mintty

NAME

mintty – Cygwin Terminal Emulator

SYNOPSIS

mintty [OPTION]... [ − | PROGRAM [ARG]... ]

DESCRIPTION

Mintty is a terminal emulator for Cygwin with a native Windows user interface and minimalist design. Its terminal emulation is largely compatible with xterm, but it does not require an X server.

INVOCATION

If a program name is supplied on the command line, this is executed with any additional arguments given. Otherwise, mintty looks for a shell to execute in the SHELL environment variable. If that is not set, it reads the user’s default shell setting from /etc/passwd. As a last resort, it falls back to /bin/sh.

If a single dash is specified instead of a program name, the shell is invoked as a login shell. If mintty is started from a Windows shortcut (desktop or start menu), by default the shell is also invoked as a login shell unless disabled by an option.

Invocation by a name of wsl*[−distro] implies a −−WSL[=distro] parameter.

Mintty supports being started from a Windows desktop shortcut; it honours window and icon settings of the shortcut, aligns taskbar grouping with the shortcut, disables daemonizing, and sets environment variable MINTTY_SHORTCUT to its pathname.

Before starting the child program, mintty trims the environment from other variables set by launchers, other terminals, or shells, that might indicate incorrect information and lead to confusing behaviour.

OPTIONS

The standard GNU option formats are accepted, with single dashes introducing short options and double dashes introducing long options.

Note that setting ShortLongOpts enables single-dash long options.
−c, −−config FILENAME

Read settings from the specified configuration file, in addition to the default config files. Configuration changes are saved to the last file thus specified.

−C, −−loadconfig FILENAME

Read settings from the specified configuration file, in addition to the default config files. The file is not taken into account for saving configuration changes. This is useful to mix-in partial configuration variants, particularly colour schemes. However, −o ThemeFile=FILENAME may be preferable.

−−configdir DIRNAME

Use the given directory to check for resource subdirectories (themes, sounds, lang, emojis, icon, fonts, pointers); also read settings from the configuration file DIRNAME/config, in addition to the default config files, and save configuration changes here.

−−dir directory

Change initial directory to start in. This is especially useful for invocation of mintty from a Windows context menu via registry entry.

−e, −−exec PROGRAM [ARG ...]

Execute the specified program in the terminal session and pass on any additional arguments.

This option is present for compatibility with other terminal emulators only. It can be omitted, in which case the first non-option argument, if any, is taken as the name of the program to execute.

−h, −−hold never|start|error|always

Determine whether to keep the terminal window open when the command has finished and no more processes are connected to the terminal. The argument can be abbreviated to a single letter.

By default, the window is closed immediately, except if the child process has exited with status 255, which is used to indicate failure to execute the shell command. (Exit status 255 is also used by ssh to indicate connection errors.)

Alternatively, the window can be set to never stay open, to always stay open, or to stay open only if the child process terminates with an error, i.e. with a non-zero exit status or due to a signal indicating a runtime error.

−i, −−icon FILE[,INDEX]

Load the window icon from an executable, DLL, or icon file. The optional comma-separated index can be used to select a particular icon in a file with multiple icons.

Note: About interaction problems of icon, shortcut, and the Windows taskbar: In a Windows desktop shortcut, it is suggested not to use this option in the Target command line, as mintty will detect and use the icon from the invoking shortcut (Change Icon...), also resolving a leading Windows environment variable (like %SystemRoot%).

−l, −−log FILE|−

Copy all output into the specified log file, or standard output if a dash is given instead of a file name. (Implies −o Logging=yes.)

If FILE contains %d it will be substituted with the process ID. See description of equivalent option "Log file" (Log=) below for further formatting options and hints.

Note that logging can be toggled from the extended context menu.

−−logfile FILE|−

Like −−log but with logging initially disabled, so just specifying a potential log file name in case logging is enabled from the extended context menu. (Equivalent to combining −−log with −o Logging=no.)

−o, −−option NAME=VALUE

Override the named config file option with the given value, e.g. −o ScrollbackLines=1000. Note that for option settings that are localized in the Options menu, the value in the config file or on the command line must be unlocalized.

−p, −−position X,Y

Open the window with its top left corner at the specified coordinates. Instead of coordinates, "centre" or "center" can be specified to place the window in the screen centre, and "right" or "bottom" can be specified to align the right or bottom window border with the right or bottom screen border (together with another option −p to specify an offset).

Option value "@N" where N is a number places the window on monitor N.

Multiple −p options can be combined; coordinates have a different meaning depending on other options:

Note: For another option to select the monitor for a new mintty window, see the description of Alt+F2.

−s, −−size COLS,ROWS

Set the default size of the window in character columns and rows. (The xterm-like syntax COLSxROWS is accepted too.) Instead of coordinates, "maxwidth" or "maxheight" can be specified; this can be combined with another parameter −s for the other dimension. The dimension for which "max" is applied is ignored in further −s or −p parameters. For example, mintty −s maxwidth −p 0,0 −s 0,10 will start a window at full screen width, positioned at the top of the screen, with 10 lines.

−−nobidi, −−nortl

Disable bidi display (right-to-left support). Same as −o Bidi=0.

−t, −−title TITLE

Use TITLE as the initial window title. By default, the title is set to the executed command.

−T, −−Title TITLE

Use TITLE as the permanent window title. The title is not changeable by control sequences. This feature is only available on the command line.

−B, −−Border normal|frame|void

Like option BorderStyle: Suppress window title, display only a frame or no border. The system menu can still be opened with Alt+space. A window move can still be done with Ctrl+Alt+click-drag.

−−tabbar[=level]

Activate tabbar for tab-based session switching among virtual tabs. This sets TabBar=1 and SessionGeomSync=level. Without given value the default window synchronization level is 2.

−−newtabs

Create a new window even if virtual tabs are enabled, so running a new tab group. Implies −−tabbar (equivalent to −−tabbar −o NewTabs=2).

−−horbar[=mode]

Support horizontal scrolling. Values are 3 to enable a permanent horizontal scrollbar, or 2 to display a horizontal scrollbar only while the horizontal terminal view is narrower than the actual terminal width.

−u, −−utmp

Create a utmp entry.

−w, −−window normal|min|max|full|hide

Set the initial window state: normal, minimized, maximized, full screen, or hidden.

−−class CLASS

Use CLASS as the window class name of the main window. This allows window grouping or setup of different tab sets, and it allows scripting tools to distinguish different mintty instances. The default is "mintty_N", including tabbed window sync level if > 1.

−d, −−nodaemon

Do not apply "daemonizing". By default, mintty tries to detach itself from the invoking terminal when started from a Cygwin Console in order to avoid disabled signal reception, and when cloning the window (Alt+F2) in order to avoid a remaining zombie process.

−D, −−daemon

Enforce "daemonizing". By default, mintty tries to detach itself from the invoking terminal only as described above. With this option, it tries to detach always. This makes a difference if a Windows "Shortcut key" is configured in a Windows desktop shortcut for starting mintty. Without daemonizing, the shortcut key will focus an already running instance of mintty, with daemonizing it always starts a new instance.

−R, −−Report info/mode

Report requested information.

With values "s" or "o", mintty reports the position and size of the window when it exits. This can be used to manage last window positions and reopen mintty windows accordingly.
Reporting mode is "s" or "o" to choose short or long option syntax for the restored (i.e. neither maximized nor minimized) geometry; min/max/fullscreen information is added.

With value "m", mintty reports the system’s monitor configuration (listing all connected monitors and their geometry and position in Windows’ virtual monitor coordinate system), and exits.

With value "f", mintty reports the monospace fonts installed on the system as determined by mintty, and exits.

With value "W", mintty lists installed WSL distributions and properties, and exits.

With value "t", mintty reports the tty name of the child process / shell.
With value "p", mintty reports the PID of the child process (e.g. the shell).
With value "P", mintty reports the cygwin PID and the Windows PID of the mintty process (i.e. running the terminal).
With value "w", mintty reports its Windows window id.

Note also the invocation MINTTY_DEBUG=C mintty ...; it will list all config files loaded by mintty and whether they are also considered for saving - the last one will be saved to. (This cannot be a −R option as most config files are read before command line parameters are evaluated.)

−−trace OUTPUT

This option redirects reporting output (see option −R) to a file. It also captures debug output (none in a release version).

−−store−taskbar−properties

Enable persistent storage of Windows taskbar properties together with options AppName and AppLaunchCmd.

−−nopin

Prevent pinning of the mintty window to the Windows taskbar.

−P, −−pcon [on|off]

Enforce enabling or disabling of ConPTY support.

−−wsl (preferred option: −−WSL, see below)

Adjust to WSL (the Windows Subsystem for Linux, or Bash/Ubuntu on Windows):

−−WSL=WSL DISTRIBUTION NAME

Run a WSL session, setting other parameters as appropriate and involving the wslbridge2 gateway implicitly (which should be installed in /bin for this purpose; fallback to legacy wslbridge on older Windows is supported). If the distribution name is empty, the default WSL installation is run; otherwise, it refers to the installed WSL packages as listed by the Windows tool wslconfig /l or wsl −l. Implies −−wsl, −−rootfs=..., and −−icon=... if a respective icon file exists for the distribution. Also sets up the gateway to propagate locale settings LANG, LC_CTYPE, LC_ALL and environment variable APPDATA to the WSL session.

−−WSLmode=WSL DISTRIBUTION NAME

Setup a WSL session for the given distribution (like −−WSL) but do not actually launch WSL which must be achieved with explicit invocation of a suitable gateway. The preferred option is −−WSL which invokes /bin/wslbridge2 with proper arguments as determined from the selected WSL distribution, in login mode if requested and home directory preference if requested.

−−rootfs ROOTFOLDER

Provide the root filesystem folder to adjust path conversion properly for the respective WSL installation.

−H, −−help

Display a brief help message and exit.

−V, −−version

Print version information and exit.

A number of xterm-style convenience options are also available:

−−selfg

Sets HighlightForegroundColour.

−−selbg

Sets HighlightBackgroundColour.

−−fn, −−font

Sets Font.

−−geometry COLSxROWS[[−+]X[−+]Y][@MONITOR]

Sets size and position, extending xterm syntax by an optional monitor number.

USAGE

Mintty tries to adhere to both Windows and Unix usage conventions. Where they conflict, an option is usually provided. This section primarily describes the default configuration; see the CONFIGURATION section on how it can be customized.

Font rendering

Mintty uses Windows Uniscribe font rendering to display a wider range of characters; the TextOut API is automatically used instead if suitable.

Font integration

Fonts in the resource subdirectory fonts of the config directory are installed dynamically and can be used for configured or interactively changed font selection. This is especially useful for a portable installation.

Bidirectional rendering

In addition to its default implicit bidirectional rendering with automatic direction detection (according to the Unicode Bidi algorithm), mintty supports ECMA-48 bidi modes and private bidi modes to control switchable bidi behaviour per line and partially per paragraph (i.e. within an auto-wrapped line), as listed in https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/CtrlSeqs#bidirectional−rendering. They follow the current status of the bidi mode model of the BiDi in Terminal Emulators recommendation (https://terminal−wg.pages.freedesktop.org/bidi/).

Menus

The context menu can be opened by right-clicking the mouse (with Shift in case right-click has been redefined or redirected to the application) or by pressing the Menu key that is normally located next to the right Ctrl key. If invoked while the Ctrl key is held down, an extended context menu will be opened, with some additional entries.

The context menu and its modified variants (with Ctrl etc) can be customized; see section on Menu configuration for details.

Mintty also adds a couple of items to the window menu, which can be accessed by clicking on the program icon or pressing Alt+Space.

Both menus have an entry that leads to the Options dialog for changing mintty’s configuration.

Text selection, copy & paste

Screen contents can be selected by holding down the left mouse button and dragging the mouse. If Alt is held down before the left mouse button, a rectangular block instead of whole lines will be selected. The selection can be extended by holding down Shift while left-clicking. Double-clicking or triple-clicking selects a whole word or line, whereby word selection includes special characters that commonly appear in file names and URLs.

By default, selected text is automatically copied to the clipboard. This can be disabled on the Mouse page of the Options dialog. Selected text can also be copied manually using either the Copy menu command, the Ctrl+Ins or Ctrl+Shift+C keyboard shortcuts (the latter if enabled by setting CtrlShiftShortcuts=yes; Ctrl+C with option CtrlExchangeShift=yes), or the middle mouse button combined with Shift.

The selected region is copied as "rich text" as well as normal text, which means it can be pasted with colours and formatting into applications that support it, e.g. word processors ("true colour" attributes are not supported).

The window title can be copied using the Copy Title command in the window menu.

The clipboard contents can be pasted using either the Paste menu command, the Shift+Ins or Ctrl+Shift+V keyboard shortcuts (the latter if enabled by setting CtrlShiftShortcuts=yes; Ctrl+V with option CtrlExchangeShift=yes), or the middle mouse button. Not only text but also files and directories can be pasted, whereby the latter are inserted as Cygwin file names. Shell quoting is added to file names that contain spaces or special characters.

Selection highlighting is cleared on input by default. This can be disabled with option ClearSelectionOnInput=false.

The current selection size can optionally been indicated with a popup, enabled with option SelectionShowSize.

Selection can also be managed using the keyboard. Shift+middle-keypad-key (Shift+"5") enters keyboard selecting mode (modifier configurable).

Note: If both settings CtrlShiftShortcuts and CtrlExchangeShift are enabled, copy & paste functions are assigned to plain (unshifted) Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V for those who prefer them to be handled like in Windows.

Elastic text selection

The traditional selection behaviour of cell-based terminals is that a character touched with the mouse is included in the selection. With option ElasticMouse, text selection can be changed to include the first and last characters only if they are spanned at least halfway by the mouse dragging, like many GUI applications do.

Drag & drop

Text, files and directories can be dropped into the mintty window. They are inserted in the same way as if they were pasted from the clipboard.

Opening files, directories and URLs

Files, directories, URLs and web addresses beginning with "www." can be opened either by holding Ctrl while left-clicking on them (or double-clicking, if and as enabled by option OpeningClicks, or left-clicking with another modifier as configured by option OpeningMod), or by selecting them and choosing the Open command from the context menu. Embedded spaces are considered if escaped with a backslash; for selected pathnames, also embedding quote marks are considered.

A relative pathname is interpreted as relative to the current working directory of the terminal foreground process if that can be determined, overridden by the working directory interactively communicated by the respective control sequence (OSC 7).

Mintty also supports the OSC 8 control to embed explicit hyperlinks (similar to links on web pages), see https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/CtrlSeqs#hyperlinks .

Note: While application mouse modes are enabled (as used by many screen oriented applications), Ctrl+Shift+click can be used to override it.

Hovering files, directories and URLs

The file names and links subject to opening are indicated by underlining when mouse-hovering over them (i.e. when moving the mouse) while the Control key is pressed. The colour used for hovering underlines can be configured with HoverColour. Explicit hyperlinks are displayed in the window title when hovering them; this can be disabled with HoverTitle.

Font zoom

The font size can be increased or decreased using the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+(keypad-)plus and Ctrl+(keypad-)minus, or by holding Ctrl (or Ctrl+Win) while rolling the mouse wheel. Ctrl+zero or Ctrl+middle-mouse click returns the font size to the default.
Shift-coupled window-with-font zooming: If Shift is also held while zooming, the window will be resized to scale together with the font, keeping the terminal character size if possible. This is not applied to the shifted numeric keypad "0" (which has other meaning) and to the shifted normal (non-keypad) "−" and "+" keys (because the shifted key could have a valid mapping, e.g. Ctrl+_, or the "+" key could be shifted itself already).
Zooming by keyboard or mouse can be disabled, respectively, with options ZoomShortcuts=no or ZoomMouse=no. Holding the Win key additionally overrides ZoomMouse and zooms anyway.

Drag resize

The usual windows function to drag on the window border resizes the terminal.
Shift-coupled font-with-window zooming: If Shift is also held while resizing, but Control is not held, the font will be scaled along with the resizing, unless disabled with ZoomFontWithWindow=false (which would help to avoid interference with certain shifted hotkeys configured to resize the window).
Note that due to the different height/width factors, coupled font zooming is not a precise operation.

Reflow / Line rebreaking after resize

If the terminal is resized to a different width, mintty can automatically rebreak and rewrap lines that had been auto-wrapped. This feature can be enabled by setting RewrapOnResize or in the Options dialog. Note that rewrapping can also be disabled per line by an escape sequence.

DPI change

When DPI setting changes (by reconfiguration of display properties "what’s on your screen ... smaller/medium/larger" or moving the mintty window between monitors with different DPI settings), mintty adapts its screen size to avoid Windows blurred auto-adaptation. If Shift is also held during the change, the font will be scaled too, roughly maintaining the screen dimensions.

Full screen

Full screen mode can be toggled using either the Full Screen command in the menu or either of the Alt+Enter and Alt+F11 keyboard shortcuts, or the generic functions of the window title bar.

Default size

If the window has been resized, it can be returned to the default size set in the Window pane of the options using the Default size command in the menu or the Alt+F10 shortcut. Shift+Alt+F10 also restores the font size to its default.

Reset

Sometimes a faulty application or printing a binary file will leave the terminal in an unusable state. In that case, resetting the terminal’s state via the Reset command in the menu or the Alt+F8 keyboard shortcut may help.

Scrolling and the scrollback buffer

Mintty has a scrollback buffer that can hold up to 10000 lines in the default configuration. It can be accessed using the scrollbar, the mouse wheel, or the keyboard. Hold the Shift key while pressing the Up and Down arrow keys to scroll line-by-line or the PageUp and PageDown keys to scroll page-by-page. In scroll mode, the same keys without Shift do the same. With option KeyFunctions, user-defined keys can be used for scrolling.

If the alternate screen is active, instead of scrolling in the scrollback buffer, the mouse wheel sends virtual cursor key escape sequences ("mousewheel reporting", roughly corresponds to xterm alternateScroll mode). This causes many applications, for example less, to scroll in an application-specific way (e.g. in the shell history). In both cases (scrollback and application scrolling), the number of lines per mouse notch is taken from Windows system settings, typically 3; this can be overriden by setting LinesPerMouseWheelNotch. With setting ZoomMouse=false, holding the Control key while moving the mouse wheel scrolls by 1 line.

Scrollback scrolling can be overridden dynamically to enforce mousewheel reporting in normal screen mode (i.e. not alternate screen) by holding the Alt key additionally. So for example shell history can be scrolled with Control+Alt+mouse-wheel.

Note that all modes of mouse operation are overridden by various "mouse tracking" modes enabled by escape sequences.

See section further below for horizontal scrolling.

Scroll Lock handling

The ScrollLock key is one of the most useless keys on typical PC keyboards as it is mostly ignored by software nowadays, and yet has its own LED. However, there are two historic features that could be associated with "ScrollLock". One is the VT100 NoScroll key which would hold output via the terminal, the other is a Windows function to switch cursor keys to screen scrolling as still used by the Excel program. Mintty provides both features as user-definable functions, in two variants each. Functions are no-scroll and scroll-mode (referring to those two features) which would be reset by any key input, and toggle-no-scroll and toggle-scroll-mode which would switch the respective feature on or off. These functions can be attached to any user-assignable function key or special key, including the ScrollLock key, with setting KeyFunctions. Mintty manages the ScrollLock keyboard light to reflect either of these functions activated, trying to decouple the light indication from the ScrollLock key while in a mintty window.

Searching in the text and scrollback buffer

The Search menu command and Alt+F3 shorcut open a search bar with an input field for a search string. Matches are highlighted in the scrollback buffer. Enter/Shift+Enter find the next/previous position of the match and scrolls the scrollback buffer accordingly. Tab focusses back into the terminal pane of the window. The appearance of the search bar and the matching highlight colours can be customized.
Matching is case-insensitive and ignores combining characters.

Shift+cursor-left/right offers another scrolling feature. If prompt lines are marked with scroll markers they navigate to the previous/next prompt, to provide a better orientation among the output of previously invoked commands. See the Control Sequences wiki page https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/CtrlSeqs#scroll−markers for details.

Flip screen

Applications such as editors and file viewers normally use a terminal feature called the alternate screen, which is a second screen buffer without scrollback. When they exit, they switch back to the primary screen to restore the command line as it was before invoking the application.

The Flip Screen menu command and Alt+F12 shortcut allow looking at the primary screen while the alternate screen is active, and vice versa. For example, this allows to refer to past commands while editing a file.

Switching session

The Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab shortcuts can be used to cycle through mintty windows. Minimized windows are skipped unless both Ctrl keys are used.

Virtual Tabs

The Virtual Tabs feature provides a list of all running mintty sessions (session switcher) as well as configurable launch parameters for new sessions (session launcher). The session list is shown when right-clicking the title bar (if virtual tabs mode is configured or with Ctrl) or ctrl+left-clicking it. By default, the list is also shown in the extended context menu (Ctrl+right-click), the mouse button 5 menu, and the menus opened with the Ctrl+Menu key and the Ctrl+Shift+I shortcut (if enabled). (Menu contents for the various context menu invocations is configurable.) For configuration, see settings SessionCommands, Menu*, and SessionGeomSync. Distinct sets of sessions can be set up with the setting −o Class=....

Virtual Tabs can be switched quickly with user-defined key assignments, using user-definable functions switch−[visible−](prev|next).

Mintty manages tabs in order to hide background tabs from appearing while moving the window, and (since 3.6.5) to support transparency (avoiding cumulation of opaqueness), and keep the tabbar consistent in case a tab gets terminated irregularly.

Tabbar

With setting TabBar, an interactive tabbar complements the virtual tabs mechanism. (It works like the session switcher available via extended context menu or title bar menu.) It is recommended to also set SessionGeomSync=3 or higher to achieve a tabbed window behaviour.

The tabbar can be reordered with user-definable functions tab−(left|right) or interactively via drag-and-drop on the tabs.

Horizontal scrolling of terminal view and horizontal scrollbar

Mintty provides an optional horizontal scrollbar, which can be enabled by a −−horbar command-line option. The window view can then be narrowed to be a partial view within the actual terminal width, and the view position can be changed by horizontal scrolling. There are two methods to perform view resizing and positioning:

The horizontal scrollbar can be used to shift the view, while clicking it with either Ctrl held, or Shift or Alt held, can resize the view; Ctrl will narrow the view, Shift or Alt will widen it, each at the opposite side of where the scrollbar is clicked (in order to maintain a stable clicking position while resizing by multiple clicks); clicking the scrollbar end arrows resizes by 1 column, clicking the empty scrollbar areas resizes by more columns.

The other method of horizontal view control uses user-definable functions which can be assigned to key combinations with option KeyFunctions, see there for an example.

Note: This is an experimental feature.

Note: Horizontal scrolling is not supported with virtual tabs mode.

Closing a session

Clicking the window’s close button, pressing Alt+F4, or choosing Close from the window menu sends a SIGHUP signal to the process running in mintty, which normally causes it to exit.

That signal can be ignored, though, in which case the program might have to be forced to terminate by sending a SIGKILL signal instead. This can be done by holding down Shift when using the close button, shortcut or menu item.

Terminal Break

A traditional BRK event on a serial terminal connection can be simulated. The Break is available in the extended context menu and it can be mapped to the Break key (or other user-defined key) by configuration. Note, however, that a BRK can be ignored by configuration of the terminal device (pty) or can be ignored by an application by catching the SIGINT signal. For more forceful interruption of the terminal client application, see the Tips wiki page https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/Tips#terminating−the−foreground−program−the−hard−way.

Note that Ctrl+C is often configured to raise a SIGINT signal. However, this is not a terminal feature and can also be reconfigured (stty), so in fact BRK and Ctrl+C are inherently different functions. The user-definable function intr can be used to send the character that is currently assigned to the SIGINT signal via stty settings; note however, this does not work e.g. through ssh if the pty setting is changed, as the remote side does not change the client side towards mintty.

Mouse tracking

When an application activates mouse tracking, mouse events are sent to the application rather than being treated as window events. This is indicated by the mouse pointer changing from an I shape to an arrow. Holding down Shift overrides mouse tracking mode and sends mouse events to the window instead, so that e.g. text can be selected and the context menu can be accessed.

Mintty supports 5-button mice, handling mouse buttons 4 / 5 like Alt+click-left / right in most mouse modes.

Character input

Mintty supports input of characters that are not directly mapped in the keyboard layout: Numeric input, Unicode input, and composed characters entered after a configurable Compose key. Visual feedback displays numeric or composing input modes and their input.

Alt codes

The Windows Alt+Numpad method for entering character codes is supported, whereby the Alt key has to be held while entering the character code. Only the first key has to be on the numpad; subsequent digits can be entered both on the numpad or the main part of the keyboard.

If the first key is a zero, the code is interpreted as octal.
If the first key is any other digit from 1 to 9, the code is interpreted as decimal.
If the first key is the '+' on the numpad, the code is interpreted as hexadecimal, whereby digits A through F can be entered using the letter keys.
If the first key is the '−' on the numpad, the code is interpreted as decimal; this is normally not needed but can be used to override a user-defined function assignment to an Alt+numpad key.

For UTF-8 and other Unicode encodings such as GB18030, the entered code is interpreted as a Unicode codepoint and encoded accordingly before it is sent. For other encodings, the entered code is sent as is. If it doesn’t fit into one byte, it is sent as multiple bytes, with the most significant non-zero byte first.

Unicode input

With user-definable function unicode−char (Ctrl+Shift+U by default), input of a hexadecimal Unicode character code is started. (In UTF-8 terminal mode, the result is the same as hexadecimal Alt code input described above.)

Compose key

Mintty supports a Compose key like on some traditional keyboards, using compose character sequences from X11. It can be assigned to a modifier key in the Options menu, section Keys, or to the CapsLock key. The Compose key function can also be assigned to another key combination using user-definable function compose in setting KeyFunctions.

Keyboard shortcuts

This section gives an overview of all the keyboard shortcuts. See also the final subsection on user-defined shortcuts.

Alt modifier key

Note that Alt+ in this description refers to the left Alt key. For keyboards that have two Alt keys, the right Alt key is not generally supported as an Alt modifier. The reason is that it cannot be safely distinguished from the AltGr key of international keyboards which is used to generate specific additional characters in various keyboard layouts and can therefore not be used as a generic modifier.

Scrollback and Selection via keyboard

Note: The modifier can be configured with setting ScrollMod.

Note: In scroll mode, up/down/top/bottom scrolling works without Shift.

Keyboard selecting mode: Alt sets rectangular selection. Once keyboard selecting mode is entered, the following keys are applied:

Copy and paste

Window commands

Multi-monitor selection support: Alt+F2 (or user-defined "new" key as defined with option KeyFunctions) will only spawn a new window after F2 has been released. While the key is being held, the target monitor can be selected with a sequence of numeric keypad keys:

These navigation controls can be applied repeatedly to select a monitor further away.

In virtual tabs mode (with tabbar), Alt+F2 spawns a new tab; with both Shift keys held, it enforces a new tabbar group.

Note that a heuristic algorithm is used, based on the size of the smallest monitor attached to the system, so the target may not always be selected as expected if multiple monitors of different size are available or monitors are not arranged in a regular grid. Note also that this feature is overridden by option SessionGeomSync.

Font zoom

Ctrl+Shift+letter shortcuts

An alternative set of shortcuts for clipboard and window commands using Ctrl+Shift+letter combinations is available. These can be enabled on the Keys pane of the Options dialog.

Ctrl+Shift+T cycles through transparency levels in steps, whenever Ctrl+Shift+T is released.
Alternatively, while Ctrl+Shift+T is held down, the navigation keys on the numeric keypad can be used for further fine-tuning:

If OpaqueWhenFocused is set, opaqueness is temporarily disabled to provide visible feedback for the changes.

User-defined shortcuts

Function keys, special keys, and Ctrl+Shift+key combinations can be redefined to generate user-defined input or invoke functions. See option KeyFunctions for details.

Startup hotkey ("quake mode")

In a Windows shortcut (desktop or Start menu), a "Shortcut key" with modifiers can be defined as a system hotkey to start an application or bring it to the front. Mintty detects if activated via hotkey and will use the same hotkey to minimize itself in turn, unless inhibited by shortcut override mode.

Embedding graphics in terminal output

The Sixel graphics support feature facilitates a range of applications that integrate graphic images in the terminal, animated graphics, and even video and interactive gaming applications.

An example of the benefit of this feature is the output of ‘gnuplot‘ with the command
GNUTERM=sixel gnuplot −e "splot [x=−3:3] [y=−3:3] sin(x) * cos(y)"

Note: The number of Sixel images displayed on the screen is limited in order to prevent Windows handle resource exhaustion.

Image support

In addition to the legacy Sixel feature, mintty supports graphic image display (using iTerm2 controls). Image formats supported comprise PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, Exif.

Vector graphics terminal emulation

Mintty supports Tektronix 4014 mode. It switches to Tek emulation on the xterm sequence DECSET 38 (‘\e[?38h‘). It is suggested to adjust the window size to the Tektronix 4010 resolution and aspect ratio before (‘echo −en "\e[4;780;1024t"‘). The tek utility available in the mintty utils repository https://github.com/mintty/utils helps to enter Tek mode and set up some environment information properly.

While in Tek mode, the context menu provides the Tektronix mode functions RESET (like xterm), PAGE (minor reset), and COPY ("hard" copy to image file).

While in Tek mode, the OSC 50 control sequence changes the Tek font. Tek mode text output supports Unicode.

Emoji display support

Mintty supports display of emojis as defined by Unicode using emoji presentation, emoji style variation and emoji sequences. The option Emojis can choose among sets of emoji graphics if deployed in a mintty configuration directory. See the Tips wiki page https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/Tips#emojis about deployment of emoji graphics for mintty. Extended flag emojis (not listed by Unicode) are supported dynamically.

HTML Screen dump

Mintty can create an HTML representation of the screen, from the extended context menu or using the respective xterm Media Copy escape sequence. The HTML page is created in the start directory of mintty and uses a filename pattern of mintty.date_time.html. Screen layout and character attributes are reproduced as closely as possible. If there is a current selection, the selected text will be included in the HTML dump, otherwise the current screen view is used. In the latter case, also a background image or pattern is reproduced, if its filename was configured as a relative path name using POSIX syntax (forward slashes).

If Shift is held, the function also opens the HTML page.

Filename pattern and location are configurable (setting SaveFilename).

Image dump of terminal contents

Mintty can save the visual contents of the terminal screen in an image file mintty.date_time.png. This is supported from the context menu or via user-definable key functions. The current terminal dimensions are used for the image size except in Tek mode, where one of the original Tek sizes is used (depending on whether 12-bit pixel addresses are in effect).

If Shift is held, the function also opens the image.

Filename pattern and location are configurable (setting SaveFilename).

Audio support

Mintty supports audio output for the warning bell (ˆG character), margin bell, a private escape sequence for explicit output of a sound file, and the DECPS tone playing escape sequence. A number of settings are available to configure the bell sound, also in conjunction with the bell volume escape sequence (each volume can be assigned a distinct sound file). Sound files for the bell sound and the audio sound output can be deployed in a resource subdirectory sounds or addressed by pathname. Tone playing by DECPS is supported via the libao audio output library if installed. Setting PlayTone can preselect a tone style. See the Control Sequences wiki page https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/CtrlSeqs#audio−support.

Diagnostic support

Screen logging

A couple of options are available to enable logging initially (Log=... or −l ... on the command line), or to specify a log file name for later logging (Log=... combined with Logging=no, or −−logfile ... on the command line). In either case, logging can be toggled from the extended context menu.

Character information display

Diagnostic display of current character information can be toggled from the extended context menu.

Note that the "normal" window title setting sequence and the character information output simply overwrite each other.

CONFIGURATION

Mintty has a graphical Options dialog that can be reached via the context menu or the window menu. It has the following action buttons:

So using Apply then Cancel, local changes can be applied (and tested) without affecting further instances of mintty.

In configuration files, settings are stored as NAME=VALUE pairs, with one per line. By default, they are read from any file of /etc/minttyrc, $APPDATA/mintty/config, ~/.config/mintty/config, ~/.minttyrc, in this order. Additional configuration files can be specified using the −c/−−config or −C/−−loadconfig command line options. These are read in order after the default config files, with settings in later files overriding those in earlier ones. Configuration changes are saved to the last writable file read by default or ~/.minttyrc if none is given, or (with precedence) to a configuration file specified with −c/−−config or −−configdir. Individual settings can also be specified on the command line using the −o/−−option.

Note: Many string values in the config files, especially those referring to file names or Windows items, are Unicode-enabled, meaning they are expected to be UTF-8-encoded in the configuration file independently of the encoding the terminal runs in; as a fallback, if the configuration value is not valid UTF-8, it is interpreted in the system ANSI encoding. (This does not apply to the same configuration settings when given on the command-line.)
Unicode-enabled settings: BellFile, BellFile2..7, ThemeFile, Background, Title, ExitTitle, Icon, Log, SaveFilename, Language, Font, Font1..10, FontRTL, FontSample, FontChoice, TekFont, CopyAsRTFFont, SearchBar, Printer, Answerback, SixelClipChars, Class, AppID, AppName, AppLaunchCmd, DropCommands, ExitCommands, UserCommands, SessionCommands, TaskCommands, KeyFunctions, SysMenuFunctions, CtxMenuFunctions, UserCommandsPath.

Be careful when running multiple instances of mintty. If options are saved from different instances, or the config file is edited manually, options can obviously be overwritten; if older mintty versions are run (e.g. from cygwin and msys sharing the same home directory), options may even get dropped from the configuration file; mintty versions since 261 preserve unknown options and comment lines.

Additional resource files are used for colour schemes (option ThemeFile, subdirectory themes), wave files (option BellFile, subdirectory sounds), and localization translation files (option Language, subdirectory lang) within the mintty resource directories /usr/share/mintty, $APPDATA/mintty, ~/.config/mintty, ~/.mintty, or as specified with command line option −−configdir.

The following sections explain the settings on each pane of the options dialog, followed by settings that do not appear in the dialog. For each setting, its name in the config file is shown in parentheses, along with its default value.

If there is only a name in parentheses, there is currently no GUI configuration facility for that option (see also Hidden settings below).

Looks

Settings affecting mintty’s appearance.

Colours

Clicking on one of the buttons here opens the colour selection dialog.
In the settings (config file or command-line options), colours are represented as comma-separated RGB triples with decimal 8-bit values ranging from 0 to 255. X-style hexadecimal colour specifications such as #RRGGBB, rgb:RR/GG/BB or rgb:RRRR/GGGG/BBBB, cmy:C.C/M.M/Y.Y or cmyk:C.C/M.M/Y.Y/K.K can be used as well. Also X11 color names are supported.

The field can also be used as a drag-and-drop target for colour schemes downloaded from the Color Scheme Configurator, or for theme files from the web. See the Tips wiki page https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/Tips#using−colour−schemes−themes about this mechanism.

Note: Mintty also provides the command-line script mintheme which can display the themes available in the mintty configuration directories or activate one of them in the current mintty window.

Transparency (Transparency=off)

Window transparency level, with the following choices:

The Glass option is deprecated as it was only supported in Windows Vista and only if glass colour brightness was set black in the Windows control panel.

Numeric transparency values ranging from 4 to 254 can be specified in config files or on the command line. (Values below 4 are multiplied by 16, for backward compatibility reasons.) The Options dialog also offers a numeric input option with slider buttons. Use Shift or Control to adjust their step width.

Since 3.6.5, when overlaying multiple tabs (SessionGeomSync modes), mintty manages tab window transparency to avoid cumulation of opaqueness.

Opaque when focused (OpaqueWhenFocused=no)

Enable to make the window opaque when it is active (to avoid background distractions when working in it).

Cursor (CursorType=line)

The following cursor types are available:

The line cursor is displayed with the width set in the Accessibility Options control panel / Ease of Access Center, mouse panel or Optimize visual display.

Cursor blink (CursorBlinks=yes)

If enabled, the cursor blinks at the rate set in the Keyboard control panel.

Visible space indication (DispSpace=0, DispClear=0, DispTab=0)

These settings enable visual indication of blank space. Setting DispSpace affects explicitly written space, setting DispClear affects unwritten/cleared character cells, setting DispTab affects TAB positions over clear space. Suggested settings are 6 or 14. The settings are bitmasks, adding the following values:

Text

Settings controlling text display.

Font selection

Clicking on the Select button opens a dialog where the font and its properties can be chosen. Font styles other than Bold are ignored. In the config file, this corresponds to the following entries:

The font selection dialog also offers an Apply button for convenient testing how the selected font looks. Its function is the same as the Apply button of the Options dialog.

Further settings can be given in the config file:

They can also be used as secondary fonts with option FontChoice. To support size alignment of secondary fonts with the main font size, alternative font specifications can be preceded with "+" which increases their font size slightly.
Note: Font10 has a special preference property; if it is not configured, mintty will try to activate it anyway, looking for an installed Fraktur or Blackletter font (ECMA-48 "Gothic").
Note: The control sequence for alternative font 1 overrides the identical control sequence to select the VGA character set, which would thus be disabled. Configuring alternative font 1 is therefore discouraged.

Note that the setting string must not be terminated with a Windows lineend, as its CR would be considered part of the last item; this can be prevented with a final semicolon separator.

A special name is PictoSymbols to assign an alternative font to ranges of pictographic symbols from Unicode blocks matching Arrows, Mathematical Operators, Technical, Enclosed Alphanumerics, Pictographs, Control Pictures, Optical, Box Drawing, Miscellaneous.*Symbols, Block Elements, Geometric Shapes, Dingbats, Tiles, Cards, Emoticons, Transport, Alchemical, Chess.
Another special name is CJK which comprises Han, Hangul, Katakana, Hiragana, Bopomofo, Kanbun, Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms (except Latin). A later more specific entry will override an earlier one (see CJK example below).
Finally, special name Private covers the Private Use ranges, which are often used for additional icon symbols (e.g. by "Nerd Fonts" or "Powerline" fonts).
In addition to Unicode scripts, also Unicode blocks can be used to specify a secondary font, by a "|" prefix to the block name, with block specifications preceding over the more general script specifications.
To align secondary font size with the main font size visually, the respective alternative font specification can be preceded with "+".

Examples:
FontChoice=Hebrew:6;Arabic:7;CJK:5;Han:8;Hangul:9
Font6=David
Font7=Simplified Arabic Fixed
Font5=+SimSun Regular
Font8=FangSong
Font9=MingLiU
FontChoice=PictoSymbols:2;Private:3
Font2=DejaVu Sans Mono
Font3=MesloLGS NF
FontChoice=Greek:3;|Greek Extended:4

Text lines (UnderlineManual=false)

By enabling this hidden setting, text attributes underline, doubly underline, strikeout and overline are enforced to be drawn manually. The default is to use Windows font variants for strikeout and for underline, unless mintty detects that the underlined font would not display properly. Note that font smoothing may be affected by Windows-generated underline modes.

Emoji support (Emojis=none)

With this option, mintty emoji support is enabled and the emojis style is chosen. Mintty will match output for valid emoji sequences, presentation forms and emoji style selectors. (Note that up to cygwin 2.10 it may be useful to set Charwidth=unicode in addition.)

Supported styles are:

Note that all style options only work if the respective emoji graphics repository is deployed in a mintty resource directory, subdirectory emojis. See the Tips wiki page https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/Tips#emojis for details.

Emoji placement (EmojiPlacement=stretch)

Emojis are displayed in the rectangular character cell group determined by the cumulated width of the emoji sequence characters. The following options are provided to tune their display:

Show dim as font (DimAsFont=yes)

This option sets the preferred rendering of the ANSI dim (or ’half-bright’) text attribute to use a Light font variation if available; otherwise, the dimming is achieved by merging colour with the background.

Show bold as font (BoldAsFont=yes)

This option sets the preferred rendering of the ANSI bold (or ’intense’) text attribute to use a bold-style font; where a suitable bold variant of the selected font (that has the same width as the base font) is available, that is used; otherwise, the bolding is simulated by rendering the text twice with a one-pixel offset (’overstrike’).
(Corresponds roughly to the xterm resource allowBoldFonts.)

This option is not fully independent. If both BoldAsFont and BoldAsColour are true, both display methods are combined where applicable. If both are false, xterm default behaviour is applied. See Bold Behaviour for an overview.

Show bold as colour (BoldAsColour=yes)

This option sets the preferred rendering of the ANSI bold (or ’intense’) text attribute to use a different colour, usually with increased brightness; it maps ANSI colours 0..7 (unless selected with the palette colour escape sequences) to their bright variants 8..15, and the default colour to a brightened variant. Rendering of other colours is not affected.
(Corresponds largely to the xterm resource boldColors.)

This option is not fully independent. If both BoldAsColour and BoldAsFont are true, both display methods are combined where applicable. If both are false, xterm default behaviour is applied. See Bold Behaviour for an overview.

Show bold like xterm default

With this interactive option, you can choose xterm default boldening behaviour by switching both bold as font and colour off. It can be switched off by switching one of the other options on.

Bold substitution colour (BoldColour=)

This hidden option sets a colour to be used to render the bold attribute of text that would otherwise have the default foreground colour, overriding other bold rendering; it is only applied if option BoldAsColour is true. The bold substitution colour can also be set, modified, enabled or disabled with the respective xterm OSC control sequences.
(Corresponds to the xterm resources colorBD and colorBDMode.)

Blink substitution colour (BlinkColour=)

This hidden option sets a colour to be used to render the blink attribute of text, overriding real blinking. The blink substitution colour can also be set, modified, enabled or disabled with the respective xterm OSC control sequences.
(Corresponds to the xterm resources colorBL and colorBLMode.)

Bold as special background (BoldAsRainbowSparkles=false)

This hidden option displays the bold attribute by underlaying special background. Overrides BoldAsFont. This is a fun option, use at your own risk.

Note: Bold Behaviour

When the bold text attribute is set, mintty distinguishes three classes of colours:

The colour classes are affected by the bold text attribute as follows:

Allow blinking (AllowBlinking=no)

When text blinking is disabled, as it is by default, the blink attribute is displayed as a bold background colour instead.

Font smoothing (FontSmoothing=default)

Select the amount of font smoothing in font rendering from the following choices:

Note that font smoothing may be affected by some Windows-generated font attributes; see UnderlineManual.

Font rendering (FontRender=uniscribe)

Select the rendering system used for text display:

Ligatures support

These options affect support for ligatures. They are not capable of disabling ligatures, however, as those are applied by Windows font handling. Setting FontRender=textout disables Uniscribe, including ligatures support.

Box Drawing (BoxDrawing=1)

This option enables self-drawn graphics for the Box Drawing range U+2500..U+257F, in order to achieve unbroken box drawing, as most fonts do not include proper box drawing glyphs.

Locale (Locale=)

The locale setting consists of a lowercase two-letter or three-letter language code followed by a two-letter country code, for instance en_US or zh_CN. The Windows default system and user locales are shown in the drop-down list for this setting. Alternatively, the language-neutral "C" locale can be selected.

If no locale is set here, which is the default, mintty uses the locale and character set specified via the environment variables LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE or LANG.

The major purpose of setting Locale, as far as the terminal is concerned, is to enable setting Charset. Therefore, after revision of locale handling in mintty 3.4.1, mintty restrains itself to setting the LC_CTYPE category of the locale mechanism if possible and not overwrite other categories if they are set in the environment. In addition, however, if Locale is set, mintty also sets the LANG variable.

If you prefer basic locale setup for all categories to be affected by the LC_CTYPE locale, whether setting Locale is used or not, it is suggested to add the following to the shell startup scripts:
export LANG="${LC_ALL:−${LC_CTYPE:−$LANG}}"

Until mintty 3.4.0 or with option OldLocale set, if the locale option is set, however, it would override any environment variable setting: LC_ALL and the LC_* variables for specific locale categories are cleared, while LANG is set according to the selected locale and character set. This meant, while not strictly necessary, that also locale variables unrelated to the terminal character set (e.g. LC_MESSAGES) are cleared to avoid confusion.

Character set (Charset=)

The character set to be used for encoding input and decoding output. If no locale is set, this setting is ignored.

By default, the locale selected by options Locale and Charset also determines the character width assumptions used for screen rendering. Exceptions are enabled by some settings, particularly Charwidth, and some control sequences; for an overview see (https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/Tips#character−width).

Note: Setting Locale and combining this with an empty or (Default) Charset setting results in an implicit character encoding as defined by the respective locale without suffix, which is not UTF-8 in most cases and may lead to unexpected behaviour.

Note: When changing the character set interactively in the Options dialog, it takes effect immediately for text input and ouput, but it does not affect the processes already running in mintty. This is because the environment variables of a running process cannot be changed from outside that process. Therefore mintty should be restarted for a character set change to take full effect, or the locale environment of the shell should be changed accordingly.

Note: The locale and character set can also be changed with an escape sequence, see the Control Sequences wiki page https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/CtrlSeqs#locale . That setting takes precedence; changes from the Options menu will silently have no effect unless an escape sequence with empty locale is sent to the terminal to restore to "default".

Character width handling (Charwidth=locale)

With this hidden setting, locale-determined character width properties can be overridden:

Note: With setting ambig−wide, if the effective locale does not define ambiguous-width characters wide already, mintty appends the "@cjkwide" locale modifier, in order to adapt the selected locale to the width preference. With setting ambig−narrow, if the effective locale does not define ambiguous-width characters narrow already, mintty appends the "@cjknarrow" locale modifier, in order to adapt the selected locale to the width preference.

Note: With settings single or single−unicode, mintty appends the "@cjksingle" locale modifier, in order to adapt the selected locale to the width preference.

Note: If this option selects using built-in width properties, the response to the Secondary Device Attributes request will report the built-in Unicode version as its third parameter.

Note: The single settings spoil essential double-width rendering including CJK script display; they are only intended to adapt to terminals that cannot display double width at all.

Warning: With this option, actual width properties as rendered on the screen and width assumptions of the wcwidth function may be inconsistent for the impacted characters, which may confuse screen applications (such as editors) that rely on wcwidth information.

Old character locale handling (OldLocale=false)

This setting reverts determination and handling of character encoding and character width from locale and options mostly to mintty up to 3.4.0.

Keys

Settings controlling keyboard behaviour.

Auto-repeat keys (AutoRepeat=on)

When setting this off, keyboard auto-repeat is ignored. Auto-repeat can also be switched dynamically with DECSET 8. Note that the repeat rate can be adjusted dynamically by an escape sequence.

Backarrow sends ˆH (BackspaceSendsBS=no)

By default, mintty sends ˆ? (ASCII DEL) as the keycode for the Backspace key. If this option is enabled, ˆH is sent instead. This also changes the Ctrl+Backspace code from ˆH to ˆ?.

Note: This setting also causes the tty setting ERASE character to be aligned accordingly (see man termios and command stty erase). Mind that this may affect certain applications, for example emacs which cannot interpret the explicit Ctrl+h command anymore.

(Corresponds to the xterm resource backarrowKey.)

Delete sends DEL (DeleteSendsDEL=no)

By default, mintty sends VT100 Remove as the keycode for the keypad Del key. If this option is enabled, ˆ? (ASCII DEL) is sent instead.
(Corresponds to the xterm resource deleteIsDEL.)

Ctrl+LeftAlt is AltGr (CtrlAltIsAltGr=no)

The AltGr key on non-US Windows systems is a strange beast: pressing it is similar to pressing the left Ctrl key and the right Alt key at the same time, and many Windows programs treat any Ctrl+Alt combination as AltGr.

Some programs, however, chief among them Microsoft’s very own Office, do not treat Ctrl+LeftAlt as AltGr, so that Ctrl+LeftAlt combinations can be used in command shortcuts even when a key has an AltGr character binding.

By default, mintty follows Office’s approach, because a number of terminal programs make use of Ctrl+Alt shortcuts. The "standard" Windows behaviour can be restored by ticking the checkbox here.

The setting makes no difference for keys without AltGr key bindings (e.g. any key on the standard US layout).

AltGr is also Alt (AltGrIsAlsoAlt=no)

This setting enables fallback of the AltGr key to the function of the Alt modifier for those keys that do not have an AltGr mapping in the keyboard layout.

The setting makes no difference for keys with AltGr key bindings.

Allow delay for AltGr detection (CtrlAltDelayAltGr=0)

Some software managing and providing keyboard input does not handle AltGr properly; particularly TeamViewer is known for buggy behaviour as it does not provide Ctrl and Menu virtual key codes like Windows does. With this option, some delay in milliseconds (suggested 16 or 20) can be allowed to detect a Ctrl+Menu sequence as AltGr.

Format of escape sequences for encoding modified keys
(FormatOtherKeys=1)

This setting selects the escape sequence format for encoded modified keys in modifyOtherKeys mode. (Corresponds to the xterm resource formatOtherKeys.)

Esc/Enter restore IME to alphanumeric keyboard (KeyAlphaMode=1)

On pressing ESC or Enter key while IME (input method editor) input compose conversion is active, this setting will restore IME state to Latin alphabet input mode or alphanumeric mode. This does not affect non-IME keyboard input operation.

Old modified special keys (OldModifyKeys=0)

This setting can selectively restore behaviour of certain modified special keys from older versions of mintty. The value may be −1 to restore all former modified keys, or a logical sum of the following flags:

See also settings AltGrIsAlsoAlt and CtrlAltIsAltGr.

Old method of AltGr detection (OldAltGrDetection=no)

Setting this hidden option restores handling of the AltGr keyboard modifier to old versions, it is a bitmask combining values; 1 would disable a workaround for an incompatibility in the Windows on-screen keyboard, 2 would disable revised AltGr handling for flexible right-Alt/left-Control sequence variations.

Support injection of external hotkeys (SupportExternalHotkeys=2)

This setting supports external Alt+hotkey combinations, esp. Alt+F4 to close the window, independently of general Alt+Fn shortcuts support (if option value is 2) and by fixing the buggy hotkey sequence sent by StrokeIt. Setting 4 also disables the feature to clear the selection when another application sets the clipboard; this is needed to workaround weird behaviour of Hot Keyboard.

Copy and Paste shortcuts (ClipShortcuts=yes)

Checkbox for enabling the clipboard shortcuts Ctrl+Ins for copying and Shift+Ins for pasting.

Menu and Full Screen shortcuts (WindowShortcuts=yes)

Checkbox for enabling the Alt+Space and Alt+Enter shortcuts for showing the window menu and toggling full screen mode.

Switch window shortcuts (SwitchShortcuts=yes)

Checkbox for enabling the Ctrl+Tab shortcuts for switching between mintty windows cyclically.

Zoom shortcuts (ZoomShortcuts=yes)

Checkbox for enabling the font zooming shortcuts Ctrl+plus/minus/zero.

Alt+Fn shortcuts (AltFnShortcuts=yes)

Checkbox for enabling the use of combinations of Alt and functions keys as shortcuts, for example Alt+F4 for closing the window or Alt+F11 fortoggling full screen mode. Disable to have Alt+Fn combinations sent to applications instead.

Ctrl+Shift+letter shortcuts (CtrlShiftShortcuts=no)

Checkbox for enabling alternative clipboard and window command shortcuts using Ctrl+Shift+letter combinations such as Ctrl+Shift+V for paste or Ctrl+Shift+N for starting a new session.

These can replace the Ctrl/Shift+Ins and Alt+Fn shortcuts, whereby they show up in menus only if the corresponding default shortcuts are disabled.

See the shortcuts section above for the list of shortcuts controlled by this option. When it is disabled, Ctrl+Shift+letter combinations are sent to applications as C1 control characters instead.

Compose key selection (ComposeKey=off)

The modifier key selected here will have the function of a Compose key. Pressing and releasing the key, following by a sequence of composing keys, will enter a composition of them, according to X11 compose key data.

Mouse

Settings controlling mouse support.

Copy on select (CopyOnSelect=yes)

If enabled, the region selected with the mouse is copied to the clipboard as soon as the mouse button is released, thus emulating X Window behaviour.

Copy with TABs (CopyTab=no)

With this setting, when copying text, TAB characters will be preserved rather than expanded to spaces. Note that user-definable functions are available to invoke copying explicitly with or without TABs via keyboard shortcut or menu item.

Copy as rich text (CopyAsRTF=yes)

If this option is enabled, which it is by default, text is copied to the clipboard in rich text format (RTF) in addition to plain text format. RTF preserves colours and styles when pasting text into applications that support it, e.g. word processors.

Note: Copy as rich text is also available as an explicit item in the extended context menu.

The font used in RTF may be changed by the settings CopyAsRTFFont and CopyAsRTFFontHeight, to accommodate the case that the configured mintty font is not available when reading the contents (e.g. after sending it by mail).

Copy as HTML (CopyAsHTML=0)

With this option, mintty also copies text in HTML format, using flexible levels of HTML formatting, when applying the normal copy function.

Note: Copy as HTML levels are also available as explicit items in the extended context menu.

Clicks place command line cursor (ClicksPlaceCursor=no)

If enabled, the command line cursor can be placed by pressing the left mouse button. Also pasting in the command line positions the cursor first. Also double right-click (if right-click is configured to Extend selection) deletes the selection up to the current mouse position. This works by sending the number of cursor keycodes needed to get to the destination, and erase characters (of current tty setting) in the third case. The setting presets the readline mouse modes (DECSET 2001, 2002, 2003) initially and on hard reset; they can also be switched by escape sequences.

Right mouse button (RightClickAction=menu)

Action to take when the right mouse button is pressed.

If this is set to Paste, the middle button extends the selected region instead of pasting the clipboard. If it is set to Extend, a left click with Shift pressed pastes the clipboard instead of extending the selection.

Middle mouse button (MiddleClickAction=paste)

Action to take when the middle mouse button is pressed.

Default click target (ClicksTargetApp=yes)

This applies to application mouse mode, i.e. when the application activates xterm-style mouse reporting. In that mode, mouse clicks can be sent either to the application to process as it sees fit, or to the window for the usual actions such as select and paste.

Modifier key for overriding default (ClickTargetMod=shift)

The modifier key selected here can be used to override the click target in application mouse mode. With the default settings, clicks are sent to the application and Shift needs to be held to trigger window actions instead.

Modifier key for hovering and link opening (OpeningMod=ctrl)

This chooses the modifier key to enable mouse move hovering and mouse click link opening. Accepted settings are ctrl, shift, alt, win, super, hyper, off. Note that the setting may be overridden by ClickTargetMod if set to the same value. Note also that setting this to off (which enables hovering and link opening without modifier) overrides double and triple click functions.

Mouse auto-hiding (HideMouse=on)

By default, mintty automatically hides the cross-hair mouse cursor when keyboard input is being entered. Setting this option =false keeps the cursor.
(Corresponds to the xterm resource value pointerMode:2.)

Elastic text selection (ElasticMouse=off)

With this option set, text selection with mouse dragging only includes first and last characters if they are spanned at least halfway, so just slightly touching a character leaves it out.

Window

Window properties.

Columns (Columns=80)

Default width of the window, in character cells.

Rows (Rows=24)

Default height of the window, in character cells.

Current size

Pressing this button sets the default width and height to the window’s current size.

Reflow / Line rewrap when terminal is resized (RewrapOnResize=no)

This setting enables mintty to automatically rebreak and rewrap lines that had been auto-wrapped. Rewrapping can also be disabled per line by an escape sequence.

Vertical spacing automatic adjustment strategy (AutoLeading=2)

Vertical spacing / row height is determined from font parameters. Mintty can apply some heuristic automatic adjustment to catch weird font spacing values. Setting 0 disables this feature, setting 1 uses the algorithm in effect until mintty 3.4.6, setting 2 uses a tweaked algorithm that avoids clipped descenders in some fonts. The manual tuning setting RowSpacing is applied after auto-leading.

Vertical spacing adjustment (RowSpacing=0)

Additional row padding.

Note: Mintty adjusts row spacing according to the font metrics, to compensate for tight or tall spacing of some fonts (e.g. Courier, Consolas, FreeMono, Monaco). The RowSpacing value is added to that.
(Corresponds roughly to the xterm resource scaleHeight.)

Horizontal spacing adjustment (ColSpacing=0)

Additional column padding; ColSpacing=1 can avoid boldened glyphs being clipped.

Border spacing (Padding=1)

Window padding; margin between text and window border. The effective value is limited by the character cell width (scaling with font zooming).
(Corresponds to the xterm resource internalBorder.)
A negative value indicates that always the character cell width shall be used, without fixed limit.

Scrollback lines (ScrollbackLines=10000)

The number of lines that can be kept in the scrollback buffer, effectively limited by MaxScrollbackLines.
(Corresponds to the xterm resource saveLines.)

Scrollback lines limit (MaxScrollbackLines=250000)

This hidden setting limits the maximum number of lines to keep in the scrollback buffer even if ScrollbackLines is configured higher, e.g. interactively. Note that increasing the scrollback buffer size to a larger value may cause the menu function "Select all" to become very slow and let mintty appear unresponsive for a while. Increasing to a very large value may even cause mintty to crash; use at own risk.

Scrollbar (Scrollbar=right)

The scrollbar can be shown on either side of the window or just hidden. By default, it is shown on the right-hand side.

Modifier for scrolling (ScrollMod=shift)

The modifier key that needs to be pressed together with the arrow-up/down, PgUp/PgDn, Home/End, or arrow-left/right keys to access the scrollback buffer.
The default is Shift. A combined numeric value selects the respective combination of modifier keys. The Off setting disables scrolling with keyboard shortcuts.

Border style (BorderStyle=normal)

With settings frame or void, the window title is dropped, displaying only a frame or no border. The system menu can still be opened with Alt+space. A window move can still be done with Ctrl+Alt+click-drag.

PgUp and PgDn scroll without modifier (PgUpDnScroll=no)

If this is enabled, the scrollback buffer can be accessed by just pressing PgUp or PgDn, without the ’modifier for scrolling’ selected above. If the modifier is pressed anyway, plain PgUp/PgDn keycodes are sent to the application. This option does not affect the arrow keys or Home/End keys.

UI localization language (Language=)

This selects the language or language/region code to use for localization of the mintty user interface, the Options dialog, menus, message boxes, and terminal in-line error messages.

See the Tips wiki page https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/Tips#localization about how to configure localization.

Note that Windows may already have localized the default entries of the system menu, which makes the system menu language inconsistent because mintty adds a few items here. Select Language=en to "reverse-localize" this.

Terminal

Terminal emulation settings.

Terminal type (Term=xterm)

The terminal type. This determines the setting of the TERM environment variable at mintty startup. Choices available from the dropdown list are xterm, xterm−256color, xterm−vt220, vt100, vt220, vt340, vt420, vt525, xterm−direct, mintty, mintty−direct.

The last three options are only offered if the respective terminfo entries are installed in the system (WSL distribution with options −−wsl/−−WSL). The *−direct entries provide terminfo capabilities to set true-colour (24 bit colour) attributes. Note, however, that this only affects usage of the terminfo API to drive the terminal; the respective control sequences are always available and applications are free to use them directly.

If the setting contains "vt220" or higher, xterm VT220-style function key mode is enabled instead of the default PC-style function key mode. (This can otherwise be set with the DECSET 1061 control sequence.)

Apart from that, this setting has no effect on mintty’s terminal emulation, i.e. all the features are always available. However, the TERM setting may be used by applications to choose what features they can use, alternatively to the preferrable device attributes queries (see https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/Tips for hints).

The xterm−256color setting enables 256-color mode in some applications, but may not be recognised at all by others, which is why plain xterm is the default.

The vt340 setting facilitates a terminal ID indication corresponding to the Sixel graphics feature. However, particularly the gnuplot tool uses a dedicated variable (GNUTERM) to trigger its usage.

(Corresponds roughly to the combined xterm resources decTerminalID, termName, keyboardType.)

Answerback (Answerback=)

The answerback string is sent in response to the ˆE (ENQ) character. By default, this is empty. (Corresponds to the xterm resource answerbackString.)

Alternate screen (NoAltScreen=false)

With this setting, the alternate screen can be disabled. (Corresponds to the xterm resource titeInhibit, switchable by an escape sequence.)

Enable 132-column mode switching (Enable132ColumnSwitching=false)

With this setting, DECSET 3 escape sequences to switch 80/132 column modes are enabled initially. This can be changed later dynamically (DECSET 40). (Corresponds to the xterm resource c132, switchable by an escape sequence.)

Apply old wraparound behaviour (OldWrapModes=false)

Setting this compatibility option disables some tweaks and fixes of mintty 2.7.5:

TAB character may wrap to next line (WrapTab=0)

Setting this to 1, a TAB character after the last column in the line (i.e. in pending wrap state) will wrap to the next line and display there. (Corresponds to the xterm command-line option −cu.) Setting this to 2, a TAB character moving up to the line end will also set the pending wrap condition, so that a subsequent character will wrap.

Enable indicator status line (StatusLine=false)

This setting enables the DEC indicator status line initially (or on hard terminal reset). The status line can also be toggled from the context menu. Note that an active host-writable status line overrides the setting and disables the context menu function.

Display debug information (StatusDebug=0)

This setting includes certain debug information in the status line display (if enabled). The value is bitmask composed of the following values (subject to change):
1 : Keyboard layout code.
2 : Keyboard modifiers (hex bitmap).

Allow control sequence to set selection (AllowSetSelection=false)

If enabled, the terminal control sequence OSC 52 is allowed to set the clipboard selection for pasting (using base64-encoded contents, like xterm).

Note that this feature is a security risk as remote software may set malicious clipboard contents that could get pasted into the terminal.

Allow control sequence to paste selection (AllowPasteSelection=false)

If enabled, the terminal control sequence OSC 52 is allowed to paste the clipboard selection (pasting base64-encoded, like xterm).

Note that this feature is considered a security risk as malicious software could spy on your clipboard.

Bell

The options here determine what effects the bell character ˆG has. Default beep and taskbar highlighting are enabled by default. Mintty can also play wave sounds or frequency beeps.

−1 : Simple Beep
0 : No Beep (overrides BellFile and BellFreq)
1 : Default Beep
2 : Critical Stop
3 : Question
4 : Exclamation
5 : Asterisk

1: Flash the window frame (using Windows)
2: Flash the outer character cells; not recommended;
will look ragged with double-width characters
4: Flash the whole terminal pane (all character cells)
8: cell flash briefly inverts foreground and background;
default is to moderately brighten the background colour
12: (combining 4 and 8) classic bright full flash

A simple frequency beep can be configured in the configuration file or on the command line:

Play Sound tone (PlayTone=2)

This setting preselects the sound tone used for the DECPS "Play Sound" note playing escape sequence. Tones 1 to 5 are currently defined, 1 is a sine waveform. These are only effective if the audio output library libao is installed. Value 0 (also the fallback) resorts to the Windows Beep function.

Printer (Printer=)

The ANSI standard defines control sequences ("Media Copy") for sending text to a printer, which are used by some terminal applications such as the mail reader pine. The Windows printer to send such text to can be selected here. By default, printing is disabled. If printing gets disabled in the Options menu, an active print connection will be ended; if the printer is changed, an active print connection will be continued with the previous printer.

Prompt about running processes on close (ConfirmExit=yes)

If enabled, ask for confirmation when the close button or Alt+F4 is pressed and the command invoked by mintty still has child processes. This is intended to help avoid closing programs accidentally. If possible, mintty also displays a list of running child processes, using the procps command if installed, or the ps command.

Prompt to confirm interactive reset (ConfirmReset=no)

If enabled, ask for confirmation when a terminal reset is requested interactively via Alt+F8 or from the menu.

Prompt when pasting multi-line contents (ConfirmMultiLinePasting=no)

If multi-line clipboard contents is about to be pasted (and lineends are not filtered via FilterPasteControls), mintty prompts for confirmation of the pasting. This is a security measure against pasting malicious contents on the command line. Note that shells often implement a similar feature which result in double confirmation prompting.

Suppress properties and features controlled by escape sequences

Using these options, the listed feature numbers are suppressed. Each option may contain a comma-separated list of respective numbers. Usage of these options is discouraged; users are not entitled to complain about side effects.

See https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/Tips#text−attributes−and−rendering for an overview of SGR attributes.
See http://invisible−island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.txt for a full listing of escape control sequences.

Some of the settings have more specific configuration options:

Suppress mouse wheel (SuppressMouseWheel=)

With this setting, certain effects of mouse wheel rolling can be disabled. The option is a list of action tags:

Command line

The settings here are config file versions of command line options described in the OPTIONS section. They do not appear in the Options dialog.

Holding the window open (Hold=start)

The Hold setting determines whether to keep the terminal window open when the command has finished and no more processes are connected to the terminal. It takes the following values:

Window icon (Icon=)

The Icon setting with format FILE[,INDEX] allows to load the window icon from an executable, DLL, or icon file. The optional comma-separated index can be used to select a particular icon in a file with multiple icons.

If the setting is empty, as it is by default, mintty’s program icon is used, unless mintty was invoked from a desktop shortcut in which case it uses the shortcut icon.

For interaction problems of icon, shortcut, and the Windows taskbar, see the note for the −i option above.

Log file (Log=)

The Log setting can be used to specify a log file that all output is copied into. If it is empty, as it is by default, no logging is done. If it contains %d it will be substituted with the process ID. If it contains % placeholders other than a single %d, the log file name will be constructed by calling strftime(3) on the pattern; note that this is likely to fail if a placeholder expands with "/" (%D). Example:
Log=~/mintty.%Y−%m−%d_%H−%M−%S.log

If the log file name is a relative path name, it is relative from the working directory mintty was started in. To avoid failure to create a log file (especially when starting from the Start menu), the following tweak is applied: If mintty was started from a Windows shortcut with no working directory ("Start in:") specified and the effective start directory is within the Windows system directory hierarchy, mintty changes to the user’s home directory first, except in WSL support mode where %LOCALAPPDATA%/Temp is used.

Note: If the requested log file exists already, mintty does not overwrite it but reports an error. To configure logging in the config file, use some % placeholders to create distinct log files. Note that logging can be toggled from the extended context menu.

See also the script(1) utility for a more flexible logging solution.

Logging initially enabled (Logging=yes)

Disabling this setting disables logging initially. If a log file name is specified with Log=... and Logging=no, logging can be enabled (and toggled) from the extended context menu.

Filenames for screen saving (SaveFilename=mintty.%Y−%m−%d_%H−%M−%S)

This setting selects the location and filename pattern (which is expanded with the strftime(3) function) for .html and .png screen dumps. An initial home prefix or environment variable prefix is expanded (POSIX path and variable syntax needs to be used in this case). Examples:

Note that if the filename pattern is a relative pathname (as is the default), it will be taken as relative to the working directory mintty was started in, with some tweaks as described above for the Log file.

Window title (Title=)

The Title setting can be used to determine the initial window title. If it is empty, as it is by default, the title is set to the command being run.

Utmp record (Utmp=no)

If enabled, an entry for the session is written into the system’s utmp file for recording logins, so that the session appears for example in the output of the who(1) utility.

Initial window state (Window=normal)

This setting determines how the terminal window should be shown at startup:

Window position (X=, Y=)

X and Y are integer settings that can be used to determine the initial coordinates of the top left corner of the terminal window. By default, these are unset, which means that the position suggested by the window manager is used. Setting only one of X, Y is not supported. See command-line option −p for further positioning options.

Window class name (Class=mintty_N)

The Class setting determines the name of the window class of the terminal window. It can be used to distinguish or group different mintty windows, or tab sets, e.g. for the mintty session switcher, or for Windows scripting tools such as AutoHotKey.

The default setting appends the tabbed window sync level (>1) to avoid interaction issues between tabbed and non-tabbed windows.

For a flexible grouping configuration, the Class option supports the same %s placeholder parameters as the AppID option.

"Hidden" settings

The following settings appear neither in the Options dialog nor as command line options, which means they can only be set in config files or using the −−option or −o command line option.

Options dialog custom font and size (OptionsFont=,
OptionsFontHeight=0)

These settings change the font and fontsize in the Options dialog. (Note that scaling a custom font in the Options dialog when changing the screen resolution does not work, so Options is closed in this case.)

Customize Options dialog (OldOptions=)

Listing comma-separated tags in this setting will disable extended or enhanced parts of the Options dialog.

Accelerate display speed (DisplaySpeedup=6)

If mintty processes high volume of output, it will skip up to the given number of refresh intervals (of 16ms each) in order to save output that is visually scrolled off right away, so effectively increasing output speed. The maximum value is 9.

Decelerate display speed to virtual serial transmission rate (Baud=0)

This setting can demonstrate a legacy feeling of a serial terminal connection. Typical baud rates (as supported by DEC VT420) were 300, 600, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 56700, 76800, 115200.

Bloom effect around characters (Bloom=0)

This setting enables a rough simulation of old CRT terminals’ bloom effect.

Visualize terminal margins (DimMargins=false)

This setting dims margin areas (mainly for testing); origin mode is not considered. A user-definable menu function can also toggle this feature.

Clear selection highlighting on input (ClearSelectionOnInput=true)

When this is disabled, keyboard input or pasting does not clear selection highlighting.

Erase top lines into scrollback buffer (EraseToScrollback=true)

With this setting, lines cleared in the top part of the screen are scrolled into the scrollback buffer, so they can be restored. (Corresponds roughly to the xterm resource cdXtraScroll.)

Suspend output while selecting (SuspendWhileSelecting=8080)

During drag-selects, the user may want the screen to hold still to be selected from. Mintty can suspend processing of terminal output for a while; if the buffer exceeds the size configured with this parameter (in bytes), output is flushed. Setting it to 0 disables the feature.

Trim trailing space from selection on copy (TrimSelection=true)

When this is disabled, trailing space that was written to the terminal in a line is included in the selection buffer. (Corresponds to the xterm resource trimSelection.)

Selection size indication (SelectionShowSize=0)

The current text selection size can optionally be indicated with a popup, with a value between 1 and 12, setting the popup position by clock hour.

Show hyperlink in window title when hovering (HoverTitle=true)

With this setting, display of an explicit hyperlink (OSC 8 attribute) in the window title when hovering can be disabled.

Show automatic progress bar (ProgressBar=0)

This setting initially enables a progress indication on the taskbar icon, based on automatic progress detection (according to setting ProgressScan). The detected progress will be notified via progress bar in one of three levels 1 (green), 2 (yellow), 3 (red). Note that the progress bar can also be switched or even controlled by an escape sequence, see https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/CtrlSeqs#progress−bar.

Show automatic progress bar (ProgressScan=1)

This setting selects the scan method to determine progress when automatic progress detection is enabled:

The detected progress will be notified via progress bar according to option ProgressBar or its dynamic setting. Progress scan mode can also be switched by an escape sequence, see https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/CtrlSeqs#progress−bar.

Single-dash long options (ShortLongOpts=false)

This settings enables names options ("long options") on the command line to be given with only one dash rather than a double dash.

Display control characters (PrintableControls=0)

Controls characters are non−printing by default and as specified by the locale width. Setting PrintableControls=1 enables visual indication of "C1" control characters (range U+80...U+9F); PrintableControls=2 would also make "C0" (normal) control characters visible. (Value 1 corresponds to the xterm resource allowC1Printable.)

Warning: With this option, control character display is inconsistent with width assumptions of the wcwidth function, which may confuse screen applications (such as editors) that rely on wcwidth information.

Character narrowing factor (CharNarrowing=75)

Depending on the font and font fallback (either by Windows means or via option FontChoice), some glyphs may be too wide for the character cell grid. Mintty applies automatic narrowing heuristics to fit such glyphs into a character cell so they do not overlap subsequent characters. With this setting, the horizontal scaling for narrowed characters can be adjusted between 50% and 100%.

Bidirectional rendering (Bidi=2)

With this option, bidi rendering support can be disabled conditionally or completely. Note that this can also be changed by an escape sequence. Also there is another escape sequence to disable bidi per screen line.

Application ID (AppID=)

Windows 7 and above use the application ID for grouping taskbar items. By default this setting is empty, in which case Windows groups taskbar items automatically based on their icon and command line. This can be overridden by setting the AppID to a custom string, in which case windows with the same AppID are grouped together.

The AppID option supports up to 5 %s placeholder parameters for a flexible grouping configuration, also supporting positional parameters %N$s (N = 1..5), to be replaced with these values:

The special value AppID=@ causes mintty to derive an implicit AppID from the WSL system name, in order to achieve WSL distribution-specific taskbar grouping. This resolves taskbar grouping problems in some cases (wsltty issue #96) but causes similar problems in other cases (issue #784).

Warning: Using this option for a mintty window started from a Windows shortcut (desktop, taskbar, start menu) may cause trouble with taskbar grouping behaviour. If you need to do that, the shortcut itself should also get attached with the same AppId.

Note: Since 2.9.6, if mintty is started via a Windows shortcut which has its own AppID, it is reused for the new mintty window in order to achieve proper taskbar icon grouping. This takes precedence over an explicit setting of the AppID option.

Explanation: Note that Windows shortcut files have their own AppID. Hence, if an AppID is specified in the mintty settings, but not on a taskbar-pinned shortcut for invoking mintty, clicking the pinned shortcut will result in a separate taskbar item for the new mintty window, rather than being grouped with the shortcut.

Hint: To avoid AppID inconsistence and thus ungrouped taskbar icons, the shortcut’s AppID should to be set to the same string as the mintty AppID, which can be done using the winappid utility available in the mintty utils repository https://github.com/mintty/utils . As noted above, since mintty 2.9.6, the mintty AppID does not need to be set anymore in this case.

Application Taskbar Shortcut Title (AppName=)

The title of the taskbar shortcut (since Windows 7). If the shortcut is pinned, the title is kept only if it was made persistent as described for AppLaunchCmd.

Application Taskbar Shortcut Launch Command (AppLaunchCmd=)

The command to use if a shortcut pinned to the Windows taskbar is invoked. This is only effective if combined with an AppName option and the command-line option −−store−taskbar−properties to make it persistent. It should also be combined with an explicit and unique AppID.

Note: The command must be given in Windows pathname syntax (e.g. AppLaunchCmd='C:\cygwin\bin\mintty −T mytitle −').

Note: An explicit icon supplied with the −i option can also be stored with the persistent properties; note, however, that for this purpose, it must be given in Windows pathname syntax and it must include a resource index; also, for consistent appearance, another −i option referring to the same icon should be included in the AppLaunchCmd (if the mintty invocation does not include an icon parameter but was started from a desktop shortcut, the icon in the AppLaunchCmd should be consistent with that one, respectively).

Example:
mintty −o AppID=Mintty.PinTest.1 −o AppName=Mintty.PinTest −o AppLaunchCmd="C:\cygwin\bin\mintty −i /cygdrive/c/Windows/System32/calc.exe −" −i C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe,0 −−store−taskbar−properties −

Warning: Once made persistent, the stored properties associated with a specific AppID cannot be removed or even modified again with normal means. For this reason, it is advisable to use temporary AppIDs for testing (like MyMintty.1).

Start shell in login mode if run from shortcut (LoginFromShortcut=yes)

By default, mintty since version 347 will start its shell in login mode if invoked via a Windows desktop or start menu shortcut unless this setting is disabled.

Control ConPTY support (ConPTY=)

Setting this on or off enforces enabled or disabled support of pseudo console for native Windows programs. The default is to leave it up to the default of the system environment (cygwin or MSYS2).

Word selection characters (WordChars=)

By default, this string setting is empty, in which case double-click word selection uses the default algorithm that is geared towards picking out file names and URLs.

If a string is specified here, word selection only picks out characters in the string along with alphanumeric characters. For example, specifying just the underscore character (WordChars=_) would allow selecting identifiers in many programming languages.

Word selection exclusion characters (WordCharsExcl=)

This string can list characters that are to be excluded from word selection.

Filtering pasted text (FilterPasteControls=STTY)

With this setting, pasted text can be filtered for selected control characters which are then replaced by space. Filtering is not applied when Control is held while pasting. The option is a comma-separated list of character tags:

(Corresponds to the xterm resource disallowedPasteControls.)

Line splitting in bracketed paste mode (BracketedPasteByLine=0)

In bracketed paste mode (which embeds pasted contents in bracketing escape sequences), it can be considered a security issue for the command line if bracket embedding is applied only for the whole paste buffer. Therefore mintty provides a configurable feature to embed each new line in bracket sequences individually, controlled by this setting.

Note: This is meanwhile handled better by shell versions which highlight and hold back the pasted text until confirmed, so for consistent and uniform appearance, the default is 0 from mintty 3.5.2.

Special key remapping [DEPRECATED, see KeyFunctions]

These options can attach a specific string to some special keys. If the string is a number, a corresponding Escape sequence will be generated, applying Shift/Ctrl/Alt modifiers, following the pattern of function keys.
If the string value contains a single control character, some generic Alt or Shift modification is applied. For Pause and Break, control characters are the default values, they can be cleared with an empty assignment. For empty values, the default layout of the keyboard is applied. The Break key can also be assigned the traditional terminal line Break function.

Examples:
Key_Menu=29 would make the Menu key send the same escape sequence as in xterm
Key_Break=2 would turn the Break key into an Insert key
Key_Break=_BRK_ would assign the simulated terminal line Break function

User-defined shortcuts (KeyFunctions=)

With this setting, function keys, modified function keys, and Ctrl+Shift+key and other modified combinations of plain character keys can be mapped to invoke specific functions or generate user-defined input. The value is a series of semicolon-separated, colon-combined pairs of key and action descriptors (if a semicolon shall be embedded into any of the action descriptors, a non-whitespace control character (i.e. none of ˆIˆJˆKˆLˆM) can be specified as an alternative separator by starting the whole setting with it). The definition list can be split over multiple lines if a separator is followed by a backslash, newline, and optional whitespace indentation.
(Corresponds roughly to the xterm resource translations.)

Note that Win+key combinations are often reserved by Windows.

Note that Shift+char combinations of plain character keys can not be remapped as they have a character assigned already within the basic keyboard layout. Likewise, Ctrl+char and Alt+char combinations have their traditional terminal functions (sending control characters or ESC followed by the character), so they are protected from accidental remapping by default; remapping them to a key function needs additional setting ShootFoot=on.

Note that the setting string must not be terminated with a Windows lineend, as its CR would be considered part of the last item; this can be prevented with a final semicolon separator.

Supported keys are described as follows:

Esc, Tab
Enter, KP_Enter
Space, Back
Pause, Break
ScrollLock, NumLock, CapsLock
(PrintScreen)
LWin, RWin
Alt (when used on its own)
Menu
Insert, KP_Insert
Delete, KP_Delete
Home, KP_Home
End, KP_End
Prior, KP_Prior
Next, KP_Next
Left, KP_Left
Right, KP_Right
Up, KP_Up
Down, KP_Down
KP_Begin (the middle "5" key)
KP_Divide, KP_Multiply, KP_Subtract, KP_Add
Select, Print, Exec, Help, Sleep, Attn
CrSel, ExSel, ErEof
Play, Zoom

Note: A key that needs a modifier already to be sent (e.g. Break which is often Ctrl+Pause) also needs that modifier in the key definition to be matched.

Note: Like in xterm, a key redefinition takes precedence over modifyOtherKeys mode (ESC sequence). Shortcut override mode however disables key redefinitions.

Note: For the "any character, with Ctrl and Shift" option, the definition is ignored if the Ctrl+Shift+key combination would generate a valid input character already. This is particularly the case if a valid control character is mapped to the key in the keyboard layout. E.g. if you add a definition for Ctrl+Shift+minus and Shift+minus is "_" (underline) on the keyboard, the user-defined key function will be ignored, in order to prevent that input of Ctrl+_ would be inhibited.

Supported actions are described as follows:

Note (*): The exact behaviour of some actions depends on the state of the Shift key.

Note (**): For external commands as key functions, the same additional functionality is provided as for context menu user commands (option UserCommands): environment variables and PATH substitution; the PATH environment for the external command can be set up with option UserCommandsPath.

Note (***): An unquoted number causes mintty to form a function key sequence, applying all modifiers.

Note: To just disable the built-in shortcut (and not override it with a user-defined one), but further process the key as normal input, leave the action empty, but include the colon.

Note: To disable the built-in shortcut and not process the key either, use the "void" dummy action.

Note: An invalid action (like "foo") will make mintty beep on the key.

Note: If an assignment to any of the Lock keys is defined, mintty will compensate for its implicit state change effect.

Examples:

enables horizontal scrolling support via modified cursor keys on the "editing keypad" (prefix KP_ for the numeric keypad)

Enable overriding of basic key mappings (ShootFoot=no)

With this setting, basic characters of the keyboard layout as modified with Control or Alt can be remapped to user-defined functions with option KeyFunctions. The usage of this option is discouraged because disabling basic control functions, like the interrupt character Control+C, can be considered as shooting oneself in the foot.

Manage keyboard LEDs (ManageLEDs=7)

Mintty manages the keyboard indicator lights (LEDs) for the CapsLock, Numlock, and ScrollLock state in order to achieve consistent indication. If any of these keys have a user-defined function attached, their usage shall not affect the visual keyboard modifier indication. Also, if a scroll feature is activated (no-scroll or scroll-mode), the ScrollLock indication shall indicate the current state of the terminal window. The ScrollLock light is restored to its previous state if the terminal window gets out of focus or terminates. This setting can disable LED management for ScrollLock (ManageLEDs=3) or for all modifiers (ManageLEDs=0).

Use system colours (UseSystemColours=no)

If this is set, the Windows-wide colour settings are used instead of the foreground, background, and cursor colours chosen on the Looks page of the Options dialog.

IME cursor colour (IMECursorColour=)

The cursor colour can be set to change when the Input Method Editor (IME) for entering characters not available directly on the keyboard is active. The setting is a RGB triplet such as 255,0,0 for bright red.

By default, this is unset, which means that the cursor colour does not change.

ANSI colours

The sixteen ANSI colours can be chosen with the settings below. Colours are represented as comma-separated RGB triples with decimal 8-bit values ranging from 0 to 255.

X11-style hexadecimal colour specifications such as #RRGGBB, rgb:RR/GG/BB, rgb:RRRR/GGGG/BBBB, cmy:C.C/M.M/Y.Y or cmyk:C.C/M.M/Y.Y/K.K, as well as X11 colour names, can be used as well.

The ANSI colours can have different values for foreground and background use. These need to be separated by a semicolon, for example 127,127,127;85,85,85 for different shades of grey. If only one value is specified, it is used for both foreground and background.

For the default values, please see the ’helmholtz’ theme in directory /usr/share/mintty/themes.

Tektronix mode colours

For Tektronix 4014 emulation, colours can be overridden; TekWriteThruColour and TekDefocusedColour can be used to visualize Write-Thru and Defocused modes.

Tektronix mode font (TekFont=)

For Tektronix 4014 emulation, a dedicated font can be selected. The terminal default font is used otherwise.

Tektronix mode effect (TekGlow=1)

The Tektronix drawing beam glow can be switched with this setting.

Tektronix "strap option" (TekStrap=0)

Number of characters appended after GIN mode address reports; valid values are 0, 1 (CR) and 2 (CR ˆC).
(Corresponds to the xterm resource ginTerminator.)

Downloaded colour scheme (ColourScheme=)

This setting is not intended for manual configuration. It can store a colour scheme as downloaded from the Color Scheme Configurator or from a theme file on the web via drag-and-drop to the Theme of the Options menu. After the colour scheme is stored to a colour scheme file, this setting is not used anymore.

About this mechanism see the Tips wiki page https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/Tips#using−colour−schemes−themes.

Selection highlight colours

The highlighting colours of selected text can be configured.

Scrollback search colours

The highlighting colours of search matches can be configured.

Background image or texture (Background=)

With this option, an image can be chosen as background. With an image file name, absolute (with an optional ~ prefix) or relative to the current terminal foreground process, the option uses the image as a background picture, with variations as indicated by a prefix character to the filename:
_ (optional prefix) scales the image to the terminal size
% initially scales the terminal to the image’s aspect ratio
* uses the image as a tiled texture
+ scales to terminal size, keeping aspect ratio, then tiles
= (no filename) uses the current desktop background,

achieving a virtual floating window effect (currently only applicable if desktop wallpaper is set as being "tiled" and unscaled)

The background can be changed with an OSC 11 escape sequence, instead of a colour using a background specification prefixed with either of _, %, *, +, =.

If the background filename is followed by a comma and a number between 1 and 254, the background image will be dimmed towards the background colour; with a value of 255, the alpha transparency values of the image will be used.

Scrollback search bar (SearchBar=)

This string option can customize the order of items in the search bar. Use x (close button), </> (previous/next buttons), s (search string) to select the order of these fields in the search bar; missing fields will be appended in a default order. Also button symbols in the range U+25B2 ... U+25C5 can be used, as well as some other arrow and pointing index symbols and wide angle brackets, which when pointing up or left define the previous button symbol and its position, or when pointing down or right define the next button symbol and its position. Also button symbols U+2717 or U+2718 can be used to define the close button and its position.

Scrollback search context (SearchContext=0)

This option will place the search result at the given distance from the terminal top/bottom border when scrolling to the result location. If the value is negative, it will also keep the result at the (positive) distance if the result is already visible.

Write if exited (ExitWrite=no)

Together with a hold option that keeps the terminal open after its child process terminated, this option always writes an exit indication to the screen. By default, only an error exit code is displayed.

Change title if exited (ExitTitle=)

Together with a hold option that keeps the terminal open after its child process terminated, this option prefixes the window title with its string, for example −o ExitTitle="TERMINATED: ".

Mouse pointer styles (MousePointer=ibeam, AppMousePointer=arrow)

This setting defines the mouse position indicator (i.e. not the text cursor) from the given resource. Note that mintty maintains two different mouse pointer shapes, to distinguish application mouse reporting modes. Valid values are Windows predefined cursor names (appstarting, arrow, cross, hand, help, ibeam, icon, no, size, sizeall, sizenesw, sizens, sizenwse, sizewe, uparrow, wait). or cursor file names which are looked up in subdirectory pointers of a mintty resource directory; supported file types are .cur, .ico, .ani. (Corresponds to the xterm resource pointerShape.)

Configure document opening by mouse click (OpeningClicks=1)

Enabling opening files, directories or URLs with mouse clicking, in addition to the context menu. Values 1, 2, or 3 require Ctrl+mouse-click, double-click, or triple-click, respectively, to invoke the document opening. Value 0 disables click-opening.

Control key and shortcut Shift exchange (CtrlExchangeShift=no)

Exchange the range of Control characters with the range of Ctrl+Shift shortcuts, so that for example Ctrl+V will paste and Ctrl+Shift+V will enter a Control+V character.

Mouse zooming (ZoomMouse=yes)

Enabling font zooming with Ctrl+mouse-wheel/middle-mouse-click.

Scroll lines per mouse wheel notch (LinesPerMouseWheelNotch=0)

With this setting, the number of lines counted per notch of the mouse wheel can be set to a maximum of the terminal height − 1. This applies to scrollback scrolling as well as to mousewheel reporting but not to mouse tracking reports. The default is to take the value from a system setting, typically 3.

Disable Shift-coupled implicit font zooming (ZoomFontWithWindow=yes)

If this option is set to false, implicit font zooming coupled with window zooming by the Shift key is disabled, except for the keyboard zoom functions Shift+Alt+Enter and the Shift+menu function.

Handling of DPI changes (HandleDPI=2)

When the window is moved to another monitor that has a different DPI value ("scaling factor") configured, newer Windows 10 versions support semi-automatic compensation by appropriate scaling. This option can be set to support either DPI handling modes 1 or 2 (if supported, respectively), or set to 0/false to suppress DPI adjustments.

Check availability of mintty version update (CheckVersionUpdate=0)

If non-zero (e.g. 900), mintty checks whether there is a version update available whenever the Options dialog is opened and this was not checked within the last given number of seconds.

Guard against usage of dynamic network pathnames (GuardNetworkPaths=7)

Dynamic pathnames as used in escape sequences can access arbitrary files. These settings guard the respective functions against network file access. The value is a bitmask, adding the following values:

Sixel image clipboard substitution (SixelClipChars=space)

Characters to copy to clipboard as a substitute for Sixel image graphics, to indicate their positions. With an empty value, U+FFFC will be used. Double-width characters should not be used here.

Drag-and-drop application-targetted commands (DropCommands=)

With this setting, a set of string patterns can be configured for paste insertion, in dependence of the program running in the terminal foreground.

Note: Detection of terminal foreground processes works only locally; this features does not work with WSL or after remote login.

The value is a series of semicolon-separated, colon-combined pairs of program name and drop pattern. The pattern is pasted; a single placeholder "%s" is replaced with the clipboard contents, paths converted into cygwin format; a single placeholder "%w" is replaced with the clipboard contents, paths left in Windows format. Using capital placeholders "%S" or "%W" embeds the pasted paths into respective quotes if needed. If a semicolon shall be embedded into any of the drop patterns, a non-whitespace control character (i.e. none of ˆIˆJˆKˆLˆM) can be specified as an alternative separator by starting the whole setting with it. The definition list can be split over multiple lines if a separator is followed by a backslash, newline, and optional whitespace indentation.

Note that the setting string must not be terminated with a Windows lineend, as its CR would be considered part of the last item; this can be prevented with a final semicolon separator.

Note: This feature potentially makes mintty vulnerable against command injection. Be careful what commands you configure! For shell commands, it is advisable to embed the "%s" parameter placeholder in single quotation marks explicitly, both to avoid trouble with special characters, and to reduce the risk of injecting commands via tricky filenames.

Examples:

Note: An "Enter" key has to be specified with the CR character code, control characters need to be embedded verbatim (indicated above as "ˆM" or "ˆ["); there is no escape notation.

Note: If different actions for directories/folders or even different command invocations depending on file name pattern are desired, this should be handled by a suitable cooperating shell function.

Exit application-targetted commands (ExitCommands=)

With this setting, a set of strings can be configured to be sent to respective applications, in dependence of the program running in the terminal foreground, if the window is instructed to "Close" from its menu or close button.

Note: Detection of terminal foreground processes works only locally; this features does not work with WSL or after remote login.

The value is a series of semicolon-separated, colon-combined pairs of program name and (control) string. The string is sent to the client application. If a semicolon shall be embedded into any of the drop patterns, a non-whitespace control character (i.e. none of ˆIˆJˆKˆLˆM) can be specified as an alternative separator by starting the whole setting with it. The definition list can be split over multiple lines if a separator is followed by a backslash, newline, and optional whitespace indentation.

Note that the setting string must not be terminated with a Windows lineend, as its CR would be considered part of the last item; this can be prevented with a final semicolon separator.

Note: This feature potentially makes mintty vulnerable against command injection. Be careful what strings you configure!

Example:

Note: An "Enter" key has to be specified with the CR character code, control characters need to be embedded verbatim (indicated above as "ˆM", "ˆ[", "ˆX", "ˆC"); there is no escape notation.

User commands (UserCommands=) [DEPRECATED, see CtxMenuFunctions]

This setting lists user-defined commands for the extended context menu. The value is a series of semicolon-separated, colon-combined pairs of menu item label and command pattern; the command is invoked and its standard output is pasted into the terminal, applying bracketed-paste mode if enabled. If a semicolon shall be embedded into any of the command patterns, a non-whitespace control character (i.e. none of ˆIˆJˆKˆLˆM) can be specified as an alternative separator by starting the whole setting with it. The definition list can be split over multiple lines if a separator is followed by a backslash, newline, and optional whitespace indentation.

Note that the setting string must not be terminated with a Windows lineend, as its CR would be considered part of the last item; this can be prevented with a final semicolon separator.

Mintty provides useful information in environment variables:

Note: Menu item labels are subject to localization if they are added to the localization file of the selected UI localization language (in subdirectory lang of a mintty resource directory).

Note: Menu item labels can contain a & sign to indicate a key shortcut for menu item selection.

Note: The previous command can be detected if prompt lines are marked with the escape sequence ˆ[[?7711h. See the Control Sequences wiki page https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/CtrlSeqs#scroll−markers.

Note: The PATH environment for the external command can be set up with option UserCommandsPath.

Note: This is an experimental feature, with an experimental configuration format.

Note: Normal terminal interaction continues after the invoked commands have terminated. Be careful not to configure commands that can stall or block!

Note: This feature potentially makes mintty vulnerable against command injection. Be careful what commands you configure! Especially do not embed environment variable parameters unquoted (like echo $MINTTY_SELECT), in order to avoid the risk of injecting commands via tricky selected text.

Examples:

Note: Control characters need to be embedded verbatim; there is no escape notation.

User commands PATH expansion (UserCommandsPath=/bin:%s)

This setting defines the PATH environment for user-defined external commands, applicable to extended context menu commands (UserCommands=...:...) and key-attached external commands (KeyFunctions=...:`...`). If the value contains a single %s placeholder, the current environment PATH is substituted for it.

System menu user commands (CtxMenuFunctions=)

This setting lists user-defined functions or commands for the context menus (right mouse click in text area). If it is configured, it is by default included in the extended context menu (Control+right-click) but can be configured for other context menu invocations as well (see configuration of Menu contents with options Menu*), along with the deprecated configured user commands (UserCommands).

The value is a series of semicolon-separated, colon-combined pairs of key and action descriptors (if a semicolon shall be embedded into any of the action descriptors, a non-whitespace control character (i.e. none of ˆIˆJˆKˆLˆM) can be specified as an alternative separator by starting the whole setting with it). The definition list can be split over multiple lines if a separator is followed by a backslash, newline, and optional whitespace indentation.

The configuration is similar to the UserCommands setting with respect to menu labels, and to KeyFunctions setting with respect to function designations; respective notes and warnings apply.

Note that the setting string must not be terminated with a Windows lineend, as its CR would be considered part of the last item; this can be prevented with a final semicolon separator.

System menu user commands (SysMenuFunctions=)

This setting lists user-defined functions or commands for the system menu (right mouse click on title bar or left click on title bar icon). If it is configured, the middle items of the menu (including Options... and New) are replaced by the configured functions.

The value is a series of semicolon-separated, colon-combined pairs of key and action descriptors (if a semicolon shall be embedded into any of the action descriptors, a non-whitespace control character (i.e. none of ˆIˆJˆKˆLˆM) can be specified as an alternative separator by starting the whole setting with it). The definition list can be split over multiple lines if a separator is followed by a backslash, newline, and optional whitespace indentation.

Note that the setting string must not be terminated with a Windows lineend, as its CR would be considered part of the last item; this can be prevented with a final semicolon separator.

The configuration is similar to the UserCommands setting with respect to menu labels, and to KeyFunctions setting with respect to function designations; respective notes and warnings apply. Note: To include default items and keep their language localization enabled, their label strings need to be reproduced exactly as registered in the localization pattern file messages.pot, including the position of a & marker which indicates a key shortcut for menu item selection.

Examples:

Session launcher commands (SessionCommands=)

This setting lists mintty invocation parameters for the session launcher. The value is a series of semicolon-separated, colon-combined pairs of session launch names (used as menu item labels) and invocation parameter lists; when selecting one of the launch names, mintty is invoked with the respective parameters. (If a semicolon shall be embedded into any of the command patterns, a non-whitespace control character (i.e. none of ˆIˆJˆKˆLˆM) can be specified as an alternative separator by starting the whole setting with it.) The definition list can be split over multiple lines if a separator is followed by a backslash, newline, and optional whitespace indentation.

Note that the setting string must not be terminated with a Windows lineend, as its CR would be considered part of the last item; this can be prevented with a final semicolon separator.

Note: Session launch names are subject to localization if they are added to the localization file of the selected UI localization language (in subdirectory lang of a mintty resource directory).

Examples:

Note: Control characters need to be embedded verbatim; there is no escape notation.

Taskbar commands (TaskCommands=)

This setting lists mintty invocation parameters for the "Tasks" list in the taskbar icon, also known as "jump list". The value is a series of semicolon-separated, colon-combined pairs of task names and invocation parameter lists; when selecting one of the tasks from the taskbar icon, mintty is invoked with the respective parameters. (If a semicolon shall be embedded into any of the command patterns, a non-whitespace control character (i.e. none of ˆIˆJˆKˆLˆM) can be specified as an alternative separator by starting the whole setting with it.) The definition list can be split over multiple lines if a separator is followed by a backslash, newline, and optional whitespace indentation.

Note that the setting string must not be terminated with a Windows lineend, as its CR would be considered part of the last item; this can be prevented with a final semicolon separator.

Note: This feature only works in combination with a parameter −o AppID=.... If the taskbar icon is "pinned" to the taskbar, the task list is retained with it, initially...

Note: To make the jump list persistent, it is necessary to carefully apply additional tricks to satisfy the insane taskbar configuration paradigm of Windows. First, also configure a default taskbar icon command using options AppName and AppLaunchCmd. Second, choose a unique value for AppID and also add it to the (default) launch command and all (jumplist) task commands. Third, invoke mintty with the chosen AppID and option −−store−taskbar−properties.

Note: Task names are subject to localization if they are added to the localization file of the selected UI localization language (in subdirectory lang of a mintty resource directory).

Note: If the parameter list contains "−−WSL", mintty will try to determine a suitable WSL distribution icon for the jump list, or use the WSLtty default icon from the mintty resource subdirectory icon, or from the WSLtty package if installed.

Examples:

Note: Control characters need to be embedded verbatim; there is no escape notation.

Menu configuration

These settings allow to customize the context menu as opened in various ways. Setting one of these options to an empty value disables the respective menu.

Menu contents can be configured by a sequence of characters with the following meaning:

Note: With empty values for MenuTitleCtrlLeft/Right the default session launcher for Ctrl+left/right-click on title bar can be disabled.

Note: In multi-column layout (using a | vertical separator), a Windows bug causes fallback to a default theme, affecting colours and icons.

Session geometry synchronization / Virtual tabs (SessionGeomSync=0)

This setting defines the level of approximation of "tabbed" window operation within the Virtual Tabs feature:

Tabbar and tab synchronization (TabBar=0)

Setting TabBar=level enables an interactive tabbar as an alternative session switcher. It raises the effective window position synchronization to the given level as if also setting SessionGeomSync=level. It is recommended to use level 3 or higher.

Note: The tabbar can also be switched dynamically with the user-definable function toggle-tabbar assigned to a hotkey or configured into the context menu.

Tabbar font (TabFont=)

This setting selects a font for the tabbar. If empty, the default terminal font is used.

Tabbar grouping (NewTabs=0)

Setting NewTabs=1 is applicable to mintty if started from a desktop shortcut. It will start a new window, i.e. a new tab group (if tabbar is enabled) in this case. (Adding command-line option −−newtabs in the shortcut command line would achieve the same effect.) Setting NewTabs=2 would enforce a new tab group and is discouraged as a configuration setting; command-line option −−newtabs does the same per invocation.

Tabbar highlighting

With these settings, colour highlighting of the active tab in the tabbar can be configured.

SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

Console issue

Mintty, like xterm and rxvt and other terminals, communicates with the child process through a pseudo terminal device, which Cygwin emulates using Windows pipes, causing issues with native Windows command line programs. Cygwin 3.1.0 compensates for this issue via the ConPTY API of Windows 10. MSYS2, however, did not enable this support by default until end of 2022. See https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/Tips#inputoutput−interaction−with−alien−programs for further hints, also on the winpty wrapper for older systems.

Termcap/terminfo

Mintty has two termcap or terminfo entries, mintty and mintty−direct (the latter reflecting true-colour capability). However, it sets the environment variable TERM to xterm by default in order to provide maximal seamless compatibility also in case of remote login.

Screen control features, DEC and xterm compatibility

Mintty is compatible with xterm screen control. It supports DEC terminal screen features up to the VT500 series except DECRLM (right-to-left cursor motion), also supporting VT52 mode, thus being fully VT100-compatible, and VT320 status lines. It also includes most other xterm-specific control sequences and modes. See https://invisible−island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html for a list.

In addition, mintty supports a maximum of ANSI and ECMA-48 character attribute controls (including RGB and CMYK true-colour support, italic, overline, strikeout, rapid blinking, alternative fonts) and additional rendering attributes (underline styles and colours, superscript and subscript, shadowed and overstrike). Mintty provides Sixel graphics, image support according to the iTerm2 protocol (including png, jpeg, gif output), Emoji support, and Bidi reordering according to the Unicode Bidi Algorithm UBA, amended with flexible bidi controls according to the draft bidi mode model of the BiDi in Terminal Emulators recommendation (https://terminal−wg.pages.freedesktop.org/bidi/). However, emoji rendering does not work properly within right-to-left text.

For mintty-specific private escape sequences and extensions, see https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/CtrlSeqs .

Mintty also provides emulation of the Tektronix 4014 vector graphics terminal, including "writethru" and "defocused" beam modes (for which colour indication can be configured), write beam glow and GIN mode, and APL character mode.

Mintty is not as configurable as xterm; it offers essential configuration features, many of which are "hidden settings", i.e. they do not appear in the interactive "Options" configuration dialog. Of xterm’s keyboard modes, only the default PC-style and VT220-style are available. 8-bit control characters are not supported. Mouse highlighting mode is not implemented.

SEE ALSO

Additional information can be found on the wiki on the mintty project page https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki .

LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2024 Thomas Wolff, Andy Koppe

Mintty is released under the terms of the the GNU General Public License version 3. See http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl for the license text.

There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

CONTACT

Please report bugs or suggest enhancements via the issue tracker at https://github.com/mintty/mintty/issues . Questions can be sent to the Cygwin mailing list at cygwin@cygwin.com, to the Mintty chat issue https://github.com/mintty/mintty/issues/777 , or to the Gitter chat (experimental) https://gitter.im/mintty/mintty .