If you're a power user of Windows 11, you've probably heard of Windows Terminal, or at least tools like CMD and Windows PowerShell. Command-line interfaces (CLI) allow you to take actions on your PC using only basic text input and output, and while it can feel rudimentary to some, it can also be the fastest way to get things done. That's why power users tend to prefer it.

Windows Terminal is Microsoft's latest attempt at a CLI for Windows, and it's actually great. If you want to know everything there is to know about it, you've come to the right place.

How is Windows Terminal different?

Windows Terminal is a modernized take on a command-line interface, and most of its initial appeal comes from the fact that it's a unified interface. Windows Terminal supports all the command-line tools you need, so you can run Command Prompt and Windows PowerShell in the same app. You can even add things like Linux terminals for distributions you install, or install standalone versions of PowerShell, all of which will be baked into Terminal.

Terminal supports tabs so you can use different environments in the same window, and it can even let you split the window area to show multiple environments side by side. It's also heavily customizable so you can make it look just how you want it to.

Microsoft launched Windows Terminal in 2019, and it's been growing its feature set and usefulness ever since. Windows Terminal is installed by default in recent versions of Windows, but you can download it manually from the Microsoft Store, too.

How to launch Windows Terminal

Launching Windows Terminal can be done in a few ways:

  • Right-click the Start menu button and choose Terminal or Terminal (admin).
  • Open the Start menu and find Terminal. You can right-click the app in the Start menu to launch a specific profile or run it as an administrator.
  • Open Windows Search and search for Terminal or wt.
  • In File Explorer, type wt in the address bar. You can also type wt -d to run Terminal in your current directory.

How to open new tabs and panes in Terminal

To open a new tab in Windows Terminal, simply click the + (plus) icon in the tab bar, which will open your default profile.

If you want to open a new tab with a different profile, click the arrow next to the + icon, then choose your profile from the dropdown menu.

You can also use a few more shortcuts for specific behaviors:

  • Press Shift on your keyboard while clicking the + button (or the profile you want to launch) to open it in a new window.
  • Press Ctrl on your keyboard while clicking the + button (or the profile you want to launch) to launch it as an administrator (if the current window isn't already running as an administrator).
  • Press Alt on your keyboard while clicking the + button (or the profile you want to launch) to launch it in split-pane mode.

You can close tabs with Ctrl + W on your keyboard, or close a split pane with Ctrl + Shift + W.

How to add more profiles to Windows Terminal

Profiles are automatically added to Windows Terminal when you install additional command-line-based tools. To add more profiles, simply download the apps as you normally would. Here are some examples you might want to check out:

When you install any of these apps from the Microsoft Store, they'll become available as options inside Windows Terminal. Linux distros will require you to have the Windows Subsystem for Linux set up on your PC.

Windows Terminal settings

Windows Terminal lets you customize settings in two primary ways. You can use the more user-friendly GUI or edit the settings.json text file to make the changes you want to. We'll generally recommend the GUI for ease of use, but you can go whichever route you prefer.

To open the Settings page, simply click the arrow in the tab bar and then select Settings. You can then click Open JSON file if you'd rather change settings that way.

In the settings page, you'll see a few tabs:

  • Startup: Lets you customize startup settings such as the default launch profile.
  • Interaction: Allows you to customize the behavior of certain interactions, such as automatically copying selected text to the clipboard or including formatting when copying text.
  • Appearance: Customize visual settings such as the app's theme, tab width, and language.
  • Color schemes: Change the color scheme used by default in your profiles. This includes the background and foreground color, as well as text colors.
  • Rendering: Contains rendering settings that can address performance issues or bugs.
  • Actions: Allows you to assign different keyboard shortcuts to actions like opening a new tab, copying text, and more.
  • Profiles: Under this section you can customize behavior and appearance settings specific to each profile. The Defaults tab also lets you apply settings to all profiles at once, though you can override them in the individual settings for each profile.

How to change the default launch profile in Windows Terminal

Windows Terminal opens Windows PowerShell as the default profile. To choose a different profile:

  1. Click the arrow in the tab bar and choose Settings.
  2. Click the dropdown menu next to Default profile and choose the option you want to use.
  3. Click Save.

Next time you launch Windows Terminal normally or open a new tab, it will open to the profile you selected.

How to make Windows Terminal the default terminal

In Windows 11, Windows Terminal will usually open by default when you try to launch any terminal application. However, if that isn't happening for you, you can set it as the default manually. Follow these steps:

  1. Click the arrow in the tab bar and choose Settings.
  2. Click the dropdown menu next to Default terminal application and choose Windows Terminal.
  3. Click Save.

You should now see Windows Terminal open whenever you launch a terminal application, like a Linux distro or PowerShell.

How to change the look of Windows Terminal

How to change the Windows Terminal theme

The Windows Terminal theme determines the look of the Windows Terminal window and settings page, but doesn't affect the look of each profile. To change it:

  1. Click the arrow in the tab bar and choose Settings.
  2. Switch to the Appearance tab.
  3. Click the dropdown menu next to Application Theme and choose either Light, Dark, or Use Windows theme. Each option also has a Legacy version you can try. ​​​​​​
  4. Click Save.

How to change color schemes

Color schemes let you change the look of the background and text in all your profiles. To change them:

  1. Click the arrow in the tab bar and choose Settings.
  2. Switch to the Color schemes tab.
  3. Select the color scheme you find more interesting or click Add new to make your own from the ground up.​​​​​​
  4. Click any of the colors on the list to change it using the color picker. You can use RGB or HSV values, or a hex code to select a color, too.
  5. Click Set as default if you want this to be the new look for all your profiles.
  6. Click Save.

How to choose color schemes for individual profiles

If you want to use different color schemes for each profile, follow these steps:

  1. Click the arrow in the tab bar and choose Settings.
  2. Select the profile you want to customize. Let's say it's Windows PowerShell.
  3. Scroll down and click Appearance.
  4. Click the dropdown menu next to Color scheme and choose the option you want.
  5. Click Save.

This will override the default setting for that profile, and you can repeat it for other profiles you have.

How to use a custom background in Windows Terminal

If you don't want to use boring colors and want a proper image as your background, Windows Terminal lets you do that too. Here's how:

  1. Click the arrow in the tab bar and choose Settings.
  2. Select the profile you want to customize. You can also click Defaults to change the background image for every profile at once.
  3. Scroll down and click Appearance.
  4. Scroll down to Background image and expand the Background image path option.
  5. Click Browse to find an image file to use as the background, or check the Use desktop wallpaper box to replicate your desktop wallpaper in Terminal.
  6. You can choose the Background image stretch mode and Background image alignment to your liking.
  7. Adjust the Background image opacity to make sure text is readable. 100% opacity will make the background image fully visible, which can make text hard to read. You can scroll up to the top to see a preview of your settings.
  8. Click Save.

You can repeat this with different images and profiles to ensure every profile has a very distinct look.

How to customize the tab switcher

Pressing Ctrl + Tab allows you to switch between the open tabs in Windows Terminal. By default, your open tabs show up as a list in the same order they appear in the tab strip. However, you can change this:

  1. Click the arrow in the tab bar and choose Settings.
  2. Choose Interaction from the side menu.
  3. Click the dropdown menu next to Tab switcher interface style and choose one of three options:
    • Separate window, in most recently used order: Shows your tabs as a floating list in the order you most recently used them.
    • Separate window, in tab strip order: Shows your tabs as a floating list in the same order as they appear in the tab bar at the top.
    • Traditional navigation, no separate window: Switches between tabs in the tab strip order without any additional UI elements on screen, similar to most web browsers.
  4. Click Save.

How to change keyboard shortcuts in Windows Terminal

Windows Terminal lets you perform a ton of actions using keyboard shortcuts so you can save time by never using the mouse. Many actions are preset already, but you can edit them to have new shortcuts or add new actions to the list entirely. Here's how:

  1. Click the arrow in the tab bar and choose Settings.
  2. Switch to the Actions tab.
  3. To customize an existing action:
    1. Find the action you want to customize the shortcut for.
    2. Click the pencil icon next to it.
    3. Click the box with the keyboard shortcut, then press the key combination you want to use for that action.
    4. Click the checkmark button.
  4. To create a new action:
    1. Click Add new at the top of the list
    2. Click the dropdown menu to choose one of the available actions.
    3. Click the empty box next to it to enter a keyboard shortcut.
    4. Press the key combination to use for the action you selected.
    5. Click the checkmark button.
  5. Click Save.

From now on, pressing the key combination you choose will trigger the associated action in Terminal.

Command line arguments

One last thing to note about Windows Terminal is support for command line arguments, meaning you can use the command line to manipulate Windows Terminal itself. There are a multitude of command line arguments supported, and you can invoke them with the following structure

wt [options] [command ; ]

Here, options refer to certain parameters you want to apply to the new Windows Terminal instance. These options include:

  • --help, -h, -?, or /?: Shows the Windows Terminal help message.
  • --maximized or -M: Launches a new maximized Windows Terminal window.
  • --fullscreen or -F: Launches Windows Terminal in full screen mode.
  • --focus or -f: Launches Windows Terminal in focus mode.
  • --pos x,y: Launches the Windows Terminal at the specified position on screen.
  • --window windows-id or -w window-id: Launches Windows Terminal in a specified window.

Options aren't required to enter with this command, though, as they only tweak certain settings for the new window. It's up to you if you want anything to change from the default behavior.

Meanwhile, command; refers to the actions you actually want Windows Terminal to perform, and you can stack these to launch a completely customized instance of Windows Terminal with the layout you want. These commands include:

  • new-tab or nt: Creates a new tab in the Terminal window. Supports additional parameters for things like title, starting directory, and color.
  • split-pane or sp: Creates a new split pane in the Terminal window. It also supports additional parameters similar to a new tab.
  • focus-tab or ft: Sets the focus to a specific tab in the new windows, indicated by the --target tab-index parameter.
  • move-focus or mf: Sets the focus to one of the panes visible on screen with parameters like up, down, left, right and more to specify the pane to move to.
  • move-pane or mp: Moves the active pane in the specified direction using the same parameters above.
  • swap-pane or sp: Swaps the pane with the next pane in the specified direction using the same parameters.

The full list of commands and parameters is on Microsoft's website, and we recommend checking it out if you want to get into the weeds, but this should give you a good idea of the actions possible using this tool.

Windows Terminal is arguably one of the most exciting projects Microsoft has for Windows users, particularly those who are more tech-oriented and want to be mote efficient with their workflow. Of course, you'll still need to be familiar with the actual tool you want to use, whether that's Windows PowerShell, Command Prompt, or a Linux distribution. But with this info, you know all about Windows Terminal itself, and you can make the experience work best for you so you can use the best laptops on the market to their fullest potential.