Use profiles to change the look of Terminal windows on Mac
Use profiles to customise the colours, font, cursor style, background, and other elements of Terminal windows. A profile is a collection of style and behaviour settings for a Terminal window.
Terminal comes with a set of predefined profiles, and you can also create your own custom profiles.
Create a new profile or modify an existing profile
Go to the Terminal app
on your Mac.Choose Terminal > Settings, then click Profiles.
Do one of the following:
Create a new profile: Click
under the profiles list, then enter a name for the new profile.Modify an existing profile: Select the profile you want to modify.
Choose settings for the profile:
Text: Change colours, fonts, text, backgrounds and cursor style.
Window: Change window display settings including title, size and scrollback.
Tab: Change tab display settings including title and process name.
Shell: Change settings for startup and exit behaviour.
Keyboard: Change settings for function keys, the option key, and the alternate screen.
Advanced: Change settings for terminal type (terminfo), input, bell behaviour, and international encodings.
Rename a profile
Go to the Terminal app
on your Mac.Choose Terminal > Settings, then click Profiles.
Double-click the name of the profile you want to rename.
Enter a new name, then press Return.
Copy a profile
Go to the Terminal app
on your Mac.Choose Terminal > Settings, then click Profiles.
Select the profile you want to copy.
Click
, then choose Duplicate Profile.Enter a name for the copied profile, then press Return.
Remove a profile
Go to the Terminal app
on your Mac.Choose Terminal > Settings, then click Profiles.
Select the profile you want to remove.
Click
under the profiles list.
Restore the predefined Terminal window profiles
If you removed or changed any of the predefined profiles that came with Terminal, you can add them back to the profiles list with their original settings. You can restore only the entire set of predefined profiles (that is, you can’t restore them individually).
If you customised one of the predefined profiles and want to save your customisations, you need to rename the profile before restoring the predefined profiles. The restore operation overwrites the settings for each of the predefined profiles.
Go to the Terminal app
on your Mac.Choose Terminal > Settings, then click Profiles.
Click
, then choose Restore Default Profiles.