the link. If this is what you want to disable, move the switch to the position “Off”.

Once you have changed all the interaction settings to your liking, click the button “Save”, located in the lower right corner of the Terminal window.

How to change the theme and appearance of the Windows terminal

Previously, users were unable to change the appearance of the command line tool, and only recently has Microsoft allowed users to change the graphical interface.

First, click the tab “Appearance”, section in the sidebar of the terminal settings screen.

Light and dark Terminal themes

In the “Theme” select one of the three available options to change the Terminal theme:

• Use Windows theme (default)
• Light theme
• Dark theme

Note: if the parameter is selected “Use Windows theme”, The terminal will change its theme to match the Windows theme.

Always show tabs

If you don't want to see “tab Bar”below the title bar until you open a new tab, then move the switch to the “Off” Under the label “Always show tabs”.Please note that changing this setting will require you to start a new instance of the terminal.

How to hide or show the window title

In the OBS settings, set the obtained value in the field “Off”, located under the “Hide window title”.

Note: The title bar, if enabled, will appear above the tab bar. You will also need to restart Terminal after selecting this option for the changes to take effect.

If the title bar is enabled, Windows Terminal will display the name of the active terminal on it. If you don't want this, set the switch to the “Off” under the heading“Use the name of the active terminal as the application name”.

Always on top of other windows

If you want the Windows Terminal window to always stay on top of open windows on your desktop, move the switch to the position “On” in the section “On top of other windows”.

All this is implemented using the blacklist function. Often on Twitter, you have to delete your own posts. This is partly due to the lack of the much-desired tweet editing feature. To change the content of your post, you have to delete it and repost it with the corrections.

To set the tab width, click the switch in front of the “Equal”, to make all tabs the same width, click “Name length”, tab to adjust the size of the tabs according to the length of the title, and select “Compact”. display only icons on inactive open tabs.

Panel Animation

Then, in the “Panel animation” change the position of the switch to “Off.”, option to disable visual animation throughout the application.

Once you have changed all the appearance settings to your liking, click the button “Save”, located in the lower right corner of the Terminal window.

How to change the Windows Terminal color scheme

Windows Terminal has 9 preset color schemes for customizing command line tools. However, you can also create your own color scheme if you want.

Go to the “Color Schemes” in the sidebar on the screen “Settings” terminal section, click the drop-down menu and change the default color scheme.

To create your own color scheme, click the button “+ Add New”. Then click the button “Rename”, to give it a suitable name.

After renaming, click the button “Accept renaming” to confirm.

Then select a color by clicking on the tile of the desired color located next to the individual option in the column “Terminal Colors”. Select a color from the color palette that appears and adjust the color shade by dragging the slider below the palette.

Alternatively, if you have the hex code for the desired color, you can enter it in the text field located directly below the slider. Once you have set the desired color, click in the main Terminal window to confirm.

After adjusting the settings to your liking, click the button “Save” in the lower right corner of the window.

If you want to remove the color scheme, select the desired color scheme from the drop-down menu and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Then click the button “Delete color scheme”.

Change Windows Terminal rendering settings

You can also change some rendering settings for Terminal, but if you are a regular user, you may not need to bother with this.

Click on the option “Rendering” on the sidebar of the Windows Terminal settings screen.

The default terminal only displays updates on the screen. If you want to redraw the entire screen between frames, switch the toggle to “On” Under the heading “Redraw entire screen when display updates”.

Then, to use software rendering instead of hardware rendering, move the switch to the “On” in the section “Use software rendering”(also known as WARP).

After configuring the settings accordingly, click the “Save”.

Change keyboard shortcuts in Windows Terminal

In my opinion, it's hard to imagine a terminal without it. Windows Terminal keyboard shortcuts can be configured in the settings section “Actions”. When you open it, you will find a list of currently bound keyboard shortcuts, but you can change them according to your preferences.

To change keyboard shortcuts in Windows Terminal, click the tab ‘Actions’ on the sidebar of the screen ‘Settings’ terminal.

To edit the order of the keyboard shortcuts, you need to open and edit the file JSON tomake changes. To do this, click on the button on the screen “Open JSON file”.

If you don't have a JSON editor, click “Find an app in the Microsoft Store”. Then download your preferred application from the Microsoft Store.

Once you open the file in a JSON editor, you can associate certain actions with keyboard shortcuts that are convenient for you and save the file to confirm and apply the changes.

General Profile Settings tab in Windows Terminal

You can also change the settings for individual command line tools without affecting other profiles.

Select your preferred profile in the section “Profiles” on the sidebar of the screen “Settings” terminal.

On the right side of the Terminal window, you will see individual profile settings, mainly divided into three tabs – General, Appearance, and Advanced.

Go to the “General” on the right side of the window. Then click the text field under the heading “Name”, to change the name of the command line application,

After that, to change the executable file for the profile, click the “Open” in the line “Command line”. Similarly, you can change “Launch Catalog”.

To change the profile icon, click the ‘Open’ in the line “Icon” section, or you can specify the file location in the text field next to it.

Below, you can change/add the title that will be used for the default tab. Enter the appropriate name in the text field “Tab title”.

You can also exclude this profile from the drop-down menu of the tab bar by moving the slider switch to the position “Off” for the item “Hide profile from drop-down list”.

Custom appearance settings for each command line tool

You can also change the individual appearance settings of the profile on the tab “Appearance”.

First, open the tab “Appearance” next to the tab “General”.

Now, to change the color scheme for the profile, click on the drop-down menu in the section “Color scheme” and select the desired option.

Similarly, to change the font style, click the drop-down menu in the section “Font style” and select the desired font.

To change the font size, enter the desired size in the text field “Font size”. After that, to make the font bolder, click the drop-down menu “Saturation” and select the desired option.

Move the switch to the “On” In the If in some situations you cannot clear the folder, first disable the Windows Update service, and after the deletion is complete, enable it again. How to do this is described in, to enable effects such as glowing text and scan lines.

Here you can also change the cursor shape by clicking on the radio button and selecting the desired option in the Cursor.

To set an image as your Terminal background, click the button “Open”, located in the bar “Background image”. In addition, you can also use the desktop background by checking the box in front of “Use desktop wallpaper”.

If you want to make the terminal window semi-transparent, move the slider switch to the position “On” “quick Start” “Enable acrylic”. You can also adjust the opacity of the window by dragging the slider “Acrylic Transparency”.

Slider in the “Window”, through the same context menu, you can configure its location and deletion parameters.

Advanced settings

C “Advanced settings”.

Open the tab on the right side of the terminal window.

If you do not want messages from the application to override the default tab title, switch the toggle to “On.” launch Winamp again and press “Alt+S”, or use any other method to go to the “Winamp Player Settings” section. C.

To change text smoothing, select the preferred option presented in the section “Text smoothing” section.

Note: You need to restart Windows Terminal for this setting to take effect.

If you do not want Terminal to treat the Ctrl + Alt keys as an alias for the AltGr key, change the switch position in the “AltGr alias”.

Similarly, if you don't want the terminal to scroll when you start typing, set the switch to “Off” Under the option “Scroll to type when printing”.

If you want to change the number of lines you want to return to by scrolling in the Terminal window, enter the desired number of lines in the text field section Downloading videos from Twitter.

Close Profile Action

Allows you to change the behavior if the terminal window should close automatically, select one of the three options presented in the section “Close profile action”.

To manage the behavior of Terminal when the application displays the BEL, select the option you want in the section “Bell notification style”.

Note: You can select a combination of all parameters, one option, or none.

All you have to do is press the button. “Save”, to confirm the changes.

Add a new command line tool or duplicate an existing one

Along with the existing command line tools, Terminal allows you to add additional tools or duplicate any profile.

To do this, click on the option “Add New Profile” on the sidebar of the screen “Options” terminal.

Then click the button “New empty profile”, to add a new profile.

If you want to duplicate a profile, click on one of the profiles available to you in the section “Duplicate profile” and click the button “Duplicate”.

After clicking the button “New empty profile” enter a suitable name for your profile in the text field in the line “Name”. Then specify the executable file for your command line tool by clicking the “Overview” in the section “Command Line”.

Specify “Home Directory” button or check the box “Use parent process directory”, to set the home directory of the new profile to be the same as in Windows Terminal.

After that, select an icon for your profile by clicking the “Open”, located in the line “Icon”, and locate the file using File Explorer. Then specify the default title for the profile tab by entering the appropriate tile in the text field under the label “Tab Title”.

If you want the new profile to appear in the drop-down menu of the tab bar, check that the switch in the section “Hide profile from drop-down list”, was in position “On”.

If you wish, you can change the settings for “Design” and “Advanced” for a new profile, open the appropriate tabs as we did in the previous section.

Once all settings have been changed according to your preferences, click the button “Save” in the lower right corner of the window.

As you can see, configuring the terminal in Windows 11 is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. With it, you get a powerful and convenient tool for working with the command line that can be easily customized to suit your needs.

Don't be afraid to experiment with the appearance and settings. Try different color schemes, fonts, or transparency settings. The main thing is to create a comfortable working environment for yourself where you will enjoy spending time.

Ultimately, a well-configured terminal can significantly speed up your work and make system management more efficient. This is a case where a few minutes spent on personalization will pay off handsomely in the future.