Terminal

IntelliJ IDEA includes an embedded terminal emulator for working with your command-line shell from inside the IDE. Use it to run Java tools, Git commands, set file permissions, and perform other command-line tasks without switching to a dedicated terminal application.

Initially, the terminal emulator runs with your default system shell, but it supports many other shells, such as Windows PowerShell, Command Prompt cmd.exe, sh, bash, zsh, csh, and so on. For information about changing the shell, see Configure the terminal emulator.

Open the Terminal tool window

From the main menu, select View | Tool Windows | Terminal or press Alt+F12.

By default, the terminal emulator runs with the current directory set to the root directory of the current project. For information about changing the default start directory, see Configure the terminal emulator.

Alternatively, you can right-click any file (for example, in the Project tool window or any open tab) and select Open in Terminal from the context menu to open the Terminal tool window with a new session in the directory of that file.

Start a new session

Click on the toolbar to start a new session in a separate tab.

To run multiple sessions inside a tab, right-click the tab and select Split Right or Split Down in the context menu.

The Terminal saves tabs and sessions when you close the project or IntelliJ IDEA. It preserves tab names, the current working directory, and even the shell history.

To close a tab, click on the Terminal toolbar or right-click the tab and select Close Tab from the context menu.

Press Alt+Right and Alt+Left to switch between active tabs. Alternatively, you can press Alt+Down to see the list of all terminal tabs.

To rename a tab, right-click the tab and select Rename Session from the context menu.

To search for a certain string in a Terminal session, press Ctrl+F. This searches all text in the session: the prompt, commands, and output.

Configure the terminal emulator

Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select Tools | Terminal.

Project Settings

These settings affect the terminal only for the current project:

Start directory	Specify the working directory where every new shell session should start. By default, it starts in the root directory of the current project.
Environment variables	Specify custom environment variables for every new shell session.

Application Settings

These settings affect the terminal in any project that you open with the current IntelliJ IDEA instance.

Shell path	Specify the shell that will run by default. IntelliJ IDEA should automatically detect the default shell based on your environment. Here are some examples of different shells: Bash: `/bin/bash` Z shell: `/bin/zsh` Bash for Windows: `bash.exe` WSL: `wsl.exe` PowerShell: `powershell` Command Prompt: `cmd.exe` Cygwin: `"C:\cygwin\bin\bash.exe" --login -i`
Default Tab name	Specify the default name for new tabs.
Audible bell	Play the bell sound on various events.
Close session when it ends	Close the current session when the corresponding process ends (for example, by `kill`).
Mouse reporting	Enable the mouse pointer support in the embedded local terminal.
Copy to clipboard on selection	Copy text selected in the terminal to the clipboard.
Paste on middle mouse button click	Paste clipboard contents by clicking the middle mouse button.
Override IDE shortcuts	Use shell-specific shortcuts instead of IDE shortcuts when the Terminal tool window is active. Click Configure terminal keybindings to open the Keymap settings page and configure the shortcuts that are available int the Terminal tool window under Plugins \| Terminal. For example, Switch Focus to Editor is mapped to `Escape` by default, which means that if you don't override the IDE shortcuts, `Escape` will switch focus from the terminal to the editor.
Shell integration	Integrate the terminal with the system shell to properly keep track of your command history for sessions and load a custom config file with required environment variables. Shell integration works for `sh`, `bash`, `zsh`, and `fish` shells.
Highlight hyperlinks	Highlight HTTP links in the terminal and make them clickable.
Use Option as Meta key	On macOS, use the Option key as the Meta key.
Run Commands using IDE	Detect and highlight commands that can be used as IDE features instead of running them in the terminal and reading console output. When enabled, instead of pressing `Enter`, which runs the command in the terminal, press `Ctrl+Enter` to open the corresponding GUI element. For more information, see Run IDE features from the terminal.
Cursor shape	Select the shape of the cursor: block, underline, or vertical.
Activate virtualenv	For the Python interpreter being a virtual environment, with this checkbox selected, the virtual environment is automatically activated (`activate` is performed automatically). This option is available only if you have the Python plugin installed.

The embedded terminal emulator also inherits the following IDE settings:

On the Keymap page, you can configure the copy Ctrl+C and paste Ctrl+V shortcuts.
On the Editor | General | Appearance page, you can configure blinking frequency for the caret. The Terminal does not inherit the Use block caret option because there is a separate option for that: Cursor shape.
On the Editor | Color Scheme | Console Font page, you can configure line spacing and fonts.
On the Editor | Color Scheme | Console Colors page, you can configure font colors.
On the Editor | Color Scheme | General page, you can configure the selection foreground and background colors.

Run IDE features from the terminal

Instead of running a specific command in the integrated terminal and reading console output, you can use the relevant IDE feature, like a tool window or a dialog that implements this functionality. For example, the diff viewer actually runs the diff command in the system shell to produce results. Another example is the Log tab in the Git tool window, which is based on the output of the git log command.

Open the Log tab of the Git tool window from the terminal

Type a supported command in the terminal and notice how it is highlighted.
Instead of pressing Enter, which runs the command in the terminal, press Ctrl+Enter to open the corresponding GUI element. In this example, it will open the Log tab of the Git tool window and filter commits by authors with “dmitry” in their usernames.

This feature also works with most of the commands recognized by Run Anything (press Ctrl twice), such as mvn, gradle, rake, rails, and so on, depending on what plugins you have installed. To run a highlighted command in debug mode (use the Debug tool window instead of Run) press Ctrl+Shift+Enter.

If you want to disable this feature, click on the title bar of the Terminal window and clear the Run Commands using IDE option.

Last modified: 10 August 2022