kitty.conf(5)

Name
kitty.conf - Configuration file for kitty

Overview

kitty is highly customizable, everything from keyboard shortcuts, to rendering frames-per-second. See below for an overview of all customization possibilities.

You can open the config file within kitty by pressing ctrl+shift+f2 (⌘+, on macOS). A kitty.conf with commented default configurations and descriptions will be created if the file does not exist. The configuration is automatically reloaded when modified, controlled by auto_reload_config. You can manually reload the config by pressing ctrl+shift+f5 (⌃+⌘+, on macOS) or sending kitty the SIGUSR1 signal with kill -SIGUSR1 $KITTY_PID. You can also display the current configuration by pressing ctrl+shift+f6 (⌥+⌘+, on macOS).

kitty looks for a config file in the OS config directories (usually ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf) but you can pass a specific path via the kitty --config <#cmdoption-kitty-config> option or use the KITTY_CONFIG_DIRECTORY <#envvar-KITTY_CONFIG_DIRECTORY> environment variable. See kitty --config <#cmdoption-kitty-config> for full details.

Comments can be added to the config file as lines starting with the # character. This works only if the # character is the first character in the line.

Lines can be split by starting the next line with the \ character. All leading whitespace and the \ character are removed.

You can include secondary config files via the include directive. If you use a relative path for include, it is resolved with respect to the location of the current config file. Note that environment variables are expanded, so ${USER}.conf becomes name.conf if USER=name. A special environment variable KITTY_OS <#envvar-KITTY_OS> is available, to detect the operating system. It is linux, macos or bsd. Also, you can use globinclude to include files matching a shell glob pattern and envinclude to include configuration from environment variables. Finally, you can dynamically generate configuration by running a program using geninclude. For example:

            # Include other.conf
            include other.conf
            # Include *.conf files from all subdirs of kitty.d inside the kitty config dir
            globinclude kitty.d/**/*.conf
            # Include the *contents* of all env vars starting with KITTY_CONF_
            envinclude KITTY_CONF_*
            # Run the script dynamic.py placed in the same directory as this config file
            # and include its :file:`STDOUT`. Note that Python scripts are fastest
            # as they use the embedded Python interpreter, but any executable script
            # or program is supported, in any language. Remember to mark the script
            # file executable.
            geninclude dynamic.py

Fonts

kitty has very powerful font management. You can configure individual font faces and even specify special fonts for particular characters.

    font_family, bold_font, italic_font, bold_italic_font

            font_family      monospace
            bold_font        auto
            italic_font      auto
            bold_italic_font auto

You can specify different fonts for the bold/italic/bold-italic variants. The easiest way to select fonts is to run the kitten choose-fonts command which will present a nice UI for you to select the fonts you want with previews and support for selecting variable fonts and font features. If you want to learn to select fonts manually, read the font specification syntax <#font-spec-syntax>.

    font_size

            font_size 11.0

Font size (in pts).

    force_ltr

            force_ltr no

kitty does not support BIDI (bidirectional text), however, for RTL scripts, words are automatically displayed in RTL. That is to say, in an RTL script, the words "HELLO WORLD" display in kitty as "WORLD HELLO", and if you try to select a substring of an RTL-shaped string, you will get the character that would be there had the string been LTR. For example, assuming the Hebrew word ירושלים, selecting the character that on the screen appears to be ם actually writes into the selection buffer the character י. kitty's default behavior is useful in conjunction with a filter to reverse the word order, however, if you wish to manipulate RTL glyphs, it can be very challenging to work with, so this option is provided to turn it off. Furthermore, this option can be used with the command line program GNU FriBidi <https://github.com/fribidi/fribidi#executable> to get BIDI support, because it will force kitty to always treat the text as LTR, which FriBidi expects for terminals.

    symbol_map

Has no default values. Example values are shown below:

            symbol_map U+E0A0-U+E0A3,U+E0C0-U+E0C7 PowerlineSymbols

Map the specified Unicode codepoints to a particular font. Useful if you need special rendering for some symbols, such as for Powerline. Avoids the need for patched fonts. Each Unicode code point is specified in the form U+<code point in hexadecimal>. You can specify multiple code points, separated by commas and ranges separated by hyphens. This option can be specified multiple times. The syntax is:

            symbol_map codepoints Font Family Name

    narrow_symbols

Has no default values. Example values are shown below:

            narrow_symbols U+E0A0-U+E0A3,U+E0C0-U+E0C7 1

Usually, for Private Use Unicode characters and some symbol/dingbat characters, if the character is followed by one or more spaces, kitty will use those extra cells to render the character larger, if the character in the font has a wide aspect ratio. Using this option you can force kitty to restrict the specified code points to render in the specified number of cells (defaulting to one cell). This option can be specified multiple times. The syntax is:

            narrow_symbols codepoints [optionally the number of cells]

    disable_ligatures

            disable_ligatures never

Choose how you want to handle multi-character ligatures. The default is to always render them. You can tell kitty to not render them when the cursor is over them by using cursor to make editing easier, or have kitty never render them at all by using always, if you don't like them. The ligature strategy can be set per-window either using the kitty remote control facility or by defining shortcuts for it in kitty.conf, for example:

            map alt+1 disable_ligatures_in active always
            map alt+2 disable_ligatures_in all never
            map alt+3 disable_ligatures_in tab cursor

Note that this refers to programming ligatures, typically implemented using the calt OpenType feature. For disabling general ligatures, use the font_features option.

    font_features

Has no default values. Example values are shown below:

            font_features none

Choose exactly which OpenType features to enable or disable. Note that for the main fonts, features can be specified when selecting the font using the choose-fonts kitten. This setting is useful for fallback fonts.

Some fonts might have features worthwhile in a terminal. For example, Fira Code includes a discretionary feature, zero, which in that font changes the appearance of the zero (0), to make it more easily distinguishable from Ø. Fira Code also includes other discretionary features known as Stylistic Sets which have the tags ss01 through ss20.

For the exact syntax to use for individual features, see the HarfBuzz documentation <https://harfbuzz.github.io/harfbuzz-hb-common.html#hb-feature-from-string>.

Note that this code is indexed by PostScript name, and not the font family. This allows you to define very precise feature settings; e.g. you can disable a feature in the italic font but not in the regular font.

On Linux, font features are first read from the FontConfig database and then this option is applied, so they can be configured in a single, central place.

To get the PostScript name for a font, use the fc-scan file.ttf command on Linux or the Font Book tool on macOS <https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/79875/how-can-i-get-the-postscript-name-of-a-ttf-font-installed-in-os-x>.

Enable alternate zero and oldstyle numerals:

            font_features FiraCode-Retina +zero +onum

Enable only alternate zero in the bold font:

            font_features FiraCode-Bold +zero

Disable the normal ligatures, but keep the calt feature which (in this font) breaks up monotony:

            font_features TT2020StyleB-Regular -liga +calt

In conjunction with force_ltr, you may want to disable Arabic shaping entirely, and only look at their isolated forms if they show up in a document. You can do this with e.g.:

            font_features UnifontMedium +isol -medi -fina -init

    modify_font

Modify font characteristics such as the position or thickness of the underline and strikethrough. The modifications can have the suffix px for pixels or % for percentage of original value. No suffix means use pts. For example:

            modify_font underline_position -2
            modify_font underline_thickness 150%
            modify_font strikethrough_thickness 200%
            modify_font strikethrough_position 2px

Additionally, you can modify the size of the cell in which each font glyph is rendered and the baseline at which the glyph is placed in the cell. For example:

            modify_font cell_width 80%
            modify_font cell_height -2px
            modify_font baseline 3

Note that modifying the baseline will automatically adjust the underline and strikethrough positions by the same amount. Increasing the baseline raises glyphs inside the cell and decreasing it lowers them. Decreasing the cell size might cause rendering artifacts, so use with care.

    box_drawing_scale

            box_drawing_scale 0.001, 1, 1.5, 2

The sizes of the lines used for the box drawing Unicode characters. These values are in pts. They will be scaled by the monitor DPI to arrive at a pixel value. There must be four values corresponding to thin, normal, thick, and very thick lines.

    undercurl_style

            undercurl_style thin-sparse

The style with which undercurls are rendered. This option takes the form (thin|thick)-(sparse|dense). Thin and thick control the thickness of the undercurl. Sparse and dense control how often the curl oscillates. With sparse the curl will peak once per character, with dense twice. Changing this option dynamically via reloading the config or remote control is undefined.

    underline_exclusion

            underline_exclusion 1

By default kitty renders gaps in underlines when they overlap with descenders (the parts of letters below the baseline, such as for y, q, p etc.). This option controls the thickness of the gaps. It can be either a unitless number in which case it is a fraction of the underline thickness as specified in the font or it can have a suffix of px for pixels or pt for points. Set to zero to disable the gaps. Changing this option dynamically via reloading the config or remote control is undefined.

    text_composition_strategy

            text_composition_strategy platform

Control how kitty composites text glyphs onto the background color. The default value of platform tries for text rendering as close to "native" for the platform kitty is running on as possible.

A value of legacy uses the old (pre kitty 0.28) strategy for how glyphs are composited. This will make dark text on light backgrounds look thicker and light text on dark backgrounds thinner. It might also make some text appear like the strokes are uneven.

You can fine tune the actual contrast curve used for glyph composition by specifying up to two space-separated numbers for this setting.

The first number is the gamma adjustment, which controls the thickness of dark text on light backgrounds. Increasing the value will make text appear thicker. The default value for this is 1.0 on Linux and 1.7 on macOS. Valid values are 0.01 and above. The result is scaled based on the luminance difference between the background and the foreground. Dark text on light backgrounds receives the full impact of the curve while light text on dark backgrounds is affected very little.

The second number is an additional multiplicative contrast. It is percentage ranging from 0 to 100. The default value is 0 on Linux and 30 on macOS.

If you wish to achieve similar looking thickness in light and dark themes, a good way to experiment is start by setting the value to 1.0 0 and use a dark theme. Then adjust the second parameter until it looks good. Then switch to a light theme and adjust the first parameter until the perceived thickness matches the dark theme.

    text_fg_override_threshold

            text_fg_override_threshold 0

A setting to prevent low contrast between foreground and background colors. Useful when working with applications that use colors that do not contrast well with your preferred color scheme. The default value is 0, which means no color overriding is performed. There are two modes of operation:

A value with the suffix ratio represents the minimum accepted contrast ratio between the foreground and background color. Possible values range from 0.0 ratio to 21.0 ratio. For example, to meet WCAG level AA <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Content_Accessibility_Guidelines> a value of 4.5 ratio can be provided. The algorithm is implemented using HSLuv <https://www.hsluv.org/> which enables it to change the perceived lightness of a color just as much as needed without really changing its hue and saturation.

A value with the suffix % represents the minimum accepted difference in luminance between the foreground and background color, below which kitty will override the foreground color. It is percentage ranging from 0 % to 100 %. If the difference in luminance of the foreground and background is below this threshold, the foreground color will be set to white if the background is dark or black if the background is light.

WARNING: Some programs use characters (such as block characters) for graphics display and may expect to be able to set the foreground and background to the same color (or similar colors). If you see unexpected stripes, dots, lines, incorrect color, no color where you expect color, or any kind of graphic display problem try setting text_fg_override_threshold to 0 to see if this is the cause of the problem or consider using the ratio mode of operation described above instead of the % mode of operation.

Text cursor customization

    cursor

            cursor #cccccc

Default text cursor color. If set to the special value none the cursor will be rendered with a "reverse video" effect. Its color will be the color of the text in the cell it is over and the text will be rendered with the background color of the cell. Note that if the program running in the terminal sets a cursor color, this takes precedence. Also, the cursor colors are modified if the cell background and foreground colors have very low contrast. Note that some themes set this value, so if you want to override it, place your value after the lines where the theme file is included.

    cursor_text_color

            cursor_text_color #111111

The color of text under the cursor. If you want it rendered with the background color of the cell underneath instead, use the special keyword: background. Note that if cursor is set to none then this option is ignored. Note that some themes set this value, so if you want to override it, place your value after the lines where the theme file is included.

    cursor_shape

            cursor_shape block

The cursor shape can be one of block, beam, underline. Note that when reloading the config this will be changed only if the cursor shape has not been set by the program running in the terminal. This sets the default cursor shape, applications running in the terminal can override it. In particular, shell integration <#shell-integration> in kitty sets the cursor shape to beam at shell prompts. You can avoid this by setting shell_integration to no-cursor.

    cursor_shape_unfocused

            cursor_shape_unfocused hollow

Defines the text cursor shape when the OS window is not focused. The unfocused cursor shape can be one of block, beam, underline, hollow and unchanged (leave the cursor shape as it is).

    cursor_beam_thickness

            cursor_beam_thickness 1.5

The thickness of the beam cursor (in pts).

    cursor_underline_thickness

            cursor_underline_thickness 2.0

The thickness of the underline cursor (in pts).

    cursor_blink_interval

            cursor_blink_interval -1

The interval to blink the cursor (in seconds). Set to zero to disable blinking. Negative values mean use system default. Note that the minimum interval will be limited to repaint_delay. You can also animate the cursor blink by specifying an easing function <#term-easing-function>. For example, setting this to option to 0.5 ease-in-out will cause the cursor blink to be animated over a second, in the first half of the second it will go from opaque to transparent and then back again over the next half. You can specify different easing functions for the two halves, for example: -1 linear ease-out. kitty supports all the CSS easing functions <https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/easing-function>. Note that turning on animations uses extra power as it means the screen is redrawn multiple times per blink interval. See also, cursor_stop_blinking_after. This setting also controls blinking text, which blinks in exact rhythm with the cursor.

    cursor_stop_blinking_after

            cursor_stop_blinking_after 15.0

Stop blinking cursor after the specified number of seconds of keyboard inactivity. Set to zero to never stop blinking. This setting also controls blinking text, which blinks in exact rhythm with the cursor.

    cursor_trail

            cursor_trail 0

Set this to a value larger than zero to enable a "cursor trail" animation. This is an animation that shows a "trail" following the movement of the text cursor. It makes it easy to follow large cursor jumps and makes for a cool visual effect of the cursor zooming around the screen. The actual value of this option controls when the animation is triggered. It is a number of milliseconds. The trail animation only follows cursors that have stayed in their position for longer than the specified number of milliseconds. This prevents trails from appearing for cursors that rapidly change their positions during UI updates in complex applications. See cursor_trail_decay to control the animation speed and cursor_trail_start_threshold to control when a cursor trail is started.

    cursor_trail_decay

            cursor_trail_decay 0.1 0.4

Controls the decay times for the cursor trail effect when the cursor_trail is enabled. This option accepts two positive float values specifying the fastest and slowest decay times in seconds. The first value corresponds to the fastest decay time (minimum), and the second value corresponds to the slowest decay time (maximum). The second value must be equal to or greater than the first value. Smaller values result in a faster decay of the cursor trail. Adjust these values to control how quickly the cursor trail fades away.

    cursor_trail_start_threshold

            cursor_trail_start_threshold 2

Set the distance threshold for starting the cursor trail. This option accepts a positive integer value that represents the minimum number of cells the cursor must move before the trail is started. When the cursor moves less than this threshold, the trail is skipped, reducing unnecessary cursor trail animation.

    cursor_trail_color

            cursor_trail_color none

Set the color of the cursor trail when cursor_trail is enabled. If set to 'none' (the default), the cursor trail will use the cursor's background color. Otherwise, specify a color value (e.g., #ff0000 for red, or a named color like 'red'). This allows you to customize the appearance of the cursor trail independently of the cursor color.

Scrollback

    scrollback_lines

            scrollback_lines 2000

Number of lines of history to keep in memory for scrolling back. Memory is allocated on demand. Negative numbers are (effectively) infinite scrollback. Note that using very large scrollback is not recommended as it can slow down performance of the terminal and also use large amounts of RAM. Instead, consider using scrollback_pager_history_size. Note that on config reload if this is changed it will only affect newly created windows, not existing ones.

    scrollbar

            scrollbar scrolled

Control when the scrollbar is displayed.

    scrolled
        means when the scrolling backwards has started.

    hovered
        means when the mouse is hovering on the right edge of the window.

    scrolled-and-hovered
        means when the mouse is over the scrollbar region and scrolling backwards has started.

    always
        means whenever any scrollback is present

    never
        means disable the scrollbar.

    scrollbar_interactive

            scrollbar_interactive yes

If disabled, the scrollbar will not be controllable via the mouse and all mouse events will pass through the scrollbar.

    scrollbar_jump_on_click

            scrollbar_jump_on_click yes

When enabled clicking in the scrollbar track will cause the scroll position to jump to the clicked location, otherwise the scroll position will only move towards the position by a single screenful, which is how traditional scrollbars behave.

    scrollbar_width

            scrollbar_width 0.5

The width of the scroll bar in units of cell width.

    scrollbar_hover_width

            scrollbar_hover_width 1

The width of the scroll bar when the mouse is hovering over it, in units of cell width.

    scrollbar_handle_opacity

            scrollbar_handle_opacity 0.5

The opacity of the scrollbar handle, 0 being fully transparent and 1 being full opaque.

    scrollbar_radius

            scrollbar_radius 0.3

The radius (curvature) of the scrollbar handle in units of cell width. Should be less than scrollbar_width.

    scrollbar_gap

            scrollbar_gap 0.1

The gap between the scrollbar and the window edge in units of cell width.

    scrollbar_min_handle_height

            scrollbar_min_handle_height 1

The minimum height of the scrollbar handle in units of cell height. Prevents the handle from becoming too small when there is a lot of scrollback.

    scrollbar_hitbox_expansion

            scrollbar_hitbox_expansion 0.25

The extra area around the handle to allow easier grabbing of the scollbar in units of cell width.

    scrollbar_track_opacity

            scrollbar_track_opacity 0

The opacity of the scrollbar track, 0 being fully transparent and 1 being full opaque.

    scrollbar_track_hover_opacity

            scrollbar_track_hover_opacity 0.1

The opacity of the scrollbar track when the mouse is over the scrollbar, 0 being fully transparent and 1 being full opaque.

    scrollbar_handle_color

            scrollbar_handle_color foreground

The color of the scrollbar handle. A value of foreground means to use the current foreground text color, a value of selection_background means to use the current selection background color. Also, you can use an arbitrary color, such as #12af59 or red.

    scrollbar_track_color

            scrollbar_track_color foreground

The color of the scrollbar track. A value of foreground means to use the current foreground text color, a value of selection_background means to use the current selection background color. Also, you can use an arbitrary color, such as #12af59 or red.

    progress_bar

            progress_bar top

When a program uses the OSC 9;4 escape sequence to report progress, draw a progress bar in the specified position of the window. The bar uses the same style and color settings as the scrollbar .

    left
        a vertical progress bar on the left edge

    right
        a vertical progress bar on the right edge

    top a horizontal progress bar on the top edge

    bottom
        a horizontal progress bar on the bottom edge

    hidden
        dont show the progress bar

    scrollback_pager

            scrollback_pager less --chop-long-lines --RAW-CONTROL-CHARS +INPUT_LINE_NUMBER

Program with which to view scrollback in a new window. The scrollback buffer is passed as STDIN to this program. If you change it, make sure the program you use can handle ANSI escape sequences for colors and text formatting. INPUT_LINE_NUMBER in the command line above will be replaced by an integer representing which line should be at the top of the screen. Similarly CURSOR_LINE and CURSOR_COLUMN will be replaced by the current cursor position or set to 0 if there is no cursor, for example, when showing the last command output.

If you would rather use neovim to view the scrollback, use something like this:

            scrollback_pager nvim --cmd 'set eventignore=FileType' +'nnoremap q ZQ' +'call nvim_open_term(0, {})' +'set nomodified nolist' +'$' -

The above works for neovim 0.12 and newer. There is also a dedicated plugin kitty-scrollback.nvim <https://github.com/mikesmithgh/kitty-scrollback.nvim> you can use with more features that works with older neovim as well.

    scrollback_pager_history_size

            scrollback_pager_history_size 0

Separate scrollback history size (in MB), used only for browsing the scrollback buffer with pager. This separate buffer is not available for interactive scrolling but will be piped to the pager program when viewing scrollback buffer in a separate window. The current implementation stores the data in UTF-8, so approximately 10000 lines per megabyte at 100 chars per line, for pure ASCII, unformatted text. A value of zero or less disables this feature. The maximum allowed size is 4GB. Note that on config reload if this is changed it will only affect newly created windows, not existing ones.

    scrollback_fill_enlarged_window

            scrollback_fill_enlarged_window no

Fill new space with lines from the scrollback buffer after enlarging a window.

    wheel_scroll_multiplier

            wheel_scroll_multiplier 5.0

Multiplier for the number of lines scrolled by the mouse wheel. Note that this is only used for low precision scrolling devices, not for high precision scrolling devices on platforms such as macOS and Wayland. Use negative numbers to change scroll direction. See also wheel_scroll_min_lines.

    wheel_scroll_min_lines

            wheel_scroll_min_lines 1

The minimum number of lines scrolled by the mouse wheel. The scroll multiplier only takes effect after it reaches this number. Note that this is only used for low precision scrolling devices like wheel mice that scroll by very small amounts when using the wheel. With a negative number, the minimum number of lines will always be added.

    touch_scroll_multiplier

            touch_scroll_multiplier 1.0

Multiplier for the number of lines scrolled by a touchpad. Note that this is only used for high precision scrolling devices on platforms such as macOS and Wayland. Use negative numbers to change scroll direction.

    pixel_scroll

            pixel_scroll yes

Enable per-pixel scrolling, in the kitty scrollback buffer, when using high precision input devices (for example touchpads). When enabled, kitty's own scrollback will move by sub-line increments instead of only whole lines. This does not affect applications running inside the terminal (for example full-screen TUIs) that handle scrolling themselves.

    momentum_scroll

            momentum_scroll 0.96

The amount of friction to apply to slow down momentum (inertial) scrolling. A number from 0 to 1, with 0 meaning no momentum scrolling and 1 meaning infinite scrolling. Note that this setting only applies on platforms such as Wayland, that do not provide native momentum scrolling. On macOS, the native OS based momentum scrolling is used. Also, momentum scrolling only applies to "finger" based devices such as touchpads and touchscreens. Changes to this setting only take effect after a kitty restart.

Mouse

    mouse_hide_wait

            mouse_hide_wait 3.0

Hide mouse cursor after the specified number of seconds of the mouse not being used. Set to zero to disable mouse cursor hiding. Set to a negative value to hide the mouse cursor immediately when typing text. Disabled by default on macOS as getting it to work robustly with the ever-changing sea of bugs that is Cocoa is too much effort.

By default, once the cursor is hidden, it is immediately unhidden on any further mouse events.

    Two formats are supported:

        •   <hide-wait>

        •   <hide-wait> <unhide-wait> <unhide-threshold> <scroll-unhide>

To change the unhide behavior, the optional parameters <unhide-wait>, <unhide-threshold>, and <scroll-unhide> may be set.

    <unhide-wait>
        Waits for the specified number of seconds after mouse events before unhiding the mouse cursor. Set to zero to unhide mouse cursor immediately on mouse activity. This is useful to prevent the mouse cursor from unhiding on accidental swipes on the trackpad.

    <unhide-threshold>
        Sets the threshold of mouse activity required to unhide the mouse cursor, when the <unhide-wait> option is non-zero. When <unhide-wait> is zero, this has no effect.

        For example, if <unhide-threshold> is 40 and <unhide-wait> is 2.5, when kitty detects a mouse event, it records the number of mouse events in the next 2.5 seconds, and checks if that exceeds 40 * 2.5 = 100. If it does, then the mouse cursor is unhidden, otherwise nothing happens.

    <scroll-unhide>
        Controls what mouse events may unhide the mouse cursor. If enabled, both scroll and movement events may unhide the cursor. If disabled, only mouse movements can unhide the cursor.

    Examples of valid values:

        •   0.0

        •   1.0

        •   -1.0

        •   0.1 3.0 40 yes

    url_color, url_style

            url_color #0087bd
            url_style curly

The color and style for highlighting URLs on mouse-over. url_style can be one of: none, straight, double, curly, dotted, dashed.

    open_url_with

            open_url_with default

The program to open clicked URLs. The special value default will first look for any URL handlers defined via the Scripting the mouse click <> facility and if non are found, it will use the Operating System's default URL handler (open on macOS and xdg-open on Linux).

    url_prefixes

            url_prefixes file ftp ftps gemini git gopher http https irc ircs kitty mailto news sftp ssh

The set of URL prefixes to look for when detecting a URL under the mouse cursor.

    detect_urls

            detect_urls yes

Detect URLs under the mouse. Detected URLs are highlighted with an underline and the mouse cursor becomes a hand over them. Even if this option is disabled, URLs are still clickable. See also the underline_hyperlinks option to control how hyperlinks (as opposed to plain text URLs) are displayed.

    url_excluded_characters

Additional characters to be disallowed from URLs, when detecting URLs under the mouse cursor. By default, all characters that are legal in URLs are allowed. Additionally, newlines are allowed (but stripped). This is to accommodate programs such as mutt that add hard line breaks even for continued lines. \n can be added to this option to disable this behavior. Special characters can be specified using backslash escapes, to specify a backslash use a double backslash.

    show_hyperlink_targets

            show_hyperlink_targets never

When the mouse hovers over a terminal hyperlink, show the actual URL that will be activated when the hyperlink is clicked. Set to ctrl, cmd, alt or shift to show only while the corresponding modifier key is pressed (Ctrl, Super (macOS Cmd), Shift). If multiple modifiers are pressed, the URL is shown as long as the configured modifier is among them. always to always show, or never to never show.

    underline_hyperlinks

            underline_hyperlinks hover

Control how hyperlinks are underlined. They can either be underlined on mouse hover, always (i.e. permanently underlined) or never which means that kitty will not apply any underline styling to hyperlinks. Note that the value of always only applies to real (OSC 8) hyperlinks not text that is detected to be a URL on mouse hover. Uses the url_style and url_color settings for the underline style. Note that reloading the config and changing this value to/from always will only affect text subsequently received by kitty.

    copy_on_select

            copy_on_select no

Copy to clipboard or a private buffer on select. With this set to clipboard, selecting text with the mouse will cause the text to be copied to clipboard. Useful on platforms such as macOS that do not have the concept of primary selection. You can instead specify a name such as a1 to copy to a private kitty buffer. Map a shortcut with the paste_from_buffer action to paste from this private buffer. For example:

            copy_on_select a1
            map shift+cmd+v paste_from_buffer a1

Note that copying to the clipboard is a security risk, as all programs, including websites open in your browser can read the contents of the system clipboard.

    clear_selection_on_clipboard_loss

            clear_selection_on_clipboard_loss no

When the contents of the clipboard no longer reflect the current selection, clear it. This is primarily useful on platforms such as Linux where selecting text automatically copies it to a special "primary selection" clipboard or if you have copy_on_select set to clipboard.

Note that on macOS the system does not provide notifications when the clipboard owner is changed, so there, copying to clipboard in a non-kitty application will not clear selections even if copy_on_select is enabled.

    paste_actions

            paste_actions quote-urls-at-prompt,confirm

A comma separated list of actions to take when pasting or dropping text into the terminal. The supported paste actions are:

    quote-urls-at-prompt:
        If the text being pasted is a URL and the cursor is at a shell prompt, automatically quote the URL (needs shell_integration).

    replace-dangerous-control-codes
        Replace dangerous control codes from pasted text, without confirmation.

    replace-newline
        Replace the newline character from pasted text, without confirmation.

    confirm:
        Confirm the paste if the text to be pasted contains any terminal control codes as this can be dangerous, leading to code execution if the shell/program running in the terminal does not properly handle these.

    confirm-if-large
        Confirm the paste if it is very large (larger than 16KB) as pasting large amounts of text into shells can be very slow.

    filter:
        Run the filter_paste() function from the file paste-actions.py in the kitty config directory on the pasted text. The text returned by the function will be actually pasted.

    no-op:
        Has no effect.

    strip_trailing_spaces

            strip_trailing_spaces never

Remove spaces at the end of lines when copying to clipboard. A value of smart will do it when using normal selections, but not rectangle selections. A value of always will always do it.

    select_by_word_characters

            select_by_word_characters @-./_~?&=%+#

Characters considered part of a word when double clicking. In addition to these characters any character that is marked as an alphanumeric character in the Unicode database will be matched.

    select_by_word_characters_forward

Characters considered part of a word when extending the selection forward on double clicking. In addition to these characters any character that is marked as an alphanumeric character in the Unicode database will be matched.

If empty (default) select_by_word_characters will be used for both directions.

    click_interval

            click_interval -1.0

The interval between successive clicks to detect double/triple clicks (in seconds). Negative numbers will use the system default instead, if available, or fallback to 0.5.

    focus_follows_mouse

            focus_follows_mouse no

Set the active window to the window under the mouse when the mouse crosses into a different window. The active window does not change while the mouse moves around within a single window, so an accidental mouse bump will not undo a keyboard-driven window switch. Setting it to drop means focus will only be changed when a drag and drop happens in a window. On macOS, this will also cause the OS Window under the mouse to be focused automatically when the mouse enters it, as long as the kitty application is the active application.

    pointer_shape_when_grabbed

            pointer_shape_when_grabbed arrow

The shape of the mouse pointer when the program running in the terminal grabs the mouse.

    default_pointer_shape

            default_pointer_shape beam

The default shape of the mouse pointer.

    pointer_shape_when_dragging

            pointer_shape_when_dragging beam crosshair

The default shape of the mouse pointer when dragging across text. The optional second value sets the shape when dragging in rectangular selection mode.

    drag_threshold

            drag_threshold 5

The threshold distance the mouse must move to start a drag and drop. Dragging works for tabs and windows. You can drag tabs to re-order them, detach them into new OS Windows or move them to another OS Window. Similarly, by dragging the titlebar of a window (see toggle_window_title_bars <#action-toggle_window_title_bars>) you can re-order it in its layout, detach it or move it to another tab. A value of zero disables all dragging.

Note that on Wayland, because of poor design <https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland/-/issues/140> cancelling a drag will detach the tab. This is worked around for compositors that support xdg-toplevel-drag <https://wayland.app/protocols/xdg-toplevel-drag-v1>.

  Mouse actions

Mouse buttons can be mapped to perform arbitrary actions. The syntax is:

            mouse_map button-name event-type modes action

Where button-name is one of left, middle, right, b1 ... b8 with added keyboard modifiers. For example: ctrl+shift+left refers to holding the Ctrl+Shift keys while clicking with the left mouse button. The value b1 ... b8 can be used to refer to up to eight buttons on a mouse.

event-type is one of press, release, doublepress, triplepress, click, doubleclick. modes indicates whether the action is performed when the mouse is grabbed by the program running in the terminal, or not. The values are grabbed or ungrabbed or a comma separated combination of them. grabbed refers to when the program running in the terminal has requested mouse events. Note that the click and double click events have a delay of click_interval to disambiguate from double and triple presses.

You can run kitty with the kitty --debug-input <#cmdoption-kitty-debug-input> command line option to see mouse events. See the builtin actions below to get a sense of what is possible.

If you want to unmap a button, map it to nothing. For example, to disable opening of URLs with a plain click:

            mouse_map left click ungrabbed

See all the mappable actions including mouse actions here <>.

Note:
        Once a selection is started, releasing the button that started it will automatically end it and no release event will be dispatched.

    clear_all_mouse_actions

            clear_all_mouse_actions no

Remove all mouse action definitions up to this point. Useful, for instance, to remove the default mouse actions.

    Click the link under the mouse or move the cursor

            mouse_map left click ungrabbed mouse_handle_click selection link prompt

First check for a selection and if one exists do nothing. Then check for a link under the mouse cursor and if one exists, click it. Finally check if the click happened at the current shell prompt and if so, move the cursor to the click location. Note that this requires shell integration <#shell-integration> to work.

    Click the link under the mouse or move the cursor even when grabbed

            mouse_map shift+left click grabbed,ungrabbed mouse_handle_click selection link prompt

Same as above, except that the action is performed even when the mouse is grabbed by the program running in the terminal.

    Click the link under the mouse cursor

            mouse_map ctrl+shift+left release grabbed,ungrabbed mouse_handle_click link

Variant with Ctrl+Shift is present because the simple click based version has an unavoidable delay of click_interval, to disambiguate clicks from double clicks.

    Discard press event for link click

            mouse_map ctrl+shift+left press grabbed discard_event

Prevent this press event from being sent to the program that has grabbed the mouse, as the corresponding release event is used to open a URL.

    Paste from the primary selection

            mouse_map middle release ungrabbed paste_from_selection

    Start selecting text

            mouse_map left press ungrabbed mouse_selection normal

If you would like to drag and drop hyperlinks or detected URLs, instead of normal use drag_or_normal_select, then if a hyperlink is under the mouse it will be dragged based on drag_threshold otherwise a normal selection will be performed.

    Start selecting text in a rectangle

            mouse_map ctrl+alt+left press ungrabbed mouse_selection rectangle

    Select a word

            mouse_map left doublepress ungrabbed mouse_selection word

    Select a line

            mouse_map left triplepress ungrabbed mouse_selection line

    Select line from first cell

            mouse_map alt+left triplepress ungrabbed mouse_selection line_from_begin

    Select line from point

            mouse_map ctrl+alt+left triplepress ungrabbed mouse_selection line_from_point

Select from the clicked point to the end of the line. If you would like to select the word at the point and then extend to the rest of the line, change line_from_point to word_and_line_from_point.

    Extend the current selection

            mouse_map right press ungrabbed mouse_selection extend

If you want only the end of the selection to be moved instead of the nearest boundary, use move-end instead of extend.

    Extend the current selection with shift

            mouse_map shift+left press ungrabbed mouse_selection extend

If you want only the end of the selection to be moved instead of the nearest boundary, use move-end instead of extend.

    Paste from the primary selection even when grabbed

            mouse_map shift+middle release ungrabbed,grabbed paste_selection
            mouse_map shift+middle press grabbed discard_event

    Start selecting text even when grabbed

            mouse_map shift+left press grabbed mouse_selection normal

    Start selecting text in a rectangle even when grabbed

            mouse_map ctrl+shift+alt+left press ungrabbed,grabbed mouse_selection rectangle

    Select a word even when grabbed

            mouse_map shift+left doublepress ungrabbed,grabbed mouse_selection word

    Select a line even when grabbed

            mouse_map shift+left triplepress ungrabbed,grabbed mouse_selection line

    Select line from first cell even when grabbed

            mouse_map shift+alt+left triplepress ungrabbed,grabbed mouse_selection line_from_begin

    Select line from point even when grabbed

            mouse_map ctrl+shift+alt+left triplepress ungrabbed,grabbed mouse_selection line_from_point

Select from the clicked point to the end of the line even when grabbed. If you would like to select the word at the point and then extend to the rest of the line, change line_from_point to word_and_line_from_point.

    Extend the current selection even when grabbed

            mouse_map shift+right press ungrabbed,grabbed mouse_selection extend

    Show clicked command output in pager

            mouse_map ctrl+shift+right press ungrabbed mouse_show_command_output

Requires shell integration <#shell-integration> to work.

Performance tuning

    repaint_delay

            repaint_delay 10

Delay between screen updates (in milliseconds). Decreasing it, increases frames-per-second (FPS) at the cost of more CPU usage. The default value yields ~100 FPS which is more than sufficient for most uses. Note that to actually achieve 100 FPS, you have to either set sync_to_monitor to no or use a monitor with a high refresh rate. Also, to minimize latency when there is pending input to be processed, this option is ignored.

    input_delay

            input_delay 3

Delay before input from the program running in the terminal is processed (in milliseconds). Note that decreasing it will increase responsiveness, but also increase CPU usage and might cause flicker in full screen programs that redraw the entire screen on each loop, because kitty is so fast that partial screen updates will be drawn. This setting is ignored when the input buffer is almost full.

    sync_to_monitor

            sync_to_monitor yes

Sync screen updates to the refresh rate of the monitor. This prevents screen tearing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing> when scrolling. However, it limits the rendering speed to the refresh rate of your monitor. With a very high speed mouse/high keyboard repeat rate, you may notice some slight input latency. If so, set this to no.

Terminal bell

    enable_audio_bell

            enable_audio_bell yes

The audio bell. Useful to disable it in environments that require silence.

    visual_bell_duration

            visual_bell_duration 0.0

The visual bell duration (in seconds). Flash the screen when a bell occurs for the specified number of seconds. Set to zero to disable. The flash is animated, fading in and out over the specified duration. The easing function <#term-easing-function> used for the fading can be controlled. For example, 2.0 linear will casuse the flash to fade in and out linearly. The default if unspecified is to use ease-in-out which fades slowly at the start, middle and end. You can specify different easing functions for the fade-in and fade-out parts, like this: 2.0 ease-in linear. kitty supports all the CSS easing functions <https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/easing-function>.

    visual_bell_color

            visual_bell_color none

The color used by visual bell. Set to none will fall back to selection background color. If you feel that the visual bell is too bright, you can set it to a darker color.

    window_alert_on_bell

            window_alert_on_bell yes

Request window attention on bell. Makes the dock icon bounce on macOS or the taskbar flash on Linux.

    bell_on_tab

            bell_on_tab "🔔 "

Some text or a Unicode symbol to show on the tab if a window in the tab that does not have focus has a bell. If you want to use leading or trailing spaces, surround the text with quotes. See tab_title_template for how this is rendered.

For backwards compatibility, values of yes, y and true are converted to the default bell symbol and no, n, false and none are converted to the empty string.

    command_on_bell

            command_on_bell none

Program to run when a bell occurs. The environment variable KITTY_CHILD_CMDLINE <#envvar-KITTY_CHILD_CMDLINE> can be used to get the program running in the window in which the bell occurred.

    macos_dock_badge_on_bell

            macos_dock_badge_on_bell yes

Show a badge on kitty's dock icon when a bell occurs and kitty is not the active application (macOS only). The badge is automatically cleared when kitty regains focus.

    bell_path

            bell_path none

Path to a sound file to play as the bell sound. If set to none, the system default bell sound is used. Must be in a format supported by the operating systems sound API, such as WAV or OGA on Linux (libcanberra) or AIFF, MP3 or WAV on macOS (NSSound). Relative paths are resolved with respect to the kitty config directory.

    linux_bell_theme

            linux_bell_theme __custom

The XDG Sound Theme kitty will use to play the bell sound. On Wayland, when the compositor supports it, it is asked to play the system default bell sound, and this setting has no effect. Note that Hyprland claims to support this protocol, but does not actually play a sound <https://github.com/hyprwm/Hyprland/issues/10488>. This setting defaults to the custom theme name specified in the XDG Sound theme specification <https://specifications.freedesktop.org/sound-theme-spec/latest/sound_lookup.html> with the contents:
        [Sound Theme]

        Inherits=name-of-the-sound-theme-you-want-to-use

Replace name-of-the-sound-theme-you-want-to-use with the actual theme name. Now all compliant applications should use sounds from this theme.

Window layout

    remember_window_size, initial_window_width, initial_window_height

            remember_window_size  yes
            initial_window_width  640
            initial_window_height 400

If enabled, the OS Window <#term-os_window> size will be remembered so that new instances of kitty will have the same size as the previous instance. If disabled, the OS Window <#term-os_window> will initially have size configured by initial_window_width/height, in pixels. You can use a suffix of "c" on the width/height values to have them interpreted as number of cells instead of pixels.

    remember_window_position

            remember_window_position no

If enabled, the OS Window <#term-os_window> position will be remembered so that new instances of kitty will have the same position as the previous instance. If disabled, the OS Window <#term-os_window> will be placed by the window manager. Note that remembering of position only works if the underlying desktop environment/window manager supports it. It never works on Wayland. See also kitty --position <#cmdoption-kitty-position> to specify the position when launching kitty.

    enabled_layouts

            enabled_layouts *

The enabled window layouts. A comma separated list of layout names. The special value all means all layouts. The first listed layout will be used as the startup layout. Default configuration is all layouts in alphabetical order. For a list of available layouts, see the Layouts <#layouts>.

    window_resize_step_cells, window_resize_step_lines

            window_resize_step_cells 2
            window_resize_step_lines 2

The step size (in units of cell width/cell height) to use when resizing kitty windows in a layout with the shortcut ctrl+shift+r. The cells value is used for horizontal resizing, and the lines value is used for vertical resizing.

    window_border_width

            window_border_width 0.5pt

The width of window borders. Can be either in pixels (px) or pts (pt). Values in pts will be rounded to the nearest number of pixels based on screen resolution. If not specified, the unit is assumed to be pts. Note that borders are displayed only when more than one window is visible. They are meant to separate multiple windows.

    draw_minimal_borders

            draw_minimal_borders yes

Draw only the minimum borders needed. This means that only the borders that separate the window from a neighbor are drawn. Note that setting a non-zero window_margin_width overrides this and causes all borders to be drawn.

    draw_window_borders_for_single_window

            draw_window_borders_for_single_window no

Draw borders around a window even when there is only a single window visible. When enabled and there is only a single window, full borders are drawn around it (as if draw_minimal_borders is false). The border will show in the active color when the window is focused and the OS window has focus, and in the inactive color when the OS window loses focus. This provides a clear visual indicator of whether the kitty window is focused. When there are multiple windows visible, this option has no effect and normal border drawing rules apply.

    window_margin_width

            window_margin_width 0

The window margin (in pts) (blank area outside the border). A single value sets all four sides. Two values set the vertical and horizontal sides. Three values set top, horizontal and bottom. Four values set top, right, bottom and left.

    single_window_margin_width

            single_window_margin_width -1

The window margin to use when only a single window is visible (in pts). Negative values will cause the value of window_margin_width to be used instead. A single value sets all four sides. Two values set the vertical and horizontal sides. Three values set top, horizontal and bottom. Four values set top, right, bottom and left.

    window_padding_width

            window_padding_width 0

The window padding (in pts) (blank area between the text and the window border). A single value sets all four sides. Two values set the vertical and horizontal sides. Three values set top, horizontal and bottom. Four values set top, right, bottom and left.

    single_window_padding_width

            single_window_padding_width -1

The window padding to use when only a single window is visible (in pts). Negative values will cause the value of window_padding_width to be used instead. A single value sets all four sides. Two values set the vertical and horizontal sides. Three values set top, horizontal and bottom. Four values set top, right, bottom and left.

    placement_strategy

            placement_strategy center

When the window size is not an exact multiple of the cell size, the cell area of the terminal window will have some extra padding on the sides. You can control how that padding is distributed with this option. Using a value of center means the cell area will be placed centrally. A value of top-left means the padding will be only at the bottom and right edges. The value can be one of: top-left, top, top-right, left, center, right, bottom-left, bottom, bottom-right.

    active_border_color

            active_border_color #00ff00

The color for the border of the active window. Set this to none to not draw borders around the active window.

    inactive_border_color

            inactive_border_color #cccccc

The color for the border of inactive windows.

    bell_border_color

            bell_border_color #ff5a00

The color for the border of inactive windows in which a bell has occurred.

    inactive_text_alpha

            inactive_text_alpha 1.0

Fade the text in inactive windows by the specified amount. This must be a number between -1 and 1. The absolute value controls the actual opacity, with zero being fully faded and one being fully opaque. When a positive number is used the text is faded even if only a single window is visible when the OS window is not focused. Negative numbers means that text is only faded when more than one kitty window is visible in an OS Window. Fading happens in all but the active window, even if the OS Window is not focused. Thus this is useful if you want to rely on the window manager to indicate OS Window focus and this feature to indicate which kitty window is active insidethe OS Window.

    hide_window_decorations

            hide_window_decorations no

Hide the window decorations (title-bar and window borders) with yes. On macOS, titlebar-only and titlebar-and-corners can be used to only hide the titlebar and the rounded corners.

On Wayland, titlebar-only can be used to hide the titlebar while keeping the window shadow for resizing. On compositors that have server-side decorations (such as anything but GNOME), both yes and titlebar-only force client-side decoration mode.

Whether this works and exactly what effect it has depends on the window manager/operating system. Note that the effects of changing this option when reloading config are undefined. When using titlebar-only on macOS, it is useful to also set window_margin_width and placement_strategy to prevent the rounded corners from clipping text. Or use titlebar-and-corners.

    window_logo_path

            window_logo_path none

Path to a logo image. Must be in PNG/JPEG/WEBP/GIF/TIFF/BMP format. Relative paths are interpreted relative to the kitty config directory. The logo is displayed in a corner of every kitty window. The position is controlled by window_logo_position. Individual windows can be configured to have different logos either using the launch <#action-launch> action or the remote control <> facility.

    window_logo_position

            window_logo_position bottom-right

Where to position the window logo in the window. The value can be one of: top-left, top, top-right, left, center, right, bottom-left, bottom, bottom-right.

    window_logo_alpha

            window_logo_alpha 0.5

The amount the logo should be faded into the background. With zero being fully faded and one being fully opaque.

    window_logo_scale

            window_logo_scale 0

The percentage (0-100] of the window size to which the logo should scale. Using a single number means the logo is scaled to that percentage of the shortest window dimension, while preserving aspect ratio of the logo image.

Using two numbers means the width and height of the logo are scaled to the respective percentage of the window's width and height.

Using zero as the percentage disables scaling in that dimension. A single zero (the default) disables all scaling of the window logo.

    resize_debounce_time

            resize_debounce_time 0.1 0.5

The time to wait (in seconds) before asking the program running in kitty to resize and redraw the screen during a live resize of the OS window, when no new resize events have been received, i.e. when resizing is either paused or finished. On platforms such as macOS, where the operating system sends events corresponding to the start and end of a live resize, the second number is used for redraw-after-pause since kitty can distinguish between a pause and end of resizing. On such systems the first number is ignored and redraw is immediate after end of resize. On other systems only the first number is used so that kitty is "ready" quickly after the end of resizing, while not also continuously redrawing, to save energy.

    resize_in_steps

            resize_in_steps no

Resize the OS window in steps as large as the cells, instead of with the usual pixel accuracy. Combined with initial_window_width and initial_window_height in number of cells, this option can be used to keep the margins as small as possible when resizing the OS window. Note that this does not currently work on Wayland.

    visual_window_select_characters

            visual_window_select_characters 1234567890ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

The list of characters for visual window selection. For example, for selecting a window to focus on with ctrl+shift+f7. The value should be a series of unique numbers or alphabets, case insensitive, from the set 0-9A-Z`-=[];',./\. Specify your preference as a string of characters.

    confirm_os_window_close

            confirm_os_window_close -1

Ask for confirmation when closing an OS window or a tab with at least this number of kitty windows in it by window manager (e.g. clicking the window close button or pressing the operating system shortcut to close windows) or by the close_tab <#action-close_tab> action. A value of zero disables confirmation. This confirmation also applies to requests to quit the entire application (all OS windows, via the quit <#action-quit> action). Negative values are converted to positive ones, however, with shell_integration enabled, using negative values means windows sitting at a shell prompt are not counted, only windows where some command is currently running. You can also have backgrounded jobs prevent closing, by adding count-background to the setting, for example: -1 count-background. Note that if you want confirmation when closing individual windows, you can map the close_window_with_confirmation <#action-close_window_with_confirmation> action.

    window_drag_tolerance

            window_drag_tolerance 2

Control dragging window borders to resize kitty windows. This is the tolerance in pts for the region around window borders where pressing the left mouse button will start the dragging of window borders. Use a large negative value such as -200 to disable dragging of borders. Note that because kitty uses layouts, dragging borders does not actually resize the window itself, but instead, the layout row/column/slot, which can result in multiple windows getting resized.

    window_title_bar

            window_title_bar top

Control the position of the window title bar relative to the window content. Use window_title_bar_min_windows to control when title bars are shown. Use window_title_template to format the displayed window title.

    window_title_bar_min_windows

            window_title_bar_min_windows 0

The minimum number of visible windows in a tab before window title bars are shown. A value of 0 means never show. 1 means always show. 2 or more means show only when at least that many windows are visible. Similar to tab_bar_min_tabs for the tab bar.

    window_title_template

            window_title_template "{fmt.fg.red}{bell_symbol}{activity_symbol}{fmt.fg.window}{progress_percent}{title}"

A template to render the window title bar text. Uses the same template syntax as tab_title_template. Available variables include: {title}, {bell_symbol}, {activity_symbol}, {progress_percent}, {custom}, {fmt}, {is_active}. You can also provide a custom draw_window_title(data) function in window_title_bar.py in the kitty config directory, exposed as {custom}.

    active_window_title_template

            active_window_title_template none

Template to use for the active window title bar. If not set (the value none), the window_title_template is used.

    window_title_bar_active_foreground

            window_title_bar_active_foreground none

Foreground color for the active window title bar. Defaults to the corresponding tab bar color (active_tab_foreground) when set to none.

    window_title_bar_active_background

            window_title_bar_active_background none

Background color for the active window title bar. Defaults to the corresponding tab bar color (active_tab_background) when set to none.

    window_title_bar_inactive_foreground

            window_title_bar_inactive_foreground none

Foreground color for inactive window title bars. Defaults to the corresponding tab bar color (inactive_tab_foreground) when set to none.

    window_title_bar_inactive_background

            window_title_bar_inactive_background none

Background color for inactive window title bars. Defaults to the corresponding tab bar color (inactive_tab_background) when set to none.

    window_title_bar_align

            window_title_bar_align center

Horizontal alignment of the text in window title bars.

Tab bar

    tab_bar_edge

            tab_bar_edge bottom

The edge to show the tab bar on, top or bottom.

    tab_bar_margin_width

            tab_bar_margin_width 0.0

The margin to the left and right of the tab bar (in pts).

    tab_bar_margin_height

            tab_bar_margin_height 0.0 0.0

The margin above and below the tab bar (in pts). The first number is the margin between the edge of the OS Window and the tab bar. The second number is the margin between the tab bar and the contents of the current tab.

    tab_bar_style

            tab_bar_style fade

The tab bar style, can be one of:

    fade
        Each tab's edges fade into the background color. (See also tab_fade)

    slant
        Tabs look like the tabs in a physical file.

    separator
        Tabs are separated by a configurable separator. (See also tab_separator)

    powerline
        Tabs are shown as a continuous line with "fancy" separators. (See also tab_powerline_style)

    custom
        A user-supplied Python function called draw_tab is loaded from the file tab_bar.py in the kitty config directory. For examples of how to write such a function, see the functions named draw_tab_with_* in kitty's source code: kitty/tab_bar.py. See also this discussion <https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/discussions/4447> for examples from kitty users.

    hidden
        The tab bar is hidden. If you use this, you might want to create a mapping for the select_tab <#action-select_tab> action which presents you with a list of tabs and allows for easy switching to a tab.

    tab_bar_filter

A search expression <#search-syntax>. Only tabs that match this expression will be shown in the tab bar. The currently active tab is always shown, regardless of whether it matches or not. When using this option, the tab bar may be displayed with less tabs than specified in tab_bar_min_tabs, as evaluating the filter is expensive and is done only at display time. This is most useful when using sessions <#sessions>. An expression of session:~ or session:^$ will show only tabs that belong to the current session or no session. The various tab navigation actions such as goto_tab <#action-goto_tab>, next_tab <#action-next_tab>, previous_tab <#action-previous_tab>, etc. are automatically restricted to work only on matching tabs.

    tab_bar_align

            tab_bar_align left

The horizontal alignment of the tab bar, can be one of: left, center, right.

    tab_bar_show_new_tab_button

            tab_bar_show_new_tab_button no

When set to yes, a + button is always shown at the end of the tab bar as a clickable shortcut to open a new tab. When set to no (the default), the button is hidden at rest but still appears temporarily while a window is being dragged, so it can be used as a drop target to open the window in a new tab.

    tab_bar_min_tabs

            tab_bar_min_tabs 2

The minimum number of tabs that must exist before the tab bar is shown.

    tab_switch_strategy

            tab_switch_strategy previous

The algorithm to use when switching to a tab when the current tab is closed. The default of previous will switch to the last used tab. A value of left will switch to the tab to the left of the closed tab. A value of right will switch to the tab to the right of the closed tab. A value of last will switch to the right-most tab.

    tab_fade

            tab_fade 0.25 0.5 0.75 1

Control how each tab fades into the background when using fade for the tab_bar_style. Each number is an alpha (between zero and one) that controls how much the corresponding cell fades into the background, with zero being no fade and one being full fade. You can change the number of cells used by adding/removing entries to this list.

    tab_separator

            tab_separator " ┇"

The separator between tabs in the tab bar when using separator as the tab_bar_style.

    tab_powerline_style

            tab_powerline_style angled

The powerline separator style between tabs in the tab bar when using powerline as the tab_bar_style, can be one of: angled, slanted, round.

    tab_activity_symbol

            tab_activity_symbol none

Some text or a Unicode symbol to show on the tab if a window in the tab that does not have focus has some activity. If you want to use leading or trailing spaces, surround the text with quotes. See tab_title_template for how this is rendered.

    tab_title_max_length

            tab_title_max_length 0

The maximum number of cells that can be used to render the text in a tab. A value of zero means that no limit is applied.

    tab_title_template

            tab_title_template "{fmt.fg.red}{bell_symbol}{activity_symbol}{secure_input_symbol}{fmt.fg.tab}{tab.last_focused_progress_percent}{title}"

A template to render the tab title. The default just renders the title with optional symbols for bell and activity. If you wish to include the tab-index as well, use something like: {index}:{title}. Useful if you have shortcuts mapped for goto_tab N. If you prefer to see the index as a superscript, use {sup.index}. All data available is:

    title
        The current tab title.

    index
        The tab index usable with goto_tab N <#action-goto_tab> shortcuts.

    layout_name
        The current layout name.

    session_name
        The name of the kitty session file from which this tab was created, if any.

    active_session_name
        The name of the kitty session file from which the active window in this tab was created, if any.

    num_windows
        The number of windows in the tab.

    num_window_groups
        The number of window groups (a window group is a window and all of its overlay windows) in the tab.

    secure_input_symbol
        A key symbol when secure input is enabled on macOS and the tab is the active tab, empty otherwise.

    tab.active_wd
        The working directory of the currently active window in the tab (expensive, requires syscall). Use tab.active_oldest_wd to get the directory of the oldest foreground process rather than the newest.

    tab.active_exe
        The name of the executable running in the foreground of the currently active window in the tab (expensive, requires syscall). Use tab.active_oldest_exe for the oldest foreground process.

    max_title_length
        The maximum title length available.

    keyboard_mode
        The name of the current keyboard mode <#modal-mappings> or the empty string if no keyboard mode is active.

    tab.last_focused_progress_percent
        If a command running in a window reports the progress for a task, show this progress as a percentage from the most recently focused window in the tab. Empty string if no progress is reported.

    tab.progress_percent
        If a command running in a window reports the progress for a task, show this progress as a percentage from all windows in the tab, averaged. Empty string is no progress is reported.

    custom
        This will call a function named draw_title(data) from the file tab_bar.py placed in the kitty config directory. The function will be passed a dictionary of data, the same data that can be used in this template. It can then perform arbitrarily complex processing and return a string. For example: tab_title_template "{custom}" will use the output of the function as the tab title. Any print statements in the draw_title() will print to the STDOUT of the kitty process, useful for debugging.

Note that formatting is done by Python's string formatting machinery, so you can use, for instance, {layout_name[:2].upper()} to show only the first two letters of the layout name, upper-cased. If you want to style the text, you can use styling directives, for example: {fmt.fg.red}red{fmt.fg.tab}normal{fmt.bg._00FF00}greenbg{fmt.bg.tab}. Similarly, for bold and italic: {fmt.bold}bold{fmt.nobold}normal{fmt.italic}italic{fmt.noitalic}. The 256 eight terminal colors can be used as fmt.fg.color0 through fmt.fg.color255. Note that for backward compatibility, if {bell_symbol} or {activity_symbol} are not present in the template, they are prepended to it.

    active_tab_title_template

            active_tab_title_template none

Template to use for active tabs. If not specified falls back to tab_title_template.

    active_tab_foreground, active_tab_background, active_tab_font_style, inactive_tab_foreground, inactive_tab_background, inactive_tab_font_style

            active_tab_foreground   #000
            active_tab_background   #eee
            active_tab_font_style   bold-italic
            inactive_tab_foreground #444
            inactive_tab_background #999
            inactive_tab_font_style normal

Tab bar colors and styles.

    tab_bar_background

            tab_bar_background none

Background color for the tab bar. Defaults to using the terminal background color.

    tab_bar_margin_color

            tab_bar_margin_color none

Color for the tab bar margin area. Defaults to using the terminal background color for margins above and below the tab bar. For side margins the default color is chosen to match the background color of the neighboring tab, unless the window is translucent, in which case the default background is used as it looks better.

Color scheme

    foreground, background

            foreground #dddddd
            background #000000

The foreground and background colors.

    background_opacity

            background_opacity 1.0

The opacity of the terminal background color. A number between zero and one, where one is opaque and zero is fully transparent. This will only work if supported by the OS (for instance, when using a compositor under X11). Note that it only sets the background color's opacity in cells that have the same background color as the default terminal background, so that things like the status bar in vim, powerline prompts, etc. still look good. But it means that if you use a color theme with a background color in your editor, it will not be rendered as transparent. Instead you should change the default background color in your kitty config and not use a background color in the editor color scheme. Or use the escape codes to set the terminals default colors in a shell script to launch your editor. See also transparent_background_colors. Be aware that using a value less than 1.0 is a (possibly significant) performance hit. When using a low value for this setting, it is desirable that you set the background color to a color the matches the general color of the desktop background, for best text rendering. Note also, that this setting does not apply to the background_image, if any. The background image can itself have transparency via its alpha channel if desired, and that will be respected.

If you want to dynamically change transparency of windows, set dynamic_background_opacity to yes (this is off by default as it has a performance cost). Changing this option when reloading the config will only work if dynamic_background_opacity was enabled in the original config.

    background_blur

            background_blur 0

Set to a positive value to enable background blur (blurring of the visuals behind a transparent window) on platforms that support it. Only takes effect when background_opacity is less than one. On macOS, this will also control the blur radius (amount of blurring). Setting it to too high a value will cause severe performance issues and/or rendering artifacts. Usually, values up to 64 work well. Note that this might cause performance issues, depending on how the platform implements it, so use with care. Currently supported on macOS and Wayland, when the compositor supports the background blur extension.

    transparent_background_colors

A space separated list of upto 7 colors, with opacity. When the background color of a cell matches one of these colors, it is rendered semi-transparent using the specified opacity.

Useful in more complex UIs like editors where you could want more than a single background color to be rendered as transparent, for instance, for a cursor highlight line background or a highlighted block. Terminal applications can set this color using The kitty color control <#id1> escape code.

The syntax for specifying colors is: color@opacity, where the @opacity part is optional. When unspecified, the value of background_opacity is used. For example:

            transparent_background_colors red@0.5 #00ff00@0.3

Note that you must also set background_opacity to something less than 1 for this setting to work properly.

    dynamic_background_opacity

            dynamic_background_opacity no

Allow changing of the background_opacity dynamically, using either keyboard shortcuts (ctrl+shift+a>m and ctrl+shift+a>l) or the remote control facility. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.

    background_image

            background_image none

Glob pattern matching one or more background images. Must be in PNG/JPEG/WEBP/TIFF/GIF/BMP format. The first one is used as the default image. Multiple images are stored in GPU VRAM (on demand) so that transitioning between them is instant. In order to move between images in the list of background images, use the remote control command set-background-image, see kitten set-background-image --help for details. You can map the command to a key like this: map f1 remote_control set-background-image +1. Note that when using Change color themes automatically when the OS switches between light and dark <#auto-color-scheme> this option is overridden by the color scheme file and must be set inside it to take effect.

    background_image_layout

            background_image_layout tiled

Whether to tile, scale or clamp the background image. The value can be one of tiled, mirror-tiled, scaled, clamped, centered or cscaled. The scaled and cscaled values scale the image to the window size, with cscaled preserving the image aspect ratio. Note that when using Change color themes automatically when the OS switches between light and dark <#auto-color-scheme> this option is overridden by the color scheme file and must be set inside it to take effect.

    background_image_linear

            background_image_linear no

When background image is scaled, whether linear interpolation should be used. Note that when using Change color themes automatically when the OS switches between light and dark <#auto-color-scheme> this option is overridden by the color scheme file and must be set inside it to take effect.

    background_tint

            background_tint 0.0

How much to tint the background image by the background color. This option makes it easier to read the text. Tinting is done using the current background color for each window. This option applies only if background_image is set. Note that when using Change color themes automatically when the OS switches between light and dark <#auto-color-scheme> this option is overridden by the color scheme file and must be set inside it to take effect.

    background_tint_gaps

            background_tint_gaps 1.0

How much to tint the background image at the window gaps by the background color, after applying background_tint. Since this is multiplicative with background_tint, it can be used to lighten the tint over the window gaps for a separated look. Note that when using Change color themes automatically when the OS switches between light and dark <#auto-color-scheme> this option is overridden by the color scheme file and must be set inside it to take effect.

    dim_opacity

            dim_opacity 0.4

How much to dim text that has the DIM/FAINT attribute set. One means no dimming and zero means fully dimmed (i.e. invisible).

    selection_foreground, selection_background

            selection_foreground #000000
            selection_background #fffacd

The foreground and background colors for text selected with the mouse. Setting both of these to none will cause a "reverse video" effect for selections, where the selection will be the cell text color and the text will become the cell background color. Setting only selection_foreground to none will cause the foreground color to be used unchanged. Note that these colors can be overridden by the program running in the terminal.

    palette_generate

            palette_generate fixed

How to fill in any colors that are unset (set to none) in the 256-color palette. By default, for legacy compatibility, these are set to the fixed set of values used by historic terminals.

Instead, you can have kitty generate them based on the first 16 colors <https://gist.github.com/jake-stewart/0a8ea46159a7da2c808e5be2177e1783>.

The value semantic means use an algorithm that gives good readability in light themes but changes the meaning of some colors compared to the fixed color encoding. The value legacy gives worse readability in light themes but less deviation from the fixed color encoding.

  The color table

The 256 terminal colors. There are 8 basic colors, each color has a dull and bright version, for the first 16 colors. You can set the remaining 240 colors as color16 to color255.

    color0, color8

            color0 #000000
            color8 #767676

black

    color1, color9

            color1 #cc0403
            color9 #f2201f

red

    color2, color10

            color2  #19cb00
            color10 #23fd00

green

    color3, color11

            color3  #cecb00
            color11 #fffd00

yellow

    color4, color12

            color4  #0d73cc
            color12 #1a8fff

blue

    color5, color13

            color5  #cb1ed1
            color13 #fd28ff

magenta

    color6, color14

            color6  #0dcdcd
            color14 #14ffff

cyan

    color7, color15

            color7  #dddddd
            color15 #ffffff

white

    mark1_foreground

            mark1_foreground black

Color for marks of type 1

    mark1_background

            mark1_background #98d3cb

Color for marks of type 1 (light steel blue)

    mark2_foreground

            mark2_foreground black

Color for marks of type 2

    mark2_background

            mark2_background #f2dcd3

Color for marks of type 1 (beige)

    mark3_foreground

            mark3_foreground black

Color for marks of type 3

    mark3_background

            mark3_background #f274bc

Color for marks of type 3 (violet)

  Wide gamut color formats

kitty supports modern wide gamut color formats including OKLCH and CIE LAB for precise color specification. These formats can be used anywhere a color value is accepted (foreground, background, color0-color255, etc.).

For detailed documentation on wide gamut color formats, syntax, and examples, see Wide gamut color formats <>.

Advanced

    shell

            shell .

The shell program to execute. The default value of . means to use the value of of the SHELL <#envvar-SHELL> environment variable or if unset, whatever shell is set as the default shell for the current user. Note that on macOS if you change this, you might need to add --login and --interactive to ensure that the shell starts in interactive mode and reads its startup rc files. Environment variables are expanded in this setting.

    editor

            editor .

The terminal based text editor (such as vim or nano) to use when editing the kitty config file or similar tasks.

The default value of . means to use the environment variables VISUAL <#envvar-VISUAL> and EDITOR <#envvar-EDITOR> in that order. If these variables aren't set, kitty will run your shell ($SHELL -l -i -c env) to see if your shell startup rc files set VISUAL <#envvar-VISUAL> or EDITOR <#envvar-EDITOR>. If that doesn't work, kitty will cycle through various known editors (vim, emacs, etc.) and take the first one that exists on your system.

    close_on_child_death

            close_on_child_death no

Close the window when the child process (usually the shell) exits. With the default value no, the terminal will remain open when the child exits as long as there are still other processes outputting to the terminal (for example disowned or backgrounded processes). When enabled with yes, the window will close as soon as the child process exits. Note that setting it to yes means that any background processes still using the terminal can fail silently because their stdout/stderr/stdin no longer work.

    remote_control_password

Allow other programs to control kitty using passwords. This option can be specified multiple times to add multiple passwords. If no passwords are present kitty will ask the user for permission if a program tries to use remote control with a password. A password can also optionally be associated with a set of allowed remote control actions. For example:

            remote_control_password "my passphrase" get-colors set-colors focus-window focus-tab

Only the specified actions will be allowed when using this password. Glob patterns can be used too, for example:

            remote_control_password "my passphrase" set-tab-* resize-*

To get a list of available actions, run:

            kitten @ --help

A set of actions to be allowed when no password is sent can be specified by using an empty password. For example:

            remote_control_password "" *-colors

Finally, the path to a python module can be specified that provides a function is_cmd_allowed that is used to check every remote control command. For example:

            remote_control_password "my passphrase" my_rc_command_checker.py

Relative paths are resolved from the kitty configuration directory. See Customizing authorization with your own program <#rc-custom-auth> for details.

    allow_remote_control

            allow_remote_control no

Allow other programs to control kitty. If you turn this on, other programs can control all aspects of kitty, including sending text to kitty windows, opening new windows, closing windows, reading the content of windows, etc. Note that this even works over SSH connections. The default setting of no prevents any form of remote control. The meaning of the various values are:

    password
        Remote control requests received over both the TTY device and the socket are confirmed based on passwords, see remote_control_password.

    socket-only
        Remote control requests received over a socket are accepted unconditionally. Requests received over the TTY are denied. See listen_on.

    socket
        Remote control requests received over a socket are accepted unconditionally. Requests received over the TTY are confirmed based on password.

    no  Remote control is completely disabled.

    yes Remote control requests are always accepted.

    listen_on

            listen_on none

Listen to the specified socket for remote control connections. Note that this will apply to all kitty instances. It can be overridden by the kitty --listen-on <#cmdoption-kitty-listen-on> command line option. For UNIX sockets, such as unix:${TEMP}/mykitty or unix:@mykitty (on Linux). Environment variables are expanded and relative paths are resolved with respect to the temporary directory. If {kitty_pid} is present, then it is replaced by the PID of the kitty process, otherwise the PID of the kitty process is appended to the value, with a hyphen. For TCP sockets such as tcp:localhost:0 a random port is always used even if a non-zero port number is specified. See the help for kitty --listen-on <#cmdoption-kitty-listen-on> for more details. Note that this will be ignored unless allow_remote_control is set to either: yes, socket or socket-only. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.

    env

Specify the environment variables to be set in all child processes. Using the name with an equal sign (e.g. env VAR=) will set it to the empty string. Specifying only the name (e.g. env VAR) will remove the variable from the child process' environment. Note that environment variables are expanded recursively, for example:

            env VAR1=a
            env VAR2=${HOME}/${VAR1}/b

The value of VAR2 will be <path to home directory>/a/b.

Use the special value read_from_shell to have kitty read the specified variables from your login shell configuration. Useful if your shell startup files setup a bunch of environment variables that you want available to kitty and in kitty session files. Each variable name is treated as a glob pattern to match. For example: env read_from_shell=PATH LANG LC_* XDG_* EDITOR VISUAL. Note that these variables are only read after the configuration is fully processed, thus they are not available for recursive expansion and they will override any variables set by other env directives.

    filter_notification

Specify rules to filter out notifications sent by applications running in kitty. Can be specified multiple times to create multiple filter rules. A rule specification is of the form field:regexp. A filter rule can match on any of the fields: title, body, app, type. The special value of all filters out all notifications. Rules can be combined using Boolean operators. Some examples:

            filter_notification title:hello or body:"abc.*def"
            # filter out notification from vim except for ones about updates, (?i)
            # makes matching case insensitive.
            filter_notification app:"[ng]?vim" and not body:"(?i)update"
            # filter out all notifications
            filter_notification all

The field app is the name of the application sending the notification and type is the type of the notification. Not all applications will send these fields, so you can also match on the title and body of the notification text. More sophisticated programmatic filtering and custom actions on notifications can be done by creating a notifications.py file in the kitty config directory (~/.config/kitty). An annotated sample is available <https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/blob/master/docs/notifications.py>.

    watcher

Path to python file which will be loaded for Watching launched windows <#watchers>. Can be specified more than once to load multiple watchers. The watchers will be added to every kitty window. Relative paths are resolved relative to the kitty config directory. Note that reloading the config will only affect windows created after the reload.

    exe_search_path

Control where kitty finds the programs to run. The default search order is: First search the system wide PATH, then ~/.local/bin and ~/bin. If still not found, the PATH defined in the login shell after sourcing all its startup files is tried. Finally, if present, the PATH specified by the env option is tried.

This option allows you to prepend, append, or remove paths from this search order. It can be specified multiple times for multiple paths. A simple path will be prepended to the search order. A path that starts with the + sign will be append to the search order, after ~/bin above. A path that starts with the - sign will be removed from the entire search order. For example:

            exe_search_path /some/prepended/path
            exe_search_path +/some/appended/path
            exe_search_path -/some/excluded/path

    update_check_interval

            update_check_interval 24

The interval to periodically check if an update to kitty is available (in hours). If an update is found, a system notification is displayed informing you of the available update. The default is to check every 24 hours, set to zero to disable. Update checking is only done by the official binary builds. Distro packages or source builds do not do update checking. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.

    auto_reload_config

            auto_reload_config 0.1

Automatically reload configuration files when they are changed. The setting is the number of seconds to wait before reloading the config files. This allows multiple changes to be debounced. Use a negative value to disable automatic reload. You can manually reload with ctrl+shift+f5. Note that automatic reload works only if the kitty.conf already exists when kitty is started. Changes to this setting by reloading configuration are ignored.

    startup_session

            startup_session none

Path to a session file to use for all kitty instances. Can be overridden by using the kitty --session <#cmdoption-kitty-session> =none command line option for individual instances. See Sessions <#sessions> in the kitty documentation for details. Note that relative paths are interpreted with respect to the kitty config directory. Environment variables in the path are expanded. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported. Note that if kitty is invoked with command line arguments specifying a command to run, this option is ignored.

    clipboard_control

            clipboard_control write-clipboard write-primary read-clipboard-ask read-primary-ask

Allow programs running in kitty to read and write from the clipboard. You can control exactly which actions are allowed. The possible actions are: write-clipboard, read-clipboard, write-primary, read-primary, read-clipboard-ask, read-primary-ask. The default is to allow writing to the clipboard and primary selection and to ask for permission when a program tries to read from the clipboard. Note that disabling the read confirmation is a security risk as it means that any program, even the ones running on a remote server via SSH can read your clipboard. See also clipboard_max_size.

    clipboard_max_size

            clipboard_max_size 512

The maximum size (in MB) of data from programs running in kitty that will be stored for writing to the system clipboard. A value of zero means no size limit is applied. See also clipboard_control.

    file_transfer_confirmation_bypass

The password that can be supplied to the file transfer kitten <> to skip the transfer confirmation prompt. This should only be used when initiating transfers from trusted computers, over trusted networks or encrypted transports, as it allows any programs running on the remote machine to read/write to the local filesystem, without permission.

    allow_hyperlinks

            allow_hyperlinks yes

Process hyperlink <#term-hyperlinks> escape sequences (OSC 8). If disabled OSC 8 escape sequences are ignored. Otherwise they become clickable links, that you can click with the mouse or by using the hints kitten <>. The special value of ask means that kitty will ask before opening the link when clicked.

    shell_integration

            shell_integration enabled

Enable shell integration on supported shells. This enables features such as jumping to previous prompts, browsing the output of the previous command in a pager, etc. on supported shells. Set to disabled to turn off shell integration, completely. It is also possible to disable individual features, set to a space separated list of these values: no-rc, no-cursor, no-title, no-cwd, no-prompt-mark, no-complete, no-sudo. See Shell integration <#shell-integration> for details.

    allow_cloning

            allow_cloning ask

Control whether programs running in the terminal can request new windows to be created. The canonical example is clone-in-kitty <#clone-shell>. By default, kitty will ask for permission for each clone request. Allowing cloning unconditionally gives programs running in the terminal (including over SSH) permission to execute arbitrary code, as the user who is running the terminal, on the computer that the terminal is running on.

    clone_source_strategies

            clone_source_strategies venv,conda,env_var,path

Control what shell code is sourced when running clone-in-kitty in the newly cloned window. The supported strategies are:

    venv
        Source the file $VIRTUAL_ENV/bin/activate. This is used by the Python stdlib venv module and allows cloning venvs automatically.

    conda
        Run conda activate $CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV. This supports the virtual environments created by conda.

    env_var
        Execute the contents of the environment variable KITTY_CLONE_SOURCE_CODE <#envvar-KITTY_CLONE_SOURCE_CODE> with eval.

    path
        Source the file pointed to by the environment variable KITTY_CLONE_SOURCE_PATH <#envvar-KITTY_CLONE_SOURCE_PATH>.

This option must be a comma separated list of the above values. Only the first valid match, in the order specified, is sourced.

    notify_on_cmd_finish

            notify_on_cmd_finish never

Show a desktop notification when a long-running command finishes (needs shell_integration). The possible values are:

    never
        Never send a notification.

    unfocused
        Only send a notification when the window does not have keyboard focus.

    invisible
        Only send a notification when the window both is unfocused and not visible to the user, for example, because it is in an inactive tab or its OS window is not currently visible (on platforms that support OS window visibility querying this considers an OS Window visible iff it is active).

    always
        Always send a notification, regardless of window state.

There are two optional arguments:

First, the minimum duration for what is considered a long running command. The default is 5 seconds. Specify a second argument to set the duration. For example: invisible 15. Do not set the value too small, otherwise a command that launches a new OS Window and exits will spam a notification.

Second, the action to perform. The default is notify. The possible values are:

    notify
        Send a desktop notification. The subsequent arguments are optional and specify when the notification is automatically cleared. The set of possible events when the notification is cleared are: focus and next. focus means that when the notification policy is unfocused or invisible the notification is automatically cleared when the window regains focus. The value of next means that the previous notification is cleared when the next notification is shown. The default when no arguments are specified is: focus next.

    bell
        Ring the terminal bell.

    notify-bell
        Send a desktop notification and ring the terminal bell. The arguments are the same as for notify.

    command
        Run a custom command. All subsequent arguments are the cmdline to run.

Some more examples:

            # Send a notification when a command takes more than 5 seconds in an unfocused window
            notify_on_cmd_finish unfocused
            # Send a notification when a command takes more than 10 seconds in a invisible window
            notify_on_cmd_finish invisible 10.0
            # Ring a bell when a command takes more than 10 seconds in a invisible window
            notify_on_cmd_finish invisible 10.0 bell
            # Run 'notify-send' when a command takes more than 10 seconds in a invisible window
            # Here %c is replaced by the current command line and %s by the job exit code
            notify_on_cmd_finish invisible 10.0 command notify-send "job finished with status: %s" %c
            # Do not clear previous notification when next command finishes or window regains focus
            notify_on_cmd_finish invisible 5.0 notify

    term

            term xterm-kitty

The value of the TERM <#envvar-TERM> environment variable to set. Changing this can break many terminal programs, only change it if you know what you are doing, not because you read some advice on "Stack Overflow" to change it. The TERM <#envvar-TERM> variable is used by various programs to get information about the capabilities and behavior of the terminal. If you change it, depending on what programs you run, and how different the terminal you are changing it to is, various things from key-presses, to colors, to various advanced features may not work. Changing this option by reloading the config will only affect newly created windows.

    terminfo_type

            terminfo_type path

The value of the TERMINFO <#envvar-TERMINFO> environment variable to set. This variable is used by programs running in the terminal to search for terminfo databases. The default value of path causes kitty to set it to a filesystem location containing the kitty terminfo database. A value of direct means put the entire database into the env var directly. This can be useful when connecting to containers, for example. But, note that not all software supports this. A value of none means do not touch the variable.

    forward_stdio

            forward_stdio no

Forward STDOUT and STDERR of the kitty process to child processes. This is useful for debugging as it allows child processes to print to kitty's STDOUT directly. For example, echo hello world >&$KITTY_STDIO_FORWARDED in a shell will print to the parent kitty's STDOUT. Sets the KITTY_STDIO_FORWARDED=fdnum environment variable so child processes know about the forwarding. Note that on macOS this prevents the shell from being run via the login utility so getlogin() will not work in programs run in this session.

    menu_map

Specify entries for various menus in kitty. Currently only the global menubar on macOS is supported. For example:

            menu_map global "Actions::Launch something special" launch --hold --type=os-window sh -c "echo hello world"

This will create a menu entry named "Launch something special" in an "Actions" menu in the macOS global menubar. Sub-menus can be created by adding more levels separated by the :: characters.

Os specific tweaks

    wayland_titlebar_color

            wayland_titlebar_color system

The color of the kitty window's titlebar on Wayland systems with client side window decorations such as GNOME. A value of system means to use the default system colors, a value of background means to use the background color of the currently active kitty window and finally you can use an arbitrary color, such as #12af59 or red.

    macos_titlebar_color

            macos_titlebar_color system

The color of the kitty window's titlebar on macOS. A value of system means to use the default system color, light or dark can also be used to set it explicitly. A value of background means to use the background color of the currently active window and finally you can use an arbitrary color, such as #12af59 or red.

Note that when using Change color themes automatically when the OS switches between light and dark <#auto-color-scheme> this option is overridden by the color scheme file and must be set inside it to take effect.

    macos_option_as_alt

            macos_option_as_alt no

Use the Option key as an Alt key on macOS. With this set to no, kitty will use the macOS native Option+Key to enter Unicode character behavior. This will break any Alt+Key keyboard shortcuts in your terminal programs, but you can use the macOS Unicode input technique. You can use the values: left, right or both to use only the left, right or both Option keys as Alt, instead. Note that kitty itself always treats Option the same as Alt. This means you cannot use this option to configure different kitty shortcuts for Option+Key vs. Alt+Key. Also, any kitty shortcuts using Option/Alt+Key will take priority, so that any such key presses will not be passed to terminal programs running inside kitty. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.

    macos_hide_from_tasks

            macos_hide_from_tasks no

Hide the kitty window from running tasks on macOS (⌘+Tab and the Dock). Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.

    macos_quit_when_last_window_closed

            macos_quit_when_last_window_closed no

Have kitty quit when all the top-level windows are closed on macOS. By default, kitty will stay running, even with no open windows, as is the expected behavior on macOS.

    macos_window_resizable

            macos_window_resizable yes

Disable this if you want kitty top-level OS windows to not be resizable on macOS.

    macos_thicken_font

            macos_thicken_font 0

Draw an extra border around the font with the given width, to increase legibility at small font sizes on macOS. For example, a value of 0.75 will result in rendering that looks similar to sub-pixel antialiasing at common font sizes. Note that in modern kitty, this option is obsolete (although still supported). Consider using text_composition_strategy instead.

    macos_traditional_fullscreen

            macos_traditional_fullscreen no

Use the macOS traditional full-screen transition, that is faster, but less pretty.

    macos_fullscreen_ignore_safe_area_insets

            macos_fullscreen_ignore_safe_area_insets no

When using macos_traditional_fullscreen, ignore the safe area insets on displays such as MacBook screens with a notch. This allows kitty to use the full display frame instead of leaving space for the notch area.

    macos_show_window_title_in

            macos_show_window_title_in all

Control where the window title is displayed on macOS. A value of window will show the title of the currently active window at the top of the macOS window. A value of menubar will show the title of the currently active window in the macOS global menu bar, making use of otherwise wasted space. A value of all will show the title in both places, and none hides the title. See macos_menubar_title_max_length for how to control the length of the title in the menu bar.

    macos_menubar_title_max_length

            macos_menubar_title_max_length 0

The maximum number of characters from the window title to show in the macOS global menu bar. Values less than one means that there is no maximum limit.

    macos_custom_beam_cursor

            macos_custom_beam_cursor no

Use a custom mouse cursor for macOS that is easier to see on both light and dark backgrounds. Nowadays, the default macOS cursor already comes with a white border. WARNING: this might make your mouse cursor invisible on dual GPU machines. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.

    macos_colorspace

            macos_colorspace srgb

The colorspace in which to interpret terminal colors. The default of srgb will cause colors to match those seen in web browsers. The value of default will use whatever the native colorspace of the display is. The value of displayp3 will use Apple's special snowflake display P3 color space, which will result in over saturated (brighter) colors with some color shift. Reloading configuration will change this value only for newly created OS windows.

    linux_display_server

            linux_display_server auto

Choose between Wayland and X11 backends. By default, an appropriate backend based on the system state is chosen automatically. Set it to x11 or wayland to force the choice. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.

    wayland_enable_ime

            wayland_enable_ime yes

Enable Input Method Extension on Wayland. This is typically used for inputting text in East Asian languages. However, its implementation in Wayland is often buggy and introduces latency into the input loop, so disable this if you know you dont need it. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported, it will not have any effect.

Keyboard shortcuts

Keys are identified simply by their lowercase Unicode characters. For example: a for the A key, [ for the left square bracket key, etc. For functional keys, such as Enter or Escape, the names are present at Functional key definitions <#functional>. For modifier keys, the names are ctrl (control, ⌃), shift (⇧), alt (opt, option, ⌥), super (cmd, command, ⌘).

Simple shortcut mapping is done with the map directive. For full details on advanced mapping including modal and per application maps, see Making your keyboard dance <>. Some quick examples to illustrate common tasks:

            # unmap a keyboard shortcut, passing it to the program running in kitty
            map kitty_mod+space
            # completely ignore a keyboard event
            map ctrl+alt+f1 discard_event
            # combine multiple actions
            map kitty_mod+e combine : new_window : next_layout
            # multi-key shortcuts
            map ctrl+x>ctrl+y>z action

For non-Latin keyboard layouts (Russian, Arabic, etc.), the --allow-fallback option controls physical key fallback. Values: shifted (default — shifted key fallback), ascii (alternate key / physical position fallback, only for non-ASCII keys), none (disable all fallback), or a comma-separated combination. All default shortcuts use --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii:

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii kitty_mod+c copy_to_clipboard

You can browse and trigger these actions by pressing ctrl+shift+f3 to run the command palette. The full list of actions that can be mapped to key presses is available here <>.

    kitty_mod

            kitty_mod ctrl+shift

Special modifier key alias for default shortcuts. You can change the value of this option to alter all default shortcuts that use kitty_mod.

    clear_all_shortcuts

            clear_all_shortcuts no

Remove all shortcut definitions up to this point. Useful, for instance, to remove the default shortcuts.

    map_timeout

            map_timeout 0.0

The default timeout (in seconds) for multi-key mappings and modal keyboard modes. If you press the first key(s) of a multi-key mapping and don't press the next key within this timeout, the mapping is cancelled and the mode is exited. A value of zero disables the timeout. This can be overridden for specific modes using the --timeout option when creating a keyboard mode with --new-mode. For example:

            # 2 second timeout for all mappings
            map_timeout 2.0

            # This mode will have a 5 second timeout (overrides the global 2 second timeout)
            map --new-mode resize --timeout 5.0 kitty_mod+r

    action_alias

Has no default values. Example values are shown below:

            action_alias launch_tab launch --type=tab --cwd=current

Define action aliases to avoid repeating the same options in multiple mappings. Aliases can be defined for any action and will be expanded recursively. For example, the above alias allows you to create mappings to launch a new tab in the current working directory without duplication:

            map f1 launch_tab vim
            map f2 launch_tab emacs

Similarly, to alias kitten invocation:

            action_alias hints kitten hints --hints-offset=0

    kitten_alias

Has no default values. Example values are shown below:

            kitten_alias hints hints --hints-offset=0

Like action_alias above, but specifically for kittens. Generally, prefer to use action_alias. This option is a legacy version, present for backwards compatibility. It causes all invocations of the aliased kitten to be substituted. So the example above will cause all invocations of the hints kitten to have the --hints-offset=0 <#cmdoption-kitty-kitten-hints-hints-offset> option applied.

  Clipboard

    Copy to clipboard

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+c copy_to_clipboard

There is also a copy_or_interrupt <#action-copy_or_interrupt> action that can be optionally mapped to Ctrl+C. It will copy only if there is a selection and send an interrupt otherwise. Similarly, copy_and_clear_or_interrupt <#action-copy_and_clear_or_interrupt> will copy and clear the selection or send an interrupt if there is no selection. The copy_or_noop <#action-copy_or_noop> action will copy if there is a selection and pass the key through to the application running in the terminal if there is no selection.

    Copy to clipboard or pass through

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii cmd+c copy_or_noop 🍎

    Paste from clipboard

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+v paste_from_clipboard
            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii cmd+v paste_from_clipboard 🍎

    Paste from selection

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+s paste_from_selection
            map shift+insert paste_from_selection

    Pass selection to program

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+o pass_selection_to_program

You can also pass the contents of the current selection to any program with pass_selection_to_program <#action-pass_selection_to_program>. By default, the system's open program is used, but you can specify your own, the selection will be passed as a command line argument to the program. For example:

            map kitty_mod+o pass_selection_to_program firefox

You can pass the current selection to a terminal program running in a new kitty window, by using the @selection placeholder:

            map kitty_mod+y new_window less @selection

  Scrolling

    Scroll line up

            map ctrl+shift+up scroll_line_up smooth
            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+k scroll_line_up smooth
            map opt+cmd+page_up scroll_line_up smooth 🍎
            map cmd+up scroll_line_up smooth 🍎

    Scroll line down

            map ctrl+shift+down scroll_line_down smooth
            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+j scroll_line_down smooth
            map opt+cmd+page_down scroll_line_down smooth 🍎
            map cmd+down scroll_line_down smooth 🍎

    Scroll page up

            map ctrl+shift+page_up scroll_page_up
            map cmd+page_up scroll_page_up 🍎

    Scroll page down

            map ctrl+shift+page_down scroll_page_down
            map cmd+page_down scroll_page_down 🍎

    Scroll to top

            map ctrl+shift+home scroll_home
            map cmd+home scroll_home 🍎

    Scroll to bottom

            map ctrl+shift+end scroll_end
            map cmd+end scroll_end 🍎

    Scroll to previous shell prompt

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+z scroll_to_prompt -1

Use a parameter of 0 for scroll_to_prompt <#action-scroll_to_prompt> to scroll to the last jumped to or the last clicked position. Requires shell integration <#shell-integration> to work.

    Scroll to next shell prompt

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+x scroll_to_prompt 1

    Browse scrollback buffer in pager

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+h show_scrollback

You can pipe the contents of the current screen and history buffer as STDIN to an arbitrary program using launch --stdin-source <#cmdoption-launch-stdin-source>. For example, the following opens the scrollback buffer in less in an overlay <#term-overlay> window:

            map f1 launch --stdin-source=@screen_scrollback --stdin-add-formatting --type=overlay less +G -R

For more details on piping screen and buffer contents to external programs, see The launch command <>.

    Browse output of the last shell command in pager

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+g show_last_command_output

You can also define additional shortcuts to get the command output. For example, to get the first command output on screen:

            map f1 show_first_command_output_on_screen

To get the command output that was last accessed by a keyboard action or mouse action:

            map f1 show_last_visited_command_output

You can pipe the output of the last command run in the shell using the launch <#action-launch> action. For example, the following opens the output in less in an overlay <#term-overlay> window:

            map f1 launch --stdin-source=@last_cmd_output --stdin-add-formatting --type=overlay less +G -R

To get the output of the first command on the screen, use @first_cmd_output_on_screen. To get the output of the last jumped to command, use @last_visited_cmd_output.

Requires shell integration <#shell-integration> to work.

    Search the scrollback within a pager

            map ctrl+shift+/ search_scrollback
            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii cmd+f search_scrollback 🍎

Search for currently selected text in the scrollback using the configured scrollback_pager. Assumes that pressing the / key triggers search mode in the pager. If you want to create a manual mapping with a special pager for this, you can use something like:
        map f1 combine : launch <--stdin-source=@screen_scrollback> --stdin-add-formatting --type=overlay mypager : send_key /

For more sophisticated control, such as using the current selection, use remote_control_script <#action-remote_control_script>.

  Window management

    New window

            map ctrl+shift+enter new_window
            map cmd+enter new_window 🍎

You can open a new kitty window <#term-window> running an arbitrary program, for example:

            map kitty_mod+y launch mutt

You can open a new window with the current working directory set to the working directory of the current window using:

            map ctrl+alt+enter launch --cwd=current

You can open a new window that is allowed to control kitty via the kitty remote control facility with launch --allow-remote-control <#cmdoption-launch-allow-remote-control>. Any programs running in that window will be allowed to control kitty. For example:

            map ctrl+enter launch --allow-remote-control some_program

You can open a new window next to the currently active window or as the first window, with:

            map ctrl+n launch --location=neighbor
            map ctrl+f launch --location=first

For more details, see The launch command <>.

    New OS window

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+n new_os_window
            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii cmd+n new_os_window 🍎

Works like new_window <#action-new_window> above, except that it opens a top-level OS window <#term-os_window>. In particular you can use new_os_window_with_cwd <#action-new_os_window_with_cwd> to open a window with the current working directory.

    Close window

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+w close_window
            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii shift+cmd+d close_window 🍎

    Next window

            map ctrl+shift+] next_window

    Previous window

            map ctrl+shift+[ previous_window

    Move window forward

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+f move_window_forward

    Move window backward

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+b move_window_backward

    Move window to top

            map ctrl+shift+` move_window_to_top

    Start resizing window

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+r start_resizing_window
            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii cmd+r start_resizing_window 🍎

    First window

            map ctrl+shift+1 first_window
            map cmd+1 first_window 🍎

    Second window

            map ctrl+shift+2 second_window
            map cmd+2 second_window 🍎

    Third window

            map ctrl+shift+3 third_window
            map cmd+3 third_window 🍎

    Fourth window

            map ctrl+shift+4 fourth_window
            map cmd+4 fourth_window 🍎

    Fifth window

            map ctrl+shift+5 fifth_window
            map cmd+5 fifth_window 🍎

    Sixth window

            map ctrl+shift+6 sixth_window
            map cmd+6 sixth_window 🍎

    Seventh window

            map ctrl+shift+7 seventh_window
            map cmd+7 seventh_window 🍎

    Eighth window

            map ctrl+shift+8 eighth_window
            map cmd+8 eighth_window 🍎

    Ninth window

            map ctrl+shift+9 ninth_window
            map cmd+9 ninth_window 🍎

    Tenth window

            map ctrl+shift+0 tenth_window

    Visually select and focus window

            map ctrl+shift+f7 focus_visible_window

Display overlay numbers and alphabets on the window, and switch the focus to the window when you press the key. When there are only two windows, the focus will be switched directly without displaying the overlay. You can change the overlay characters and their order with option visual_window_select_characters.

    Visually swap window with another

            map ctrl+shift+f8 swap_with_window

Works like focus_visible_window <#action-focus_visible_window> above, but swaps the window.

  Tab management

    Next tab

            map ctrl+shift+right next_tab
            map shift+cmd+] next_tab 🍎
            map ctrl+tab next_tab

    Previous tab

            map ctrl+shift+left previous_tab
            map shift+cmd+[ previous_tab 🍎
            map ctrl+shift+tab previous_tab

    New tab

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+t new_tab
            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii cmd+t new_tab 🍎

    Close tab

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+q close_tab
            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii cmd+w close_tab 🍎

    Close OS window

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii shift+cmd+w close_os_window 🍎

    Move tab forward

            map ctrl+shift+. move_tab_forward

    Move tab backward

            map ctrl+shift+, move_tab_backward

    Set tab title

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+alt+t set_tab_title
            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii shift+cmd+i set_tab_title 🍎

You can also create shortcuts to go to specific tabs <#term-tab>, with 1 being the first tab, 2 the second tab and -1 being the previously active tab, -2 being the tab active before the previously active tab and so on. Any number larger than the number of tabs goes to the last tab and any number less than the number of previously used tabs in the history goes to the oldest previously used tab in the history:

            map ctrl+alt+1 goto_tab 1
            map ctrl+alt+2 goto_tab 2

Just as with new_window <#action-new_window> above, you can also pass the name of arbitrary commands to run when using new_tab <#action-new_tab> and new_tab_with_cwd <#action-new_tab_with_cwd>. Finally, if you want the new tab to open next to the current tab rather than at the end of the tabs list, use:

            map ctrl+t new_tab !neighbor [optional cmd to run]

  Layout management

    Next layout

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+l next_layout

You can also create shortcuts to switch to specific layouts <#term-layout>:

            map ctrl+alt+t goto_layout tall
            map ctrl+alt+s goto_layout stack

Similarly, to switch back to the previous layout:

            map ctrl+alt+p last_used_layout

There is also a toggle_layout <#action-toggle_layout> action that switches to the named layout or back to the previous layout if in the named layout. Useful to temporarily "zoom" the active window by switching to the stack layout:

            map ctrl+alt+z toggle_layout stack

  Font sizes

You can change the font size for all top-level kitty OS windows at a time or only the current one.

    Increase font size

            map ctrl+shift+equal change_font_size all +2.0
            map ctrl+shift+plus change_font_size all +2.0
            map ctrl+shift+kp_add change_font_size all +2.0
            map cmd+plus change_font_size all +2.0 🍎
            map cmd+equal change_font_size all +2.0 🍎
            map shift+cmd+equal change_font_size all +2.0 🍎

    Decrease font size

            map ctrl+shift+minus change_font_size all -2.0
            map ctrl+shift+kp_subtract change_font_size all -2.0
            map cmd+minus change_font_size all -2.0 🍎
            map shift+cmd+minus change_font_size all -2.0 🍎

    Reset font size

            map ctrl+shift+backspace change_font_size all 0
            map cmd+0 change_font_size all 0 🍎

To setup shortcuts for specific font sizes:

            map kitty_mod+f6 change_font_size all 10.0

To setup shortcuts to change only the current OS window's font size:

            map kitty_mod+f6 change_font_size current 10.0

To setup shortcuts to multiply/divide the font size:

            map kitty_mod+f6 change_font_size all *2.0
            map kitty_mod+f6 change_font_size all /2.0

  Select and act on visible text

Use the hints kitten to select text and either pass it to an external program or insert it into the terminal or copy it to the clipboard.

    Open URL

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+e open_url_with_hints

Open a currently visible URL using the keyboard. The program used to open the URL is specified in open_url_with.

    Insert selected path

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+p>f kitten hints --type path --program -

Select a path/filename and insert it into the terminal. Useful, for instance to run git commands on a filename output from a previous git command.

    Open selected path

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+p>shift+f kitten hints --type path

Select a path/filename and open it with the default open program.

    Insert chosen file

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+p>c kitten choose-files

Select a file using the choose-files <> kitten and insert it into the terminal.

    Insert chosen directory

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+p>d kitten choose-files --mode=dir

Select a directory using the choose-files <> kitten and insert it into the terminal.

    Insert selected line

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+p>l kitten hints --type line --program -

Select a line of text and insert it into the terminal. Useful for the output of things like: ls -1.

    Insert selected word

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+p>w kitten hints --type word --program -

Select words and insert into terminal.

    Insert selected hash

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+p>h kitten hints --type hash --program -

Select something that looks like a hash and insert it into the terminal. Useful with git, which uses SHA1 hashes to identify commits.

    Open the selected file at the selected line

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+p>n kitten hints --type linenum

Select something that looks like filename:linenum and open it in your default editor at the specified line number.

    Open the selected hyperlink

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+p>y kitten hints --type hyperlink

Select a hyperlink <#term-hyperlinks> (i.e. a URL that has been marked as such by the terminal program, for example, by ls --hyperlink=auto).

The hints kitten has many more modes of operation that you can map to different shortcuts. For a full description see hints kitten <>.

  Miscellaneous

    Show documentation

            map ctrl+shift+f1 show_kitty_doc overview

    Command palette

            map ctrl+shift+f3 command_palette

    Toggle fullscreen

            map ctrl+shift+f11 toggle_fullscreen
            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+cmd+f toggle_fullscreen 🍎

    Toggle maximized

            map ctrl+shift+f10 toggle_maximized

    Toggle macOS secure keyboard entry

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii opt+cmd+s toggle_macos_secure_keyboard_entry 🍎

    macOS Cycle through OS Windows

            map cmd+` macos_cycle_through_os_windows 🍎

    macOS Cycle through OS Windows backwards

            map cmd+shift+` macos_cycle_through_os_windows_backwards 🍎

    Unicode input

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+u kitten unicode_input
            map ctrl+cmd+space kitten unicode_input 🍎

    Edit config file

            map ctrl+shift+f2 edit_config_file
            map cmd+, edit_config_file 🍎

    Open the kitty command shell

            map ctrl+shift+escape kitty_shell window

Open the kitty shell in a new window / tab / overlay / os_window to control kitty using commands.

    Increase background opacity

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+a>m set_background_opacity +0.1

    Decrease background opacity

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+a>l set_background_opacity -0.1

    Make background fully opaque

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+a>1 set_background_opacity 1

    Reset background opacity

            map --allow-fallback=shifted,ascii ctrl+shift+a>d set_background_opacity default

    Reset the terminal

            map ctrl+shift+delete clear_terminal reset active
            map opt+cmd+r clear_terminal reset active 🍎

You can create shortcuts to clear/reset the terminal. For example:

            # Reset the terminal
            map f1 clear_terminal reset active
            # Clear the terminal screen by erasing all contents
            map f1 clear_terminal clear active
            # Clear the terminal scrollback by erasing it
            map f1 clear_terminal scrollback active
            # Scroll the contents of the screen into the scrollback
            map f1 clear_terminal scroll active
            # Clear everything on screen up to the line with the cursor or the start of the current prompt (needs shell integration)
            map f1 clear_terminal to_cursor active
            # Same as above except cleared lines are moved into scrollback
            map f1 clear_terminal to_cursor_scroll active
            # Erase the last command and its output (needs shell integration to work)
            map f1 clear_terminal last_command active

If you want to operate on all kitty windows instead of just the current one, use all instead of active.

Some useful functions that can be defined in the shell rc files to perform various kinds of clearing of the current window:

            clear-only-screen() {
                printf "\e[H\e[2J"
            }

            clear-screen-and-scrollback() {
                printf "\e[H\e[3J"
            }

            clear-screen-saving-contents-in-scrollback() {
                printf "\e[H\e[22J"
            }

For instance, using these escape codes, it is possible to remap Ctrl+L to both scroll the current screen contents into the scrollback buffer and clear the screen, instead of just clearing the screen. For ZSH, in ~/.zshrc, add:

            ctrl_l() {
                builtin print -rn -- $'\r\e[0J\e[H\e[22J' >"$TTY"
                builtin zle .reset-prompt
                builtin zle -R
            }
            zle -N ctrl_l
            bindkey '^l' ctrl_l

Alternatively, you can just add map ctrl+l clear_terminal to_cursor_scroll active to kitty.conf which works with no changes to the shell rc files, but only clears up to the prompt, it does not clear any text at the prompt itself.

    Clear to start

            map cmd+k clear_terminal to_cursor active 🍎

    Clear scrollback

            map option+cmd+k clear_terminal scrollback active 🍎

    Clear the last command

            map cmd+l clear_terminal last_command active 🍎

    Clear screen

            map cmd+ctrl+l clear_terminal to_cursor_scroll active 🍎

    Reload kitty.conf

            map ctrl+shift+f5 load_config_file
            map ctrl+cmd+, load_config_file 🍎

Reload kitty.conf, applying any changes since the last time it was loaded. Note that a handful of options cannot be dynamically changed and require a full restart of kitty. Particularly, when changing shortcuts for actions located on the macOS global menu bar, a full restart is needed. You can also map a keybinding to load a different config file, for example:

            map f5 load_config /path/to/alternative/kitty.conf

Note that all options from the original kitty.conf are discarded, in other words the new configuration replace the old ones.

    Debug kitty configuration

            map ctrl+shift+f6 debug_config
            map opt+cmd+, debug_config 🍎

Show details about exactly what configuration kitty is running with and its host environment. Useful for debugging issues.

    Send arbitrary text on key presses

You can tell kitty to send arbitrary (UTF-8) encoded text to the client program when pressing specified shortcut keys. For example:

            map ctrl+alt+a send_text all Special text

This will send "Special text" when you press the Ctrl+Alt+A key combination. The text to be sent decodes ANSI C escapes <https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/ANSI_002dC-Quoting.html> so you can use escapes like \e to send control codes or \u21fb to send Unicode characters (or you can just input the Unicode characters directly as UTF-8 text). You can use kitten show-key to get the key escape codes you want to emulate.

The first argument to send_text is the keyboard modes in which to activate the shortcut. The possible values are normal, application, kitty or a comma separated combination of them. The modes normal and application refer to the DECCKM cursor key mode for terminals, and kitty refers to the kitty extended keyboard protocol. The special value all means all of them.

Some more examples:

            # Output a word and move the cursor to the start of the line (like typing and pressing Home)
            map ctrl+alt+a send_text normal Word\e[H
            map ctrl+alt+a send_text application Word\eOH
            # Run a command at a shell prompt (like typing the command and pressing Enter)
            map ctrl+alt+a send_text normal,application some command with arguments\r

    Open kitty Website

            map shift+cmd+/ open_url https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/ 🍎

    Hide macOS kitty application

            map cmd+h hide_macos_app 🍎

    Hide macOS other applications

            map opt+cmd+h hide_macos_other_apps 🍎

    Minimize macOS window

            map cmd+m minimize_macos_window 🍎

    Quit kitty

            map cmd+q quit 🍎

Sample kitty.conf

You can edit a fully commented sample kitty.conf by pressing the ctrl+shift+f2 shortcut in kitty. This will generate a config file with full documentation and all settings commented out. If you have a pre-existing kitty.conf, then that will be used instead, delete it to see the sample file.

A default configuration file can also be generated by running:

            kitty +runpy 'from kitty.config import *; print(commented_out_default_config())'

This will print the commented out default config file to STDOUT.

All mappable actions

See the list of all the things you can make |kitty| can do <>.

  Mappable actions

The actions described below can be mapped to any key press or mouse action using the map and mouse_map directives in kitty.conf. For configuration examples, see the default shortcut links for each action. To read about keyboard mapping in more detail, see Making your keyboard dance <>.

You can also browse and trigger these actions by pressing ctrl+shift+f3 <#shortcut-kitty.Command-palette> to run the Command palette <>.

  Copy/paste

    clear_selection

Clear the current selection

    copy_and_clear_or_interrupt

Copy the selected text from the active window to the clipboard and clear selection, if no selection, send SIGINT (aka ctrl+c)

    copy_ansi_to_clipboard

Copy the selected text from the active window to the clipboard with ANSI formatting codes

    copy_last_command_output

Copy the last non-empty output from a shell command to the clipboard

Requires Shell integration <#shell-integration> to work

    copy_or_interrupt

Copy the selected text from the active window to the clipboard, if no selection, send SIGINT (aka ctrl+c)

    copy_or_noop

Copy the selected text from the active window to the clipboard, if no selection, pass the key through to the application running in the terminal.

Default shortcuts using this action: cmd+c <#shortcut-kitty.Copy-to-clipboard-or-pass-through>

    copy_selection_or_last_command_output

Copy the selected text from the active window to the clipboard, if no selection, copy the last command output (requires shell integration to work)

    copy_to_clipboard

Copy the selected text from the active window to the clipboard

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+c <#shortcut-kitty.Copy-to-clipboard>

    pass_selection_to_program

Pass the selected text from the active window to the specified program

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+o <#shortcut-kitty.Pass-selection-to-program>

    paste

Paste the specified text into the current window. ANSI C escapes are decoded.

    copy_to_buffer

Copy the selection from the active window to the specified buffer

See Multiple copy/paste buffers <#cpbuf> for details.

    paste_from_buffer

Paste from the specified buffer to the active window

See Multiple copy/paste buffers <#cpbuf> for details.

    paste_from_clipboard

Paste from the clipboard to the active window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+v <#shortcut-kitty.Paste-from-clipboard>

    paste_from_selection

Paste from the primary selection, if present, otherwise the clipboard to the active window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+s <#shortcut-kitty.Paste-from-selection>

  Debugging

    dump_lines_with_attrs

Show a dump of the current lines in the scrollback + screen with their line attributes

    close_shared_ssh_connections

Close all shared SSH connections

See share_connections <#opt-kitten-ssh.share_connections> for details.

    debug_config

Show the effective configuration kitty is running with

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f6 <#shortcut-kitty.Debug-kitty-configuration>

    show_kitty_env_vars

Show the environment variables that the kitty process sees

    simulate_color_scheme_preference_change

Simulate a change in OS color scheme preference

    test_dragging

Start a test drag operation, for use with mouse_map

  Font sizes

    change_font_size

Change the font size for the current or all OS Windows

See Font sizes <#conf-kitty-shortcuts-fonts> for details.

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+minus <#shortcut-kitty.Decrease-font-size>, ctrl+shift+equal <#shortcut-kitty.Increase-font-size>, ctrl+shift+backspace <#shortcut-kitty.Reset-font-size>

  Layouts

    goto_layout

Switch to the named layout

In case there are multiple layouts with the same name and different options, specify the full layout definition or a unique prefix of the full definition.

For example:

            map f1 goto_layout tall
            map f2 goto_layout fat:bias=20

    last_used_layout

Go to the previously used layout

    layout_action

Perform a layout specific action. See Arrange windows <> for details

    next_layout

Go to the next enabled layout. Can optionally supply an integer to jump by the specified number.

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+l <#shortcut-kitty.Next-layout>

    toggle_layout

Toggle the named layout

Switches to the named layout if another layout is current, otherwise switches to the last used layout. Useful to "zoom" a window temporarily by switching to the stack layout. See also scrollback_fill_enlarged_window <#opt-kitty.scrollback_fill_enlarged_window> if you would like content from the scrollback buffer to scroll down into the zoomed window. For example:

            map f1 toggle_layout stack

  Marks

    remove_marker

Remove a previously created marker

    scroll_to_mark

Scroll to the next or previous mark of the specified type

    toggle_marker

Toggle the current marker on/off

    create_marker

Create a new marker

  Miscellaneous

    send_key

Send the specified keys to the active window.

Note that the key will be sent only if the current keyboard mode of the program running in the terminal supports it. Both key press and key release are sent. First presses for all specified keys and then releases in reverse order. To send a pattern of press and release for multiple keys use the combine action. For example:

            map f1 send_key ctrl+x alt+y
            map f1 combine : send_key ctrl+x : send_key alt+y

    send_text

Send the specified text to the active window

See send_text <#shortcut-kitty.Send-arbitrary-text-on-key-presses> for details.

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+alt+h <#shortcut-kitty.Send-arbitrary-text-on-key-presses>

    show_kitty_doc

Display the specified kitty documentation, preferring a local copy, if found.

For example:

            # show the config docs
            map f1 show_kitty_doc conf
            # show the ssh kitten docs
            map f1 show_kitty_doc kittens/ssh

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f1 <#shortcut-kitty.Show-documentation>

    signal_child

Send the specified SIGNAL to the foreground process in the active window

For example:

            map f1 signal_child SIGTERM

    clear_terminal

Clear the terminal

See reset_terminal <#shortcut-kitty.Reset-the-terminal> for details. For example:

            # Reset the terminal
            map f1 clear_terminal reset active
            # Clear the terminal screen by erasing all contents
            map f1 clear_terminal clear active
            # Clear the terminal scrollback by erasing it
            map f1 clear_terminal scrollback active
            # Scroll the contents of the screen into the scrollback
            map f1 clear_terminal scroll active
            # Clear everything on screen up to the line with the cursor or the start of the current prompt (needs shell integration)
            # Useful for clearing the screen up to the shell prompt and moving the shell prompt to the top of the screen.
            map f1 clear_terminal to_cursor active
            # Same as above except cleared lines are moved into scrollback
            map f1 clear_terminal to_cursor_scroll active
            # Erase the last command and its output (needs shell integration to work)
            map f1 clear_terminal last_command active

Default shortcuts using this action: cmd+l <#shortcut-kitty.Clear-the-last-command>, cmd+ctrl+l <#shortcut-kitty.Clear-screen>, option+cmd+k <#shortcut-kitty.Clear-scrollback>, cmd+k <#shortcut-kitty.Clear-to-start>, ctrl+shift+delete <#shortcut-kitty.Reset-the-terminal>

    combine

Combine multiple actions and map to a single keypress

The syntax is:

            map key combine <separator> action1 <separator> action2 <separator> action3 ...

For example:

            map kitty_mod+e combine : new_window : next_layout
            map kitty_mod+e combine | new_tab | goto_tab -1

    command_palette

Browse and trigger keyboard shortcuts and actions in a searchable overlay (Command palette <>)

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f3 <#shortcut-kitty.Command-palette>

    disable_ligatures_in

Turn on/off ligatures in the specified window

See disable_ligatures <#opt-kitty.disable_ligatures> for details

    discard_event

Discard this event completely ignoring it

    edit_config_file

Edit the kitty.conf config file in your favorite text editor

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f2 <#shortcut-kitty.Edit-config-file>

    grab_keyboard

Grab the keyboard. This means global shortcuts defined in the OS will be passed to kitty instead. Useful if

you want to create an OS modal window. How well this works depends on the OS/window manager/desktop environment. On Wayland it works only if the compositor implements the inhibit-keyboard-shortcuts protocol <https://wayland.app/protocols/keyboard-shortcuts-inhibit-unstable-v1>. On macOS Apple doesn't allow applications to grab the keyboard without special permissions, so it doesn't work.

    hide_macos_app

Hide macOS kitty application

Default shortcuts using this action: cmd+h <#shortcut-kitty.Hide-macOS-kitty-application>

    hide_macos_other_apps

Hide macOS other applications

Default shortcuts using this action: opt+cmd+h <#shortcut-kitty.Hide-macOS-other-applications>

    input_unicode_character

Input an arbitrary unicode character. See Unicode input <> for details.

    kitten

Run the specified kitten. See Custom kittens <> for details

Default shortcuts using this action:

    •   Selecting files, fast <> - ctrl+shift+p>d <#shortcut-kitty.Insert-chosen-directory> Insert chosen directory

    •   Selecting files, fast <> - ctrl+shift+p>c <#shortcut-kitty.Insert-chosen-file> Insert chosen file

    •   Hints <> - ctrl+shift+p>h <#shortcut-kitty.Insert-selected-hash> Insert selected hash

    •   Hints <> - ctrl+shift+p>l <#shortcut-kitty.Insert-selected-line> Insert selected line

    •   Hints <> - ctrl+shift+p>f <#shortcut-kitty.Insert-selected-path> Insert selected path

    •   Hints <> - ctrl+shift+p>w <#shortcut-kitty.Insert-selected-word> Insert selected word

    •   Hints <> - ctrl+shift+p>shift+f <#shortcut-kitty.Open-selected-path> Open selected path

    •   Hints <> - ctrl+shift+p>n <#shortcut-kitty.Open-the-selected-file-at-the-selected-line> Open the selected file at the selected line

    •   Hints <> - ctrl+shift+p>y <#shortcut-kitty.Open-the-selected-hyperlink> Open the selected hyperlink

    •   Unicode input <> - ctrl+shift+u <#shortcut-kitty.Unicode-input> Unicode input

    kitty_shell

Run the kitty shell to control kitty with commands

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+escape <#shortcut-kitty.Open-the-kitty-command-shell>

    launch

Launch the specified program in a new window/tab/etc.

See The launch command <> for details

    load_config_file

Reload the config file

If mapped without arguments reloads the default config file, otherwise loads the specified config files, in order. Loading a config file replaces all config options. For example:

            map f5 load_config_file /path/to/some/kitty.conf

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f5 <#shortcut-kitty.Reload-kitty.conf>

    macos_cycle_through_os_windows

Cycle through OS windows on macOS

Default shortcuts using this action: cmd+` <#shortcut-kitty.macOS-Cycle-through-OS-Windows>

    macos_cycle_through_os_windows_backwards

Cycle through OS windows backwards on macOS

Default shortcuts using this action: cmd+shift+` <#shortcut-kitty.macOS-Cycle-through-OS-Windows-backwards>

    minimize_macos_window

Minimize macOS window

Default shortcuts using this action: cmd+m <#shortcut-kitty.Minimize-macOS-window>

    open_url

Open the specified URL

Default shortcuts using this action: shift+cmd+/ <#shortcut-kitty.Open-kitty-Website>

    open_url_with_hints

Click a URL using the keyboard

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+e <#shortcut-kitty.Open-URL>

    pop_keyboard_mode

End the current keyboard mode switching to the previous mode.

    push_keyboard_mode

Switch to the specified keyboard mode, pushing it onto the stack of keyboard modes.

    remote_control

Run a remote control command without needing to allow remote control

For example:

            map f1 remote_control set-spacing margin=30

See Mapping key presses to remote control commands <#rc-mapping> for details.

    remote_control_script

Run a remote control script without needing to allow remote control

For example:

            map f1 remote_control_script /path/to/script arg1 arg2 ...

See Mapping key presses to remote control commands <#rc-mapping> for details. Relative paths are resolved with respect to the kitty config directory.

    set_colors

Change colors in the specified windows

For details, see kitten @ set-colors <#at-set-colors>. For example:

            map f5 set_colors --configured /path/to/some/config/file/colors.conf

    show_error

Show an error message with the specified title and text

    sleep

Sleep for the specified time period. Suffix can be s for seconds, m, for minutes, h for hours and d for days. The time can be fractional.

    toggle_macos_secure_keyboard_entry

Toggle macOS secure keyboard entry

Default shortcuts using this action: opt+cmd+s <#shortcut-kitty.Toggle-macOS-secure-keyboard-entry>

    ungrab_keyboard

Ungrab the keyboard if it was previously grabbed

    no_op

Unbind a shortcut

Mapping a shortcut to no_op causes kitty to not intercept the key stroke anymore, instead passing it to the program running inside it.

  Mouse actions

    mouse_click_url

Click the URL under the mouse

    mouse_click_url_or_select

Click the URL under the mouse only if the screen has no selection

    mouse_handle_click

Handle a mouse click

Try to perform the specified actions one after the other till one of them is successful. Supported actions are:

            selection - check for a selection and if one exists abort processing
            link - if a link exists under the mouse, click it
            prompt - if the mouse click happens at a shell prompt move the cursor to the mouse location

For examples, see Mouse actions <#conf-kitty-mouse-mousemap>

    mouse_select_command_output

Select clicked command output

Requires Shell integration <#shell-integration> to work

    mouse_selection

Manipulate the selection based on the current mouse position

For examples, see Mouse actions <#conf-kitty-mouse-mousemap>

    mouse_show_command_output

Show clicked command output in a pager like less

Requires Shell integration <#shell-integration> to work

    paste_selection

Paste the current primary selection

    paste_selection_or_clipboard

Paste the current primary selection or the clipboard if no selection is present

  Scrolling

    scroll_end

Scroll to the bottom of the scrollback buffer when in main screen

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+end <#shortcut-kitty.Scroll-to-bottom>

    scroll_home

Scroll to the top of the scrollback buffer when in main screen

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+home <#shortcut-kitty.Scroll-to-top>

    scroll_line_down

Scroll down by one line when in main screen. To scroll by different amounts, you can map the remote_control

scroll-window action. Pass the smooth argument to have the scrolling be animated. For example:

            map kitty_mod+down scroll_line_down smooth

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+down <#shortcut-kitty.Scroll-line-down>

    scroll_line_up

Scroll up by one line when in main screen. To scroll by different amounts, you can map the remote_control

scroll-window action. Pass the smooth argument to have the scrolling be animated. For example:

            map kitty_mod+up scroll_line_up smooth

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+up <#shortcut-kitty.Scroll-line-up>

    scroll_page_down

Scroll down by one page when in main screen. To scroll by different amounts, you can map the remote_control scroll-window action.

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+page_down <#shortcut-kitty.Scroll-page-down>

    scroll_page_up

Scroll up by one page when in main screen. To scroll by different amounts, you can map the remote_control scroll-window action.

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+page_up <#shortcut-kitty.Scroll-page-up>

    scroll_prompt_to_bottom

Scroll prompt to the bottom of the screen, filling in extra lines from the scrollback buffer, when in main screen

    scroll_prompt_to_top

Scroll prompt to the top of the screen, filling screen with empty lines, when in main screen. To avoid putting the lines above the prompt into the scrollback use scroll_prompt_to_top y

    scroll_to_prompt

Scroll to the previous/next shell command prompt

Allows easy jumping from one command to the next. Requires working Shell integration <#shell-integration>. Takes two optional numbers as arguments:

The first is the number of prompts to jump; negative values jump up and positive values jump down. A value of zero will jump to the last prompt visited by this action. Defaults to -1

The second is the number of lines to show above the prompt that was jumped to. This is somewhat like less's --jump-target option or vim's scrolloff setting. Defaults to 0.

For example:

            map ctrl+p scroll_to_prompt -1 3  # jump to previous, showing 3 lines prior
            map ctrl+n scroll_to_prompt 1     # jump to next
            map ctrl+o scroll_to_prompt 0     # jump to last visited

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+x <#shortcut-kitty.Scroll-to-next-shell-prompt>, ctrl+shift+z <#shortcut-kitty.Scroll-to-previous-shell-prompt>

    search_scrollback

Search scrollback in a pager like less. If there is selected text, it is automatically searched for.

Note that this assumes that pressing the / key triggers search mode in the page configured as the scrollback pager.

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+/ <#shortcut-kitty.Search-the-scrollback-within-a-pager>

    show_first_command_output_on_screen

Show output from the first shell command on screen in a pager like less

Requires Shell integration <#shell-integration> to work

    show_last_command_output

Show output from the last shell command in a pager like less

Requires Shell integration <#shell-integration> to work

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+g <#shortcut-kitty.Browse-output-of-the-last-shell-command-in-pager>

    show_last_non_empty_command_output

Show the last non-empty output from a shell command in a pager like less

Requires Shell integration <#shell-integration> to work

    show_last_visited_command_output

Show the first command output below the last scrolled position via scroll_to_prompt

or the last mouse clicked command output in a pager like less

Requires Shell integration <#shell-integration> to work

    show_scrollback

Show scrollback in a pager like less

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+h <#shortcut-kitty.Browse-scrollback-buffer-in-pager>

  Sessions

    close_session

Close a session, that is, close all windows that belong to the session.

    Examples::
        # Ask for the session to close map f1 close_session # Close the currently active session map f1 close_session . # Close session by name map f1 close_session "my session" # Close session by path to session file map f1 close_session "/path/to/session/file.kitty-session"

    goto_session

Switch to the specified session, creating it if not already present. See Creating/Switching to sessions with a keypress <#goto-session>.

    save_as_session

Save the current kitty state as a session file. See The save_as_session action <#save-as-session>.

  Tab management

    close_other_tabs_in_os_window

Close all the tabs in the current OS window other than the currently active tab

    close_tab

Close the current tab

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+q <#shortcut-kitty.Close-tab>

    detach_tab

Detach a tab, moving it to another OS Window. You can also use drag and drop to detach tabs.

See detaching windows <#detach-window> for details.

    goto_tab

Go to the specified tab, by number, starting with 1

Zero and negative numbers go to previously active tabs. Use the select_tab action to interactively select a tab to go to.

    move_tab_backward

Move the active tab backward. You can also use drag and drop to re-arrange tabs.

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+, <#shortcut-kitty.Move-tab-backward>

    move_tab_forward

Move the active tab forward. You can also use drag and drop to re-arrange tabs.

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+. <#shortcut-kitty.Move-tab-forward>

    new_tab

Create a new tab

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+t <#shortcut-kitty.New-tab>

    new_tab_with_cwd

Create a new tab with working directory for the window in it set to the same as the active window.

The tab is added to the currently active session <#sessions>, if any.

    next_tab

Make the next tab active

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+right <#shortcut-kitty.Next-tab>

    previous_tab

Make the previous tab active

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+left <#shortcut-kitty.Previous-tab>

    select_tab

Interactively select a tab to switch to

    set_tab_title

Change the title of the active tab interactively, by typing in the new title.

If you specify an argument to this action then that is used as the title instead of asking for it. Use the empty string ("") to reset the title to default. Use a space (" ") to indicate that the prompt should not be pre-filled. For example:

            # interactive usage
            map f1 set_tab_title
            # set a specific title
            map f2 set_tab_title some title
            # reset to default
            map f3 set_tab_title ""
            # interactive usage without prefilled prompt
            map f3 set_tab_title " "

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+alt+t <#shortcut-kitty.Set-tab-title>

  Window management

    set_window_title

Change the title of the active window interactively, by typing in the new title.

If you specify an argument to this action then that is used as the title instead of asking for it. Use the empty string ("") to reset the title to default. Use a space (" ") to indicate that the prompt should not be pre-filled. For example:

            # interactive usage
            map f1 set_window_title
            # set a specific title
            map f2 set_window_title some title
            # reset to default
            map f3 set_window_title ""
            # interactive usage without prefilled prompt
            map f3 set_window_title " "

    close_other_windows_in_tab

Close all windows in the tab other than the currently active window

    eighth_window

Focus the eighth window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+8 <#shortcut-kitty.Eighth-window>

    fifth_window

Focus the fifth window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+5 <#shortcut-kitty.Fifth-window>

    first_window

Focus the first window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+1 <#shortcut-kitty.First-window>

    focus_visible_window

Focus a visible window by pressing the number of the window. Window numbers are displayed

over the windows for easy selection in this mode. See visual_window_select_characters <#opt-kitty.visual_window_select_characters>.

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f7 <#shortcut-kitty.Visually-select-and-focus-window>

    fourth_window

Focus the fourth window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+4 <#shortcut-kitty.Fourth-window>

    move_window

Move the window in the specified direction

For example:

            map ctrl+left move_window left
            map ctrl+down move_window bottom

    move_window_backward

Move active window backward (swap it with the previous window)

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+b <#shortcut-kitty.Move-window-backward>

    move_window_forward

Move active window forward (swap it with the next window)

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f <#shortcut-kitty.Move-window-forward>

    move_window_to_top

Move active window to the top (make it the first window)

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+` <#shortcut-kitty.Move-window-to-top>

    neighboring_window

Focus the neighboring window in the current tab

For example:

            map ctrl+left neighboring_window left
            map ctrl+down neighboring_window bottom

    next_window

Focus the next window in the current tab. Does not traverse overlay windows.

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+] <#shortcut-kitty.Next-window>

    ninth_window

Focus the ninth window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+9 <#shortcut-kitty.Ninth-window>

    nth_window

Focus the nth window if positive or the previously active windows if negative. When the number is larger

than the number of windows focus the last window. For example:

            # focus the previously active window
            map ctrl+p nth_window -1
            # focus the first window
            map ctrl+1 nth_window 0

    previous_window

Focus the previous window in the current tab. Does not traverse overlay windows.

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+[ <#shortcut-kitty.Previous-window>

    reset_window_sizes

Reset window sizes undoing any dynamic resizing of windows

    resize_window

Resize the active window by the specified amount

See Resizing windows <#window-resizing> for details.

    second_window

Focus the second window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+2 <#shortcut-kitty.Second-window>

    seventh_window

Focus the seventh window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+7 <#shortcut-kitty.Seventh-window>

    sixth_window

Focus the sixth window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+6 <#shortcut-kitty.Sixth-window>

    swap_with_window

Swap the current window with another window in the current tab, selected visually. See visual_window_select_characters <#opt-kitty.visual_window_select_characters>

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f8 <#shortcut-kitty.Visually-swap-window-with-another>

    tenth_window

Focus the tenth window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+0 <#shortcut-kitty.Tenth-window>

    third_window

Focus the third window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+3 <#shortcut-kitty.Third-window>

    close_os_window

Close the currently active OS Window

Default shortcuts using this action: shift+cmd+w <#shortcut-kitty.Close-OS-window>

    close_other_os_windows

Close all other OS Windows other than the OS Window containing the currently active window

    close_window

Close the currently active window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+w <#shortcut-kitty.Close-window>

    close_window_with_confirmation

Close window with confirmation

Asks for confirmation before closing the window. If you don't want the confirmation when the window is sitting at a shell prompt (requires Shell integration <#shell-integration>), use:

            map f1 close_window_with_confirmation ignore-shell

    detach_window

Detach a window, moving it to another tab or OS Window

See detaching windows <#detach-window> for details.

    new_os_window

New OS Window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+n <#shortcut-kitty.New-OS-window>

    new_os_window_with_cwd

New OS Window with the same working directory as the currently active window.

The new OS Window is added to the currently active session <#sessions>, if any.

    new_window

Create a new window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+enter <#shortcut-kitty.New-window>

    new_window_with_cwd

Create a new window with working directory same as that of the active window.

The new window will belong to the active session <#sessions> if any.

    nth_os_window

Focus the nth OS window if positive or the previously active OS windows if negative. When the number is larger

than the number of OS windows focus the last OS window. A value of zero will refocus the currently focused OS window, this is useful if focus is not on any kitty OS window at all, however, it will only work if the window manager allows applications to grab focus. For example:

            # focus the previously active kitty OS window
            map ctrl+p nth_os_window -1
            # focus the current kitty OS window (grab focus)
            map ctrl+0 nth_os_window 0
            # focus the first kitty OS window
            map ctrl+1 nth_os_window 1
            # focus the last kitty OS window
            map ctrl+1 nth_os_window 999

    quit

Quit, closing all windows

Default shortcuts using this action: cmd+q <#shortcut-kitty.Quit-kitty>

    set_background_opacity

Set the background opacity for the active OS Window

For example:

            map f1 set_background_opacity +0.1
            map f2 set_background_opacity -0.1
            map f3 set_background_opacity 0.5

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+a>l <#shortcut-kitty.Decrease-background-opacity>, ctrl+shift+a>1 <#shortcut-kitty.Make-background-fully-opaque>, ctrl+shift+a>m <#shortcut-kitty.Increase-background-opacity>, ctrl+shift+a>d <#shortcut-kitty.Reset-background-opacity>

    start_resizing_window

Resize the active window interactively

See Resizing windows <#window-resizing> for details.

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+r <#shortcut-kitty.Start-resizing-window>

    toggle_fullscreen

Toggle the fullscreen status of the active OS Window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f11 <#shortcut-kitty.Toggle-fullscreen>

    toggle_maximized

Toggle the maximized status of the active OS Window

Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f10 <#shortcut-kitty.Toggle-maximized>

    toggle_tab

Toggle to the tab matching the specified expression

Switches to the matching tab if another tab is current, otherwise switches to the last used tab. Useful to easily switch to and back from a tab using a single shortcut. Note that toggling works only between tabs in the same OS window. See Matching windows and tabs <#search-syntax> for details on the match expression. For example:

            map f1 toggle_tab title:mytab

    toggle_window_title_bars

Temporarily show window title bars to allow drag-to-reorder

When window title bars are hidden (because window_title_bar_min_windows <#opt-kitty.window_title_bar_min_windows> is not met), this action forces them temporarily visible so that they can be dragged to reorder windows. After any drag operation completes, the bars are automatically hidden again. Press again to cancel before dragging.

Has no effect on tabs where title bars are already naturally visible.

Map an action to this, then press it before dragging a window title bar.

  Wide gamut color formats

kitty supports modern wide gamut color formats for precise color specification. These formats can be used anywhere a color value is accepted in the configuration (foreground, background, color0-color255, etc.).

  OKLCH Colors

OKLCH is a perceptually uniform color space, ideal for creating color themes. The format is:

            foreground oklch(0.9 0.05 140)
            color1     oklch(0.7 0.25 25)

Parameters:

    •   L (Lightness): 0 to 1, where 0 is black and 1 is white

    •   C (Chroma): 0 to approximately 0.4, represents color saturation

    •   H (Hue): 0 to 360 degrees (0=red, 120=green, 240=blue)

Benefits:

    •   Perceptually uniform - equal changes produce equal perceived differences

    •   Adjusting lightness preserves hue (unlike HSL)

    •   Industry standard for modern color design

Example:

            foreground oklch(0.9 0.05 140)
            color1     oklch(0.65 0.25 29)    # Vibrant red-orange
            color2     oklch(0.65 0.25 142)   # Vibrant green
            color3     oklch(0.70 0.19 90)    # Warm yellow

  CIE LAB Colors

CIE LAB is a device-independent color space designed to approximate human vision.

The format is:

            background lab(20 5 -10)
            color4     lab(50 0 -50)

Parameters:

    •   L: Lightness, 0 to 100 (0 = black, 100 = white)

    •   a: Green (-) to red (+), typically -100 to +100

    •   b: Blue (-) to yellow (+), typically -100 to +100

Example:

            background lab(10 0 0)           # Very dark neutral gray
            foreground lab(90 0 0)           # Very light neutral gray
            color1     lab(50 60 40)         # Red
            color4     lab(50 0 -50)         # Blue

  Gamut Mapping

When you specify colors in OKLCH or CIE LAB formats that are outside the sRGB color gamut, kitty automatically converts them using the CSS Color Module Level 4 gamut mapping algorithm:

    •   Preserves the original lightness and hue as much as possible

    •   Reduces chroma (saturation) until the color fits within the displayable range

    •   Uses perceptual color difference (deltaE OK) to minimize visible changes

    •   Maximizes color saturation while staying in gamut

This ensures that wide gamut colors gracefully degrade on standard sRGB displays while taking full advantage of wide gamut displays when available. The mapping happens automatically - you don't need to do anything special.

For example, oklch(0.7 0.4 25) might be too saturated for sRGB but will be automatically adjusted to fit while preserving the perceived hue and lightness.

  References

    •   CSS Color Module Level 4 <https://www.w3.org/TR/css-color-4/>

    •   OKLCH Color Space <https://bottosson.github.io/posts/oklab/>

Author

Kovid Goyal

Copyright

2026, Kovid Goyal