Configuring kitty — kitty 0.11.3 documentation

# Configuring kitty

kitty is highly customizable, everything from keyboard shortcuts, to painting 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`. You can also display the current configuration by running `kitty --debug-config`.

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` option or use the `KITTY_CONFIG_DIRECTORY` environment variable. See the `kitty --config` option for full details.

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`. For example:

    include other.conf

## 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. By default they are derived automatically, by the OSes font system. Setting them manually is useful for font families that have many weight variants like Book, Medium, Thick, etc. For example:

    font_family      Operator Mono Book
    bold_font        Operator Mono Medium
    italic_font      Operator Mono Book Italic
    bold_italic_font Operator Mono Medium Italic

`font_size`

    font_size 11.0

Font size (in pts)

`adjust_line_height``,` `adjust_column_width`

    adjust_line_height  0
    adjust_column_width 0

Change the size of each character cell kitty renders. You can use either numbers, which are interpreted as pixels or percentages (number followed by %), which are interpreted as percentages of the unmodified values. You can use negative pixels or percentages less than 100% to reduce sizes (but this might cause rendering artifacts).

`symbol_map`

    symbol_map U+E0A0-U+E0A2,U+E0B0-U+E0B3 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. `symbol_map` itself can be specified multiple times. Syntax is:

    symbol_map codepoints Font Family Name

`box_drawing_scale`

    box_drawing_scale 0.001, 1, 1.5, 2

Change 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.

## Cursor customization

`cursor`

    cursor #cccccc

Default cursor color

`cursor_shape`

    cursor_shape block

The cursor shape can be one of (block, beam, underline)

`cursor_blink_interval``,` `cursor_stop_blinking_after`

    cursor_blink_interval      0.5
    cursor_stop_blinking_after 15.0

The interval (in seconds) at which to blink the cursor. Set to zero to disable blinking. Note that numbers smaller than `repaint_delay` will be limited to `repaint_delay`. Stop blinking cursor after the specified number of seconds of keyboard inactivity. Set to zero to never stop blinking.

## Scrollback

`scrollback_lines`

    scrollback_lines 2000

Number of lines of history to keep in memory for scrolling back. Memory is allocated on demand.

`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.

`wheel_scroll_multiplier`

    wheel_scroll_multiplier 5.0

Modify the amount scrolled by the mouse wheel or touchpad. Use negative numbers to change scroll direction.

## Mouse

`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, single, double, curly

`open_url_modifiers`

    open_url_modifiers kitty_mod

The modifier keys to press when clicking with the mouse on URLs to open the URL

`open_url_with`

    open_url_with default

The program with which to open URLs that are clicked on. The special value `default` means to use the operating system’s default URL handler.

`copy_on_select`

    copy_on_select no

Copy to clipboard on select. With this enabled, simply selecting text with the mouse will cause the text to be copied to clipboard. Useful on platforms such as macOS/Wayland that do not have the concept of primary selections. Note that this is a security risk, as all programs, including websites open in your browser can read the contents of the clipboard.

`rectangle_select_modifiers`

    rectangle_select_modifiers ctrl+alt

The modifiers to use rectangular selection (i.e. to select text in a rectangular block with the mouse)

`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 alpha-numeric character in the unicode database will be matched.

`click_interval`

    click_interval 0.5

The interval between successive clicks to detect double/triple clicks (in seconds)

`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.

`focus_follows_mouse`

    focus_follows_mouse no

Set the active window to the window under the mouse when moving the mouse around

## Performance tuning

`repaint_delay`

    repaint_delay 10

Delay (in milliseconds) between screen updates. 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.

`input_delay`

    input_delay 3

Delay (in milliseconds) before input from the program running in the terminal is processed. 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.

`sync_to_monitor`

    sync_to_monitor yes

Sync screen updates to the refresh rate of the monitor. This prevents 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

Enable/disable the audio bell. Useful in environments that require silence.

`visual_bell_duration`

    visual_bell_duration 0.0

Visual bell duration. Flash the screen when a bell occurs for the specified number of seconds. Set to zero to disable.

`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 yes

Show a bell symbol on the tab if a bell occurs in one of the windows in the tab and the window is not the currently focused window

## 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 window size will be remembered so that new instances of kitty will have the same size as the previous instance. If disabled, the 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.

`enabled_layouts`

    enabled_layouts *

The enabled window layouts. A comma separated list of layout names. The special value `*` means all layouts. The first listed layout will be used as the startup layout. For a list of available layouts, see the 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 windows. The cells value is used for horizontal resizing and the lines value for vertical resizing.

`window_border_width`

    window_border_width 1.0

The width (in pts) of window borders. Will be rounded to the nearest number of pixels based on screen resolution. 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 minimum needed borders for inactive windows are drawn. That is only the borders that separate the inactive window from a neighbor. Note that setting a non-zero window margin overrides this and causes all borders to be drawn.

`window_margin_width`

    window_margin_width 0.0

The window margin (in pts) (blank area outside the border)

`single_window_margin_width`

    single_window_margin_width -1000.0

The window margin (in pts) to use when only a single window is visible. Negative values will cause the value of `window_margin_width` to be used instead.

`window_padding_width`

    window_padding_width 0.0

The window padding (in pts) (blank area between the text and the window border)

`active_border_color`

    active_border_color #00ff00

The color for the border of 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 (a number between zero and one, with zero being fully faded).

## Tab bar

`tab_bar_edge`

    tab_bar_edge bottom

Which 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_style`

    tab_bar_style fade

The tab bar style, can be one of: `fade` or `separator`. In the fade style, each tab’s edges fade into the background color, in the separator style, tabs are separated by a configurable separator.

`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`.

`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

## Color scheme

`foreground``,` `background`

    foreground #dddddd
    background #000000

The foreground and background colors

`background_opacity``,` `dynamic_background_opacity`

    background_opacity         1.0
    dynamic_background_opacity no

The opacity of the background. A number between 0 and 1, where 1 is opaque and 0 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 default background color’s opacity. This is 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. Be aware that using a value less than 1.0 is a (possibly significant) performance hit. 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)

`dim_opacity`

    dim_opacity 0.75

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 for text selected with the mouse

### The color table

The 16 terminal colors. There are 8 basic colors, each color has a dull and bright version. You can also set the remaining colors from the 256 color table 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

## Advanced

`shell`

    shell .

The shell program to execute. The default value of . means to use 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` to ensure that the shell starts in interactive mode and reads its startup rc files.

`editor`

    editor .

The console editor to use when editing the kitty config file or similar tasks. A value of . means to use the environment variable EDITOR. Note that this environment variable has to be set not just in your shell startup scripts but system-wide, otherwise kitty will not see it.

`close_on_child_death`

    close_on_child_death no

Close the window when the child process (shell) exits. If no (the default), the terminal will remain open when the child exits as long as there are still processes outputting to the terminal (for example disowned or backgrounded processes). If 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.

`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.

`startup_session`

    startup_session none

Path to a session file to use for all kitty instances. Can be overridden by using the `kitty --session` command line option for individual instances. See Startup 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.

`clipboard_control`

    clipboard_control write-clipboard write-primary

Allow programs running in kitty to read and write from the clipboard. You can control exactly which actions are allowed. The set of possible actions is: write-clipboard read-clipboard write-primary read-primary The default is to allow writing to the clipboard and primary selection. Note that enabling the read functionality is a security risk as it means that any program, even one running on a remote server via SSH can read your clipboard.

`term`

    term xterm-kitty

The value of the 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.

## OS specific tweaks

`macos_titlebar_color`

    macos_titlebar_color system

Change the color of the kitty window’s titlebar on macOS. A value of `system` means to use the default system color, 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`. WARNING: This option works by using a hack, as there is no proper Cocoa API for it. It sets the background color of the entire window and makes the titlebar transparent. As such it is incompatible with `background_opacity`. If you want to use both, you are probably better off just hiding the titlebar with `macos_hide_titlebar`.

`macos_hide_titlebar`

    macos_hide_titlebar no

Hide the kitty window’s title bar on macOS.

`x11_hide_window_decorations`

    x11_hide_window_decorations no

Hide the window decorations (title bar and window borders) on X11 and Wayland. Whether this works and exactly what effect it has depends on the window manager, as it is the job of the window manager/compositor to draw window decorations.

`macos_option_as_alt`

    macos_option_as_alt yes

Use the option key as an alt key. With this set to no, kitty will use the macOS native `Option+Key` = unicode character behavior. This will break any `Alt+key` keyboard shortcuts in your terminal programs, but you can use the macOS unicode input technique.

`macos_hide_from_tasks`

    macos_hide_from_tasks no

Hide the kitty window from running tasks (`Option+Tab`) on macOS.

`macos_quit_when_last_window_closed`

    macos_quit_when_last_window_closed no

Have kitty quit when all the top-level windows are closed. 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.

## Keyboard shortcuts

For a list of key names, see: GLFW keys. The name to use is the part after the `GLFW_KEY_` prefix. For a list of modifier names, see: GLFW mods

On Linux you can also use XKB key names to bind keys that are not supported by GLFW. See XKB keys for a list of key names. The name to use is the part after the `XKB_KEY_` prefix. Note that you should only use an XKB key name for keys that are not present in the list of GLFW keys.

You can use the special action `no_op` to unmap a keyboard shortcut that is assigned in the default configuration.

You can combine multiple actions to be triggered by a single shortcut, using the syntax below:

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

For example:

    map kitty_mod+e combine : new_window : next_layout

this will create a new window and switch to the next available layout

You can use multi-key shortcuts using the syntax shown below:

    map key1>key2>key3 action

For example:

    map ctrl+f>2 set_font_size 20

`kitty_mod`

    kitty_mod ctrl+shift

The value of `kitty_mod` is used as the modifier for all default shortcuts, you can change it in your kitty.conf to change the modifiers for all the default shortcuts.

`clear_all_shortcuts`

    clear_all_shortcuts no

You can have kitty remove all shortcut definition seen up to this point. Useful, for instance, to remove the default shortcuts.

### Clipboard

`Copy to clipboard`

    map ctrl+shift+c copy_to_clipboard

`Paste from clipboard`

    map ctrl+shift+v paste_from_clipboard

`Paste from selection`

    map ctrl+shift+s paste_from_selection
    map shift+insert paste_from_selection

`Pass selection to program`

    map ctrl+shift+o pass_selection_to_program

You can also pass the contents of the current selection to any program using `pass_selection_to_program`. By default, the system’s open program is used, but you can specify your own, 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
    map ctrl+shift+k scroll_line_up

`Scroll line down`

    map ctrl+shift+down scroll_line_down
    map ctrl+shift+j scroll_line_down

`Scroll page up`

    map ctrl+shift+page_up scroll_page_up

`Scroll page down`

    map ctrl+shift+page_down scroll_page_down

`Scroll to top`

    map ctrl+shift+home scroll_home

`Scroll to bottom`

    map ctrl+shift+end scroll_end

`Browse scrollback buffer in less`

    map ctrl+shift+h show_scrollback

You can send the contents of the current screen + history buffer as stdin to an arbitrary program using the placeholders @text (which is the plain text) and @ansi (which includes text styling escape codes). For only the current screen, use @screen or @ansi_screen. For example, the following command opens the scrollback buffer in less in a new window:

    map kitty_mod+y new_window @ansi less +G -R

### Window management

``

    map ctrl+shift+enter new_window

You can open a new window running an arbitrary program, for example:

    map kitty_mod+y      new_window 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    new_window_with_cwd

`New OS window`

    map ctrl+shift+n new_os_window

`Close window`

    map ctrl+shift+w close_window

`Next window`

    map ctrl+shift+] next_window

`Previous window`

    map ctrl+shift+[ previous_window

`Move window forward`

    map ctrl+shift+f move_window_forward

`Move window backward`

    map ctrl+shift+b move_window_backward

`Move window to top`

    map ctrl+shift+` move_window_to_top

`Start resizing window`

    map ctrl+shift+r start_resizing_window

`First window`

    map ctrl+shift+1 first_window

`Second window`

    map ctrl+shift+2 second_window

`Third window`

    map ctrl+shift+3 third_window

`Fourth window`

    map ctrl+shift+4 fourth_window

`Fifth window`

    map ctrl+shift+5 fifth_window

`Sixth window`

    map ctrl+shift+6 sixth_window

`Seventh window`

    map ctrl+shift+7 seventh_window

`Eight window`

    map ctrl+shift+8 eighth_window

`Ninth window`

    map ctrl+shift+9 ninth_window

`Tenth window`

    map ctrl+shift+0 tenth_window

### Tab management

`Next tab`

    map ctrl+shift+right next_tab

`Previous tab`

    map ctrl+shift+left previous_tab

`New tab`

    map ctrl+shift+t new_tab

`Close tab`

    map ctrl+shift+q close_tab

`Move tab forward`

    map ctrl+shift+. move_tab_forward

`Move tab backward`

    map ctrl+shift+, move_tab_backward

`Set tab title`

    map ctrl+shift+alt+t set_tab_title

You can also create shortcuts to go to specific tabs, with 1 being the first tab:

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

Just as with `new_window` above, you can also pass the name of arbitrary commands to run when using new_tab and use `new_tab_with_cwd`.

### Layout management

`Next layout`

    map ctrl+shift+l next_layout

You can also create shortcuts to switch to specific layouts:

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

### Font sizes

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

`Increase font size`

    map ctrl+shift+equal change_font_size all +2.0

`Decrease font size`

    map ctrl+shift+minus change_font_size all -2.0

`Reset font size`

    map ctrl+shift+backspace 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 window’s font size:

    map kitty_mod+f6 change_font_size current 10.0

### 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 ctrl+shift+e kitten 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 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 ctrl+shift+p>shift+f kitten hints --type path

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

`Insert selected line`

    map ctrl+shift+p>l kitten hints --type line --program -

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

`Insert selected word`

    map ctrl+shift+p>w kitten hints --type word --program -

Select words and insert into terminal.

`Insert selected hash`

    map 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

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

### Miscellaneous

`Toggle fullscreen`

    map ctrl+shift+f11 toggle_fullscreen

`Unicode input`

    map ctrl+shift+u input_unicode_character

`Edit config file`

    map ctrl+shift+f2 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 ctrl+shift+a>m set_background_opacity +0.1

`Decrease background opacity`

    map ctrl+shift+a>l set_background_opacity -0.1

`Make background fully opaque`

    map ctrl+shift+a>1 set_background_opacity 1

`Reset background opacity`

    map ctrl+shift+a>d set_background_opacity default

`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 is a python string literal so you can use escapes like `\x1b` to send control codes or `\u21fb` to send unicode characters (or you can just input the unicode characters directly as UTF-8 text). The first argument to `send_text` is the keyboard modes in which to activate the shortcut. The possible values are `normal` or `application` or `kitty` or a comma separated combination of them. The special keyword `all` means all modes. The modes `normal` and `application` refer to the DECCKM cursor key mode for terminals, and `kitty` refers to the special kitty extended keyboard protocol.

Another example, that outputs a word and then moves the cursor to the start of the line (same as pressing the Home key):

    map ctrl+alt+a send_text normal Word\x1b[H
    map ctrl+alt+a send_text application Word\x1bOH

## Sample kitty.conf

You can download a sample `kitty.conf` file with all default settings and comments describing each setting by clicking: `sample kitty.conf`.