Windows Terminal Hacks

April 06, 2020

'cover' _{^{Photo by Lewis Ngugi from Pexels}}

Start Windows Terminal in current folder

We can specify the default directory Windows Terminal can open in.

Open Windows Terminal
Go to Settings option or You can press Ctrl + ,. This will open your config file.

It should look like this. The first option in list is Powershell config.

{
    "profiles":
    {
        "list":
        [
            {
                // Make changes here to the powershell.exe profile
                "guid": "{61c54bbd-c2c6-5271-96e7-009a87ff44bf}",
                "name": "Windows PowerShell",
                "commandline": "powershell.exe",
                "hidden": false,
                "startingDirectory": null
            },
        ]
}

Add "startingDirectory": null option for each profile.
Restart Windows Terminal.

Now if you go to any folder and type wt in address bar. This should open Windows Terminal in your current folder. If you want to open it in specific folder,you can specify the path instead of null.

Copy Terminal text

You can't copy text from Windows Terminal by selecting text and right click.

Go to Settings
Specify "copyOnSelect": true at the root of your config file.

Ex:

{
    "$schema": "https://aka.ms/terminal-profiles-schema",
    "defaultProfile": "{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6101}",
    "copyOnSelect": true,
}

Restart Windows Terminal

Now if you select text in terminal and right click. The selected text would be copied to your clipboard.

Specify default commandline application

By default Windows Terminal will open powershell in first tab. You can change that using defaultProfile property in config.

Go to Settings
Specify "defaultProfile": property to the value of guid from list of profiles.
Restart Windows Terminal

Ex:

{
    "$schema": "https://aka.ms/terminal-profiles-schema",

    "defaultProfile": "{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6101}",
    "copyOnSelect": true,

    "profiles":
    {
        "defaults":
        {
            // Put settings here that you want to apply to all profiles
        },
        "list":
        [
            {
                // Make changes here to the powershell.exe profile
                "guid": "{61c54bbd-c2c6-5271-96e7-009a87ff44bf}",
                "name": "Windows PowerShell",
                "commandline": "powershell.exe",
                "hidden": false,
                "startingDirectory": null
            },
            {
                // Make changes here to the cmd.exe profile
                "guid": "{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6101}",
                "name": "cmd",
                "commandline": "cmd.exe",
                "hidden": false,
                "startingDirectory": null
            },
        ]
    }
}

Windows Terminal Hacks

Start Windows Terminal in current folder

Copy Terminal text

Specify default commandline application

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