KITTY(1) kitty KITTY(1)
NAME
kitty - kitty Documentation
kitty [options] [program-to-run ...]
Run the kitty terminal emulator. You can also specify the program to
run inside kitty as normal arguments following the options. For exam-
ple: kitty --hold sh -c "echo hello, world"
For comprehensive documentation for kitty, please see:
https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/
OPTIONS
--class <CLS>
Set the class part of the WM_CLASS window property. On Wayland,
it sets the app id. Default: kitty
--name <NAME>
Set the name part of the WM_CLASS property. Defaults to using
the value from kitty --class.
--title <TITLE>, -T <TITLE>
Set the OS window title. This will override any title set by the
program running inside kitty, permanently fixing the OS window's
title. So only use this if you are running a program that does
not set titles.
--config <CONFIG>, -c <CONFIG>
Specify a path to the configuration file(s) to use. All configu-
ration files are merged onto the builtin kitty.conf, overriding
the builtin values. This option can be specified multiple times
to read multiple configuration files in sequence, which are
merged. Use the special value NONE to not load any config file.
If this option is not specified, config files are searched for
in the order: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kitty/kitty.conf, ~/.con-
fig/kitty/kitty.conf, $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/kitty/kitty.conf. The
first one that exists is used as the config file.
If the environment variable KITTY_CONFIG_DIRECTORY is specified,
that directory is always used and the above searching does not
happen.
If /etc/xdg/kitty/kitty.conf exists, it is merged before (i.e.
with lower priority) than any user config files. It can be used
to specify system-wide defaults for all users. You can use ei-
ther - or /dev/stdin to read the config from STDIN.
--override <OVERRIDE>, -o <OVERRIDE>
Override individual configuration options, can be specified mul-
tiple times. Syntax: name=value. For example: kitty -o
font_size=20
--directory <DIRECTORY>, --working-directory <DIRECTORY>, -d <DIREC-
TORY>
Change to the specified directory when launching. Default: .
--detach
Detach from the controlling terminal, if any.
--session <SESSION>
Path to a file containing the startup session (tabs, windows,
layout, programs). Use - to read from STDIN. See the README file
for details and an example. Environment variables are expanded,
relative paths are resolved relative to the kitty configuration
directory.
--hold Remain open after child process exits. Note that this only af-
fects the first window. You can quit by either using the close
window shortcut or pressing any key.
--single-instance, -1
If specified only a single instance of kitty will run. New invo-
cations will instead create a new top-level window in the exist-
ing kitty instance. This allows kitty to share a single sprite
cache on the GPU and also reduces startup time. You can also
have separate groups of kitty instances by using the kitty --in-
stance-group option.
--instance-group <INSTANCE_GROUP>
Used in combination with the kitty --single-instance option. All
kitty invocations with the same kitty --instance-group will re-
sult in new windows being created in the first kitty instance
within that group.
--wait-for-single-instance-window-close
Normally, when using kitty --single-instance, kitty will open a
new window in an existing instance and quit immediately. With
this option, it will not quit till the newly opened window is
closed. Note that if no previous instance is found, then kitty
will wait anyway, regardless of this option.
--listen-on <LISTEN_ON>
Listen on the specified socket address for control messages. For
example, kitty --listen-on=unix:/tmp/mykitty or kitty --lis-
ten-on=tcp:localhost:12345. On Linux systems, you can also use
abstract UNIX sockets, not associated with a file, like this:
kitty --listen-on=unix:@mykitty. Environment variables are ex-
panded and relative paths are resolved with respect to the tem-
porary directory. To control kitty, you can send commands to it
with kitty @ using the kitty @ --to option to specify this ad-
dress. Note that if you run kitty @ within a kitty window, there
is no need to specify the kitty @ --to option as it will auto-
matically read from the environment. Note that this will be ig-
nored unless allow_remote_control is set to either: yes, socket
or socket-only. For UNIX sockets, this can also be specified in
kitty.conf.
--start-as <START_AS>
Control how the initial kitty window is created. Default: nor-
mal Choices: fullscreen, maximized, minimized, normal
Debugging options
--version, -v
The current kitty version.
--dump-commands
Output commands received from child process to STDOUT.
--replay-commands <REPLAY_COMMANDS>
Replay previously dumped commands. Specify the path to a dump
file previously created by kitty --dump-commands. You can open a
new kitty window to replay the commands with:
kitty sh -c "kitty --replay-commands /path/to/dump/file; read"
--dump-bytes <DUMP_BYTES>
Path to file in which to store the raw bytes received from the
child process.
--debug-gl, --debug-rendering
Debug rendering commands. This will cause all OpenGL calls to
check for errors instead of ignoring them. Also prints out mis-
cellaneous debug information. Useful when debugging rendering
problems.
--debug-input, --debug-keyboard
Print out key and mouse events as they are received.
--debug-font-fallback
Print out information about the selection of fallback fonts for
characters not present in the main font.
--watcher <WATCHER>
This option is deprecated in favor of the watcher option in
kitty.conf and should not be used.
TABS AND WINDOWS
kitty is capable of running multiple programs organized into tabs and
windows. The top level of organization is the OS window. Each OS win-
dow consists of one or more tabs. Each tab consists of one or more
kitty windows. The kitty windows can be arranged in multiple different
layouts, like windows are organized in a tiling window manager. The
keyboard controls (which are all customizable) for tabs and windows
are:
Scrolling
┌──────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│Action │ Shortcut │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Line up │ ctrl+shift+up (also ⌥+⌘+⇞ │
│ │ and ⌘+↑ on macOS) │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Line down │ ctrl+shift+down (also │
│ │ ⌥+⌘+⇟ and ⌘+↓ on macOS) │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Page up │ ctrl+shift+page_up (also │
│ │ ⌘+⇞ on macOS) │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Page down │ ctrl+shift+page_down (also │
│ │ ⌘+⇟ on macOS) │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Top │ ctrl+shift+home (also ⌘+↖ │
│ │ on macOS) │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Bottom │ ctrl+shift+end (also ⌘+↘ │
│ │ on macOS) │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Previous shell prompt │ ctrl+shift+z (see Shell │
│ │ integration) │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Next shell prompt │ ctrl+shift+x (see Shell │
│ │ integration) │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Browse scrollback in less │ ctrl+shift+h │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Browse last cmd output │ ctrl+shift+g (see Shell │
│ │ integration) │
└──────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
Tabs
┌──────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│Action │ Shortcut │
└──────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
│New tab │ ctrl+shift+t (also ⌘+t on │
│ │ macOS) │
├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Close tab │ ctrl+shift+q (also ⌘+w on │
│ │ macOS) │
├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Next tab │ ctrl+shift+right (also ⌃+⇥ │
│ │ and ⇧+⌘+] on macOS) │
├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Previous tab │ ctrl+shift+left (also │
│ │ ⇧+⌃+⇥ and ⇧+⌘+[ on macOS) │
├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Next layout │ ctrl+shift+l │
├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Move tab forward │ ctrl+shift+. │
├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Move tab backward │ ctrl+shift+, │
├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Set tab title │ ctrl+shift+alt+t (also │
│ │ ⇧+⌘+i on macOS) │
└──────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
Windows
┌──────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│Action │ Shortcut │
├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│New window │ ctrl+shift+enter (also ⌘+↩ │
│ │ on macOS) │
├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│New OS window │ ctrl+shift+n (also ⌘+n on │
│ │ macOS) │
├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Close window │ ctrl+shift+w (also ⇧+⌘+d │
│ │ on macOS) │
├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Next window │ ctrl+shift+] │
├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Previous window │ ctrl+shift+[ │
├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Move window forward │ ctrl+shift+f │
├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Move window backward │ ctrl+shift+b │
├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Move window to top │ ctrl+shift+` │
├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Visually focus window │ ctrl+shift+f7 │
├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Visually swap window │ ctrl+shift+f8 │
├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Focus specific window │ ctrl+shift+1, ctrl+shift+2 │
│ │ ... ctrl+shift+0 (also │
│ │ ⌘+1, ⌘+2 ... ⌘+9 on macOS) │
│ │ (clockwise from the │
│ │ top-left) │
└──────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
Additionally, you can define shortcuts in kitty.conf to focus neighbor-
ing windows and move windows around (similar to window movement in
vim):
map ctrl+left neighboring_window left
map shift+left move_window right
map ctrl+down neighboring_window down
map shift+down move_window up
...
You can also define a shortcut to switch to the previously active win-
dow:
map ctrl+p nth_window -1
nth_window will focus the nth window for positive numbers (starting
from zero) and the previously active windows for negative numbers.
To switch to the nth OS window, you can define nth_os_window. Only pos-
itive numbers are accepted, starting from one.
You can define shortcuts to detach the current window and move it to
another tab or another OS window:
# moves the window into a new OS window
map ctrl+f2 detach_window
# moves the window into a new tab
map ctrl+f3 detach_window new-tab
# moves the window into the previously active tab
map ctrl+f3 detach_window tab-prev
# moves the window into the tab at the left of the active tab
map ctrl+f3 detach_window tab-left
# asks which tab to move the window into
map ctrl+f4 detach_window ask
Similarly, you can detach the current tab, with:
# moves the tab into a new OS window
map ctrl+f2 detach_tab
# asks which OS Window to move the tab into
map ctrl+f4 detach_tab ask
Finally, you can define a shortcut to close all windows in a tab other
than the currently active window:
map f9 close_other_windows_in_tab
OTHER KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
The full list of actions that can be mapped to key presses is available
here.
┌───────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│Action │ Shortcut │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Show this help │ ctrl+shift+f1 │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Copy to clipboard │ ctrl+shift+c (also ⌘+c on │
│ │ macOS) │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Paste from clipboard │ ctrl+shift+v (also ⌘+v on │
│ │ macOS) │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Paste from selection │ ctrl+shift+s │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Pass selection to program │ ctrl+shift+o │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Increase font size │ ctrl+shift+equal (also ⌘++ │
│ │ on macOS) │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Decrease font size │ ctrl+shift+minus (also ⌘+- │
│ │ on macOS) │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Restore font size │ ctrl+shift+backspace (also │
│ │ ⌘+0 on macOS) │
└───────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
│Toggle fullscreen │ ctrl+shift+f11 (also ⌃+⌘+f │
│ │ on macOS) │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Toggle maximized │ ctrl+shift+f10 │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Input Unicode character │ ctrl+shift+u (also │
│ │ ⌃+⌘+space on macOS) │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Open URL in web browser │ ctrl+shift+e │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Reset the terminal │ ctrl+shift+delete (also │
│ │ ⌥+⌘+r on macOS) │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Edit kitty.conf │ ctrl+shift+f2 (also ⌘+, on │
│ │ macOS) │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Reload kitty.conf │ ctrl+shift+f5 (also ⌃+⌘+, │
│ │ on macOS) │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Debug kitty.conf │ ctrl+shift+f6 (also ⌥+⌘+, │
│ │ on macOS) │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Open a kitty shell │ ctrl+shift+escape │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Increase background opac- │ ctrl+shift+a>m │
│ity │ │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Decrease background opac- │ ctrl+shift+a>l │
│ity │ │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Full background opacity │ ctrl+shift+a>1 │
├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│Reset background opacity │ ctrl+shift+a>d │
└───────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSO
See kitty.conf(5)
AUTHOR
Kovid Goyal
COPYRIGHT
2023, Kovid Goyal
0.26.5 May 13, 2023 KITTY(1)
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