Transform Your macOS Terminal with iTerm2, oh‑my‑zsh, and Custom Themes

Effect

Below is the author’s preferred terminal appearance, demonstrating a visually appealing theme; many other color schemes and themes are also available.

iTerm2

iTerm2 is a more powerful replacement for the default macOS Terminal.

item2: https://www.iterm2.com/

After installation, the window looks similar to the default Terminal, but with a black background.

oh‑my‑zsh

Installing oh‑my‑zsh actually installs the Zsh shell, which provides attractive themes (default is

robbyrussell

).

Run the following command to install:

<code>sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"</code>

After installation the terminal changes appearance.

Color Scheme

Clone the color‑scheme repository or download the zip:

git clone

Repository: https://github.com/mbadolato/iTerm2-Color-Schemes

In iTerm2 open Preferences (

cmd + ,

) → Profile → Colors → Color Presets → Import and select a scheme (e.g.,

Atom

).

After importing, choose

Atom

to apply.

Theme

Set the Zsh theme to

agnoster

by editing

.zshrc

:

<code># Open .zshrc file
vim ~/.zshrc</code>

Change

ZSH_THEME

to

agnoster

and save (

:wq

).

Reload Zsh (

zsh

) or restart iTerm2; the theme changes but may show garbled characters.

Install Powerline fonts to fix the issue:

<code># clone
git clone https://github.com/powerline/fonts.git --depth=1
# install
cd fonts
./install.sh
# clean‑up
tcd ..
rm -rf fonts</code>

Then select a Powerline‑compatible font in iTerm2 (Preferences → Profile → Text → Change Font), e.g.,

Roboto Mono for Powerline

.

More Convenient Layout

Disable the native full‑screen option (General → Window → Native Full Screen Windows) and set the window style to

Full‑Width Top of Screen

(Profile → Window → Style).

After restarting iTerm2, the terminal appears at the top of the screen; press

cmd + enter

to toggle full‑screen.

Hot Key

Configure a global hot‑key (e.g.,

option + i

) in Preferences → Keys → Hotkey to quickly show or hide iTerm2.

Shortcut Keys

Useful shortcuts include:

cmd + enter

: toggle iTerm2 size

Hotkey

: show/hide iTerm2

cmd + d

: split pane vertically

cmd + D

: split pane horizontally

cmd + t

: open new tab

control + u

: clear current input

control + a

: move cursor to line start

control + e

: move cursor to line end

control + b

: move cursor backward

control + f

: move cursor forward

cmd + 1,2,3,4

: switch tabs

option + 1,2,3,4

: switch split panes