- ITerm2 is a free and open source terminal emulator that offers users a robust search tool coupled with auto-complete commands, multiple panes in independent sessions, multiple profile support, several customization options, etc.
- Powerful replacement for macOS Terminal, supporting 24-bit color, standard graphics protocols and iTerm2 image sequences and color schemes. Written by Kevin Grant. Version 5.0 alpha (macOS 10.15+) in development, currently only available by building from GitHub.
The most frequent installer filename for the program is: iTerm2-10020110731.zip. The actual developer of this free Mac application is George Nachman. Our built-in antivirus checked this Mac download and rated it as virus free. The current setup file available for download requires 6.6 MB of hard disk space. If you want to access special directories/files such as /Library/Application Support/AddressBook or /Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary, yes you need to give Full Disk Access to iTerm2. If don't, you can not access those directories. Here is the screenshot when you don't give Full Disk Access to iTerm2. ITerm2 3.4.9 (OS 10.14+) This is the recommended build for most users. Built on August 20, 2021. Show Changelog Hide Changelog 3.4.9 New Features - Add support for new keyboard reporting mode control sequences: - CSI u Push key reporting mode - CSI. U Pop key reporting mode - CSI? U Query key reporting mode - When you select hex characters and open the context menu their base-10 equivalent. Download iTerm 3.4.7 for Mac for free, without any viruses, from Uptodown. Try the latest version of iTerm for Mac. Iterm Mac Download Free. ITerm2 3.4.2beta3 (OS 10.14+) This is the recommended beta build for most users. Show Changelog Hide Changelog 3.4.2beta3 - Fix support for control keys that include option on non-US keyboard in modifyOtherKeys mode 2. Install iTerm2 terminal. After download iTerm2 installation file, simply drag and drop into the.
After downloading the theme open iTerm2 and import the downloaded solarized theme through. ITerm- Preferences- Profiles- Colors- load presets- Import. OH-MY-ZSH is a replacement for the default bash on macOS. OH-MY-ZSH also runs side-by-side with bash, so again no worries. Install it by invoking.
I decided to dedicate my first review in 2019 to an app that I’ve been using for a long time now. iTerm2. The superb macOS terminal app.
The first time I started using a terminal app was back in the days when News47ell was hosted by DigitalOcean. I used to SSH into my server when I needed to manage the backend of my site.
Now, I use the terminal to build and manage News47ell on GitHub.
If you are someone who just started using Terminal.app, I recommend that you switch to iTerm2. And if you’re someone who’s looking for the best terminal app for macOS, congratulations, you’ve found it.
Even if you have no idea why you are here and you clicked on this link by mistake and kept reading all the way until here, first, Thank you and second, this app is for you.
In all seriousness, iTerm2 is great. It packs a lot of features that are missing from Terminal.app that allow you to customize the app and make it truly yours.
So let’s take a closer look at it
Hotkey Window #
Have you ever played Counter-Strike and you wanted to enter a cheat code? You press the ~ button and a console menu appear from the top. Well, you can do the same thing with iTerm2.
The Hotkey Window feature allows you to register a hotkey that will bring iTerm2 to the foreground so you can quickly use it even if you’re inside another app.
Split Panes #
This feature allows you to work and keep an eye on multiple things at the same time.
For example: When I work on this site, I have 3 panes opened at the same time.
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- One for VIM.
- One for Hugo server running at all time.
- And the last one for general things like a file manager.
Instant Replay #
Well, this should be obvious. iTerm2 allow you to have an instant replay of everything that you did inside the terminal window. A line you edited, a code you executed, a file you opened, everything is recorded and you can watch a replay of it instantly.
Inline Images #
I had no idea about this one until I started writing the review. You can view images and GIFS inside iTerm2.
It uses two shell scripts, imgcat to display full resolution images and imgls to list all images.
Profiles #
I have 3 profiles set up and I switch between them depending on what work am doing inside the terminal.
The first profile is the default one which I use for full-screen writing when I want to write a new article using vim.
The second profile is tmux.
Last profile is a dropdown profile which I talked about in the Hotkey Window feature section.
Customization #
There are many options to choose from and to make iTerm2 YOUR terminal.
Like the option to enable/disable GPU rendering, dimming of inactive windows, borderless windows, colors and fonts, and a ton of experimental features.
Development #
Although both Terminal.app and iTerm2 are still in development and both receive updates, with Terminal.app, you have to wait until a new version of macOS to get new features while with iTerm2, anytime the developer pushes a new update, you receive it right away.
I don’t like waiting a year to receive an app update. That’s why I like to stay away from all the apps that are made by Apple.
Conclustion #
You really should use iTerm2. There’s no other way of putting it.
The app has much more features than the ones I mentioned like tmux Integration Mouseless Copy, Autocomplete and Shell Integration. There’s a big community out there that uses the app on a daily basis. It’s free, but you can always donate to the developer George Nachman.
I am spending a lot of time on the command line for the daily development work. I decided to install iTerm2 terminal as an alternative terminal for Mac OS because the default terminal app does not offer rich and powerful features to make my development life easier. So I decided to install advanced alternative terminal to replace Mac OS default terminal.
Before you install iTerm2, please refer its features on their website.
If you happy it’s features and power, you can download the iTerm2 from the following link. Alternatively, you can use Homebrew package manager to install this package.
Install iTerm2 terminal
After download iTerm2 installation file, simply drag and drop into the Applications folder to install iterm2 terminal app. Now you can launch iTerm, through the Launchpad for verifying the installation.
Alternatively, you can install iTerms2 via Homebrew package manager. Once you install the package using Homebrew, you will be able to launch iTerm2 via Mac Launchpad.
When you open iTerm2, it’s looks and feel not that pretty impressed by the first look. You need to follow few more steps to get the look you preferred. You can completely change its looks and feel by customizing default features.
Let’s just quickly change some preferences.
Remove computer name and username from the terminal’s bash prompt
Open iTerms2 “Preferences” configurations box. Then click on “Profiles” tab and select “General” tab.
iTerm2 -> Preferences ->Profiles -> General
Add following text under “Send text at start:” text input.
Close the “Preferences” box and reopen iTerm2 terminal and you will be able to see bash prompt without the computer name and username.
Change default colour theme and fonts
You can download more colour themes to install iterm2 terminal from this web site. http://iterm2colorschemes.com/
Download the zip file and unzip it for the preparation of the next step. Now open the “Preferences” settings window.
You can create a different profile other than Default if you wish to do so. I created a new profile for adding custom settings to the iTerm2.
Open iTerms2 “Preferences” configurations box. Then click on “Profiles” tab and select “Colours” tab.
iTerm2 -> Preferences ->Profiles -> Colours
Now click on “Colour Preset” drop-down and click on “Import” option. Navigate to the “schemes” folder previously unzipped colour profile folder. Then select your preferred colour themes and selected colour themes will be added to the “Colour Preset” drop-down after installing.
Now reopen iTerms terminal and see the effect of the new colour theme.
Once I customize iTerm2 colour theme still I did not see expected nicer interface. I decided to install Oh-My-Zsh to add more features.
Before install Oh-My-Zsh, you need to remove the previously modified text input in the iTerm2 preferences.
Because of Oh-My-Zsh, follow the different approach to remove the [email protected]_machine name from your bash prompt.
Oh-My-Zsh is an open source, the community-driven framework for managing your ZSH configuration. It comes bundled with a ton of helpful functions, helpers, plugins, themes,
Install Oh-My-Zsh
It’s a good idea to backup your existing ~/.zshrc file before installing Oh-My-Zsh.
Now you can use the following command on your terminal to install Oh-My-Zsh. You will be able to find more details on their website.
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Now you almost have better terminal compared to default one. I decided to use “Agnoster” theme with the Oh-My-Zsh.
You can find many available themes for Oh-My-Zsh here. Before you enable “Agnoster” theme, you need to install Powerline fonts.
After installation completed edit ~/.zshrc and set ZSH_THEME=”agnoster”
After enabling “Agnoster” theme, you may be able to see broken fonts on the iTerm2, follow this GIT issue for fixing this fonts issue.
Users need to set both the Regular font and the Non-ASCII Font in “iTerm > Preferences > Profiles > Text” to use a patched font.
Now you may need to remove [email protected]_machine name from your bash prompt. Add following lines to your “.zshrc” configuration file and restart your iTerm2 terminal.
After you done all the above customizations, you can find your iTerm2terminall as following.
How to enable packages on Oh-My-Zsh
Oh-My-Zsh by default comes with lots of plugins to take advantage of. You can take a look in the plugins directory to see what’s currently available.
Once you spot a plugin (or several) that you’d like to use with Oh-My-Zsh, you’ll need to enable them in the .zshrc file.
I have enabled following plugins in my configuration file.
How to upgrade Oh-My-Zsh
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If you need to upgrade you just run following command on your terminal.
How to uninstall iTerm2 terminal
Uninstalling Oh My Zsh
If you decided to uninstall iTerm2, first remove the Oh-My-Zsh theme. This will revert back your original zsh configurations.
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If you want to uninstall oh-my-zsh, just run uninstall_oh_my_zsh from the command-line. It will remove itself and revert your previous bash or zsh configuration.
Uninstall iTerm2
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If you install iTerm2 terminal vis Homebrew package manager, just type the following command on your terminal.
If you download installer file from directly from their website, you just need to trash it from “Application” folder.
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I hope you will enjoy the features of iTerm2 terminal and Oh-My-Zsh. Please comment your thoughts below.