How To Make Your Boring macOS Terminal Amazing With Alacritty

I recently switched from iTerm2 to Alacritty and in this video I show you everything I do to create a minimal, amazing & fast terminal setup with it on macOs. I've really enjoyed this change. Hope you guys enjoy the video!
✍🏽 Blog Post With Code & Commands: bit.ly/3y2VhHw
💻 Source Code/Dotfiles: bit.ly/4cFlPyq
UPDATE: After making this video, many of you recommended WezTerm and I decided to give it a try. It's awesome, so thank you! Though Alacritty works great, WezTerm is a bit better in my opinion. I've added a ~/.wezterm.lua config file to the repo: github.com/josean-dev/dev-env.... This is all you need to change to have pretty much the same setup as the one shown in this video, but with WezTerm instead. Thanks!
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🔗 Helpful Links
Alacritty configuration docs: bit.ly/4dm4ATc
Toml spec: app.bitly.com/Bo3blEqCFMW/lin...
Alacritty Themes: bit.ly/3Qq2GqI
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⏰ Timestamps
00:00 - Introduction
00:29 - Install homebrew
01:23 - Install alacritty
01:55 - Install git
02:02 - Install nerd font
02:32 - Create config file
03:30 - Window configuration
05:03 - Font configuration
05:32 - True colors (for tmux)
05:52 - Setup p10k theme
07:38 - Setup theme colors
09:46 - Better history completion
11:20 - zsh-autosuggestions
11:54 - zsh-syntax-highlighting
12:43 - eza (better ls)
13:13 - zoxide (better cd)
14:25 - Setup tmux
15:59 - Conclusion

[@joseanmartinez]

UPDATE: After making this video, many of you recommended WezTerm and I decided to give it a try. It's awesome, so thank you! Though Alacritty works great, WezTerm is a bit better in my opinion. I've added a ~/.wezterm.lua config file to the repo: github.com/josean-dev/dev-environment-files/blob/main/.wezterm.lua. This is all you need to change to have pretty much the same setup as the one shown in this video, but with WezTerm instead. Thanks!

[@chandebrec5856]

In what way(s) is WezTerm a bit better? For that matter, in what *perceptible" ways is Alacritty faster than iTerm2 -- what tasks would make the speed difference noticeable?

[@shouryasharma9228]

@@chandebrec5856 +1

[@user-ms7qr6bi6v]

Thanks to upload very useful contents. I used the wezterm config file you uploaded, but it's inconvenient because I can't see the tabs.

[@chrislacey89]

Would also be keen to hear your thoughts. WezTerm seems more configurable & has much better documentation. Any other big things to note?

[@BrunoSantosX]

WezTerm is another accelerated GPU terminal Emulator?

[@scottfwalter]

I've been using Alacritty for a couple months so I didn't pick up many tips from that section. However, your history keybindings tips were awesome. That was worth the price of the whole video.

[@akshitgupta4749]

Awesome. Just setup my config last month and had to research a lot. It's great finally someone did the hard work and dropped the vid. Also can you make a video on setting up fish terminal?

[@alonelyproducer663]

hi, i recently discoverd your channel, all i may say is, thank you, wow. Good quality, well presented, not bloated with unuseful information. Thanks!!!!

[@joseanmartinez]

Hey guys! I’ve been using Alacritty recently and have really enjoyed it because its simple and suits my nvim/tmux workflow well. That said, there’s other great options out there I haven’t tried yet like Kitty, Wezterm or Warp. I might look into them in the future, but use whatever works well for you! Hope you enjoy the video!

[@myhstic]

I switched from warp to kitty. I feel warp is getting slower and more bloated than it was in the beginning

[@aldredd]

I've been trying out warp - I'm a lighter terminal user than a lot of other users, so find warp's prompts when I want to do something specific a huge help, and encourages me to use it more

[@davemeech]

I have been using warp and enjoying it for the most part, but I am getting big I shouldn't be using it on my work machine vibes from it given it requires a login. This is compelling me to switch!

[@74Bagas]

kitty, alacritty, wezterm, can't go wrong. installed all, except kitty. and i prefer alacritty for main terminal, wezterm for "just in case". tried warp, it's not for me, it was fun though.

[@ykhemani]

The video coupled with the blog was amazing! Thank you so much!

[@wheaten1]

Fantastic tutorial. Thanks for the clear instructions and blog.

[@Liltsco]

Flawless as always! Great job!

[@adenreleemmanuel9848]

Great work Josea... much love❤❤❤

[@nagisupercell]

I love the instant changing when I save the config file of Alacrity.

[@JoeAzure]

Thank you for this! I love learning new environments and taking back control of my daily view :)

[@utvikler-no]

Yet again there are some gems here ☺️👍

[@joseanmartinez]

Thanks!

[@ettorerossatto8531]

I got Error msg trying to run "brew tap homebrew/cask-fonts": "Error: homebrew/cask-fonts was deprecated. This tap is now empty and all its contents were either deleted or migrated." Then I directly run: "brew install --cask font-meslo-lg-nerd-font" Looks like works. Let me know if there is something wrong. Thanks

[@qiangwu8295]

Bro, I love your keyboard! It's so cool!

[@patricorgi]

Hi Josean, great video! May I ask that how do you record a single window with shadow so you can overlay the recording to a background video?

[@MrArso99]

thank you for this video. For eza i recommand two aliases. The first the one you show The seconds alias ll="eza -l" to show permissions and users

[@pokiandboki1224]

Great video!! may i ask how to make the transparent effect that can see through ur desk? I wanna make some chill setup video like this!! Thanks I'm ur big fan

[@ericlindell3777]

Great vid!

[@rodriidamn98]

Amazing videos 🎉

[@costerik]

Hey 👋, Thanks for your videos! you rocks! quick question, why did you set the env. variable TERM to xterm-256color? I'm curious about it.

[@dinakanwamu5676]

Hey great video keep up the good work, watched an old setup video recently, the section about internet sharing for testing websites on mobile. Can you do a video or short explaining how it’s done. Or any resources you can share on how you got this done.🙏

[@HellhammerHH]

Awesome! Are you using any enhanced versions of Ranger/Dirvish, too?

[@jeffersonspringfield1785]

I absolutely love your Coolnight theme. I was poking around your Git repo hoping to find that theme for VS Code. I know you like Neovim but did you ever construct a Coolnight for VS Code?

[@StoneColdET_]

Another banger. Commenting for the algorithm 🎉

[@joseanmartinez]

Thank you!

[@andriimartynov]

Hello. Thanks for you videos. Why don't you use something to manage your dot files?

[@macx4044]

Hi Josean, nice video! Btw, have you used kitty?

[@ilyeshammadi7278]

Thanks for the video. I used Alacritty for almost a year on Mac. But I switched to Wezterm due to the lack of features in Alacrttiy compared to Wezterm. Font ligatures was for me the reason to switch to Wezterm and also Lua config.

[@joseanmartinez]

I'll have to check it out! Thanks

[@themarksmith]

Just installed Wezterm - seems great!

[@danielstoddart]

@@themarksmith Nothing against Wezterm, but it's still developed by one guy, right? That kind of gives me pause. I prefer projects where there's little chance of them going away.

[@themarksmith]

@@danielstoddart Good point, but it does seem to be a great mix of iTerm2 and Kitty...

[@kasiezhang]

nice video, thanks josean.

[@tompov227]

Using Meslo as your font. Great Taste!

[@vredurs]

Awesome video, thanks a lot

[@Adverse191]

Thanks for the video. What key switches you use?

[@LorenzoBettini]

Thanks for the video! In Linux I use Ctrl right and left to move one word, but that doesn't work in macOS terminals, including alacritty.. do you experience that as well?

[@vladgonzalez3325]

I love your videos. !Great work, my man!

[@RS_DEVOPS]

very, very, very good!!! 👍👍👍

[@joseanmartinez]

Thanks!

[@sirhmvfx3496]

Thank you so much for this video.... but does it really take so long for eza to install?

[@itisciprian]

using warp with tmux and nvim with the same config I had in iterm2 . I do not wanna make the switch yet. Keep using iterm2 from time to time but warp is fast - 2 fast- and as a bonus - it got AI. BTW after watching your videos o am switched also to a wireless corne xiao build. Can you share your layers ? thank you and chapeau!

[@rodhash]

Great video man .. I just wish Alacritty would support font fallback but from what I saw in their GH repo, issue #957 is opened since 2017

[@lupionpe]

What made you decide to use Alacritty? I am experimenting with Wez

[@Shane-wf7ss]

Your keyboard looks good. Could you tell me what is this?

[@LawrenceChege]

I love the tutorial! I was wondering how I could increase the width and height of the Alacrity window. Let me know how that is done.

[@gregsonberlin3782]

Quite interesting that a lot of obviously very IT-familiar guys use „clear“ to clean the terminal instead of using the shortcut or save/quit vi with „:w :q“ instead of using the shortcut.

[@EvilKermit7]

didnt know these existed thanks, however i think the answer is...because the shortcuts dont cater for all the possibilities (like u can only save and quit with shortcut)

[@kamalkamals]

what is technical reason to choose alacritty instead of kitty or other ?

[@loo_9]

my tip is to create an alias in Arc for my current terminal (i use “terminal” although it shadows the terminal app). since i frequently try out terminals, browsers, etc. i don’t want to remember the name of the app i currently or open the wrong one by mistake

[@benarcher372]

Now we're talking! Alacritty ftw. You still use zsh 🙂 (coming up: 'how to switch to bash') Thanks /Ben

[@TBO76]

FYI be sure to check that logos actually mathc at around 6:30 an arabic symbol was being displayed instead of an up arrow. Might lead to some unusual behavior if not careful!

[@user-dw8hq5ni9e]

Hi @joseanmartinez do u know how to add the standard mac border, as it is right now its borderless on mac. Thanks !

[@user-vc4my3zy7e]

Is it possible to set this up for a bash terminal? whenever I do bash, the terminal goes back to default and ugly

[@darah.k3221]

This video was about a cool keyboard and typing abillity

[@alborisninvel3714]

Have you tried Kitty? It's even better.

[@joseanmartinez]

Haven’t tried it, but heard good things!

[@themarksmith]

Excellent video but the CTRL+a and SHIFT+I does nothing... also CTRL+hkl... doesn't move panes... most likely my own config screwing things up!

[@TheMk6488]

Same here. Nothing happens when I press CTRL+a and SHIFT+i.

[@cwm-codingwithmike]

Great content! Love the style of your channel. I am not sure if anyone pointed this out but the cask-fonts has been deprecated. I get this error this morning: brew tap homebrew/cask-fonts Error: homebrew/cask-fonts was deprecated. This tap is now empty and all its contents were either deleted or migrated. Keep up the good work!

[@ravneetsingh1696]

Try running: brew install font-meslo-lg-nerd-font

[@TerenceKearns]

very helpful

[@ooooo6089]

do you recommend this one or iTerm2?

[@bailout00]

My issue with this sort of thing has always been that I'm in 10-20 different shells every day, having customization in one and not in another gets real frustrating

[@RogerioGoSantos]

Top of my friend, you could make Kitty's terminal a friend.

[@okumamusicth3602]

How to fullscreen?

[@aceaspadesblack7399]

The wizard overwrote my entire .zshrc file; that's a lot of work to erase. I've got a backup, but that's not something which was mentioned in the wizard, or the video, definitely something to keep note of.

[@user-hh4br5tk5p]

Well done, nive rice you have there!

[@joseanmartinez]

Thanks!

[@integrii]

TIL you can brew internal nerdfonts

[@alamba78]

The brew tap homebrew/cask-fonts is deprecated.

[@louissenderler6866]

hi, I like you keyboard!

[@krisvanderven2367]

I know you also use(d) yabai, did you get Alacritty to work with yabai? When I use Alacritty now it is never managed by yabai and whatever I do it stays a floating window. Maybe it's because I also set it up as buttonless?

[@joseanmartinez]

Hmm that's weird, it works fine for me.

[@krisvanderven2367]

@@joseanmartinez weird indeed, will keep looking for a solution. It is stopping me from using Alacritty.

[@joseanmartinez]

@@krisvanderven2367 Maybe try updating both yabai and alacritty?

[@krisvanderven2367]

@@joseanmartinez when I changed "assign to all desktops" it worked. Never knew that option was on. #facePalm This video helped me switch!

[@OzzyMoto2K10]

What keyboard is that?

[@ivantedja5072]

I encounter this error brew tap homebrew/cask-fonts Error: homebrew/cask-fonts was deprecated. This tap is now empty and all its contents were either deleted or migrated. Have any of you had the same problem?

[@LahiruKurukulasuriya-pd5em]

Just skip that command. Last week they depreciate the repo. You can install fonts directly from homebrew

[@NikhilKumar-cl7rj]

After adding ls alias using eza I am unable to use ls -l command to see the permission related details of files but alternatively I can use eza -l to get all the file permission details

[@joseanmartinez]

Yeah you can change the alias to something like just “eza” with no arguments and use “ls -long” afterwards which is the argument you need for eza

[@joseanmartinez]

Actually, just changed the blog post to make the alias be "ls=eza --icons=always". Thanks for pointing this out.

[@NikhilKumar-cl7rj]

@@joseanmartinez you are welcome boiii

[@miguelv06]

Are you using qwerty layout on your keyboard?

[@joseanmartinez]

Yep!

[@Tranuc-up6sp]

oh great now i have to uninstall iterm2 that i just install yesterday

[@jimmahgee]

That’s a vibe

[@BiGreDNoSecoMpAny]

Tomorrow you will install Warp, then you find the next KZbinr who’s using the built-in MacOS Terminal for simplicity, then again someone tells you about an open source Warp alternative, only to switch back to Alacritty the day after 🙏 prayers to all of us clueless devs :(

[@Feedback406]

I use both Iterm2 you can view images with You can’t do that with alacrity

[@AllenGodswill-im3op]

Lol 😂, you can use both.

[@ness-ee]

Was ‘alacrity‘ already taken?

[@Heyitsnolie]

Unfortunately the fonts repo was deprecated - is there another way to get them?

[@soheilsalmani3405]

brew install --cask font-meslo-lg-nerd-font

[@arturofustet5883]

why do you start the script with a "so"?

[@MStoica]

What keyboard is that? 🥰

[@joseanmartinez]

MX Corne v3

[@dexmark5]

Is it ok to have 2 terminal setups on your computer? like iTerm2 and Alacritty running at the same time

[@joseanmartinez]

Sure! The colorschemes will be different, but that’s fine.

[@micaelviana]

Why do two terminals open at the same time? Is it not easier to use tabs?

[@joseanmartinez]

I was just answering as to whether its ok to have two setups. It is, but I personally just use one and use tmux for all my sessions, windows and panes.

[@dexmark5]

@@micaelviana i like to change from minimall to full info ones for diffrent ones that's why :)

[@ObscuraDeCapra]

Better than pissing around with Alacritty (and its jackass primary dev), tmux, and countless hours of dotfile hacking is using a non-trash terminal made for modern computers from the start. Tabby is what I'm running these days. It's not lightweight. It's not a teeny little 300 byte C file. It's Electron based with all that implies. But if you have a computer made from parts manufactured in the past 15 years or so this shouldn't be an issue. It looks amazing, has an incredible amount of features, and every single time I go looking for an option it's just RIGHT THERE. It has integrated SSH and TELNET. It understands that CTRL-C and CTRL-V copy and paste. It still hasn't figured out CTRL-A should be "SELECT ALL OF THE TEXT ON THIS LINE" but whatever. Themes out the wazoo. Settings are handled with a super intuitive menu that doesn't require trawling through man pages to understand. It's almost like they made a terminal for computers made after the turn of the century or something. Weird idea, isn't it?

[@owenbrown5992]

Why not just use warp? I’ve been using it for over a year now and absolutely love it

[@joseanmartinez]

I haven’t tried it, but I like that Alacritty is open source and it works well with my tmux/nvim workflow

[@owenbrown5992]

@@joseanmartinez I do like how it seems to build around the default Mac terminal. I just feel like Warp is already to go out of the box. Not much set up, but you still have ability to do plenty of customization

[@teamvigod]

How did you get your Neovim to look like that???

[@joseanmartinez]

I have a full guide on my Neovim setup here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bKGkeGZ4fdqlmq8si=ZuH80PQ1RTwWm3Uk

[@jrreed47]

kitty or wezterm all day

[@konakonaxiong7621]

hmmm,我在想有没有办法一打开Ala就直接是3 个很酷的 tmux session！

[@JMac___]

Is there a reason you’re not using your wireless corne anymore?

[@joseanmartinez]

I’ve been using both. I started a small shop where I have wired corne pcbs (splittype.com) and made one for myself and like it on my desk, but I still use the wireless one on the go.

[@johnfrusciante8080]

alacritty with tmux is slow, isn't it?

[@siuyutpang2335]

oh alacritty config file has blur option now

[@desireco]

Maybe if you care about productivity you could use Fish :)

[@ianm1837]

I see where this is going.. when are you installing Arch? 😜 Alacritty is great. Maybe a bit limited compared to some others, but it's the terminal I find myself using the most.

[@darkwoodmovies]

That keyboard setup is so hipster 🤣

[@Noah-rm4br]

6:30 that was not an arrow though, that was an arabic letter..

[@sanchit5764]

Why do i see this video the day I switched to Windows. Tx Microsoft

[@BrazenNL]

I like ligatures, so Alacritty is out for me. Wezterm wins.

[@danwroy]

UPDATE LAZY

[@javenwang]

kitty is faster than alacritty

[@joseanmartinez]

Have heard good things about Kitty, Alacritty is pretty fast too!

[@zheil9152]

Watching people burn all of the milliseconds of “saved time” by advertising their slightly faster alternative will never not be funny

[@fschlegelone]

nobody notices that they are both fast as fck

[@jeroAhumada]

I tried kitty but there's some issues with tmux, and the main developer says he hates tmux so he have no plans to fix them, that's why I stuck with iterm2. Now with this video, I think I'm gonna try alacritty

[@fschlegelone]

@@jeroAhumada hahah yeah thats why kitty introduced their own session & pane management

[@elgreengroo]

It's strange that for someone who makes everything so convenient for himself, you completely ignore the autocomplete capabilities of the command line and type everything in its entirety....

[@joseanmartinez]

Its for the tutorial, to make things clear and easy to follow

[@miyu545]

The best way to make a MAC amazing is to use a Windows PC.

[@jwr6796]

That boots Linux.

[@chandebrec5856]

Can always tell the Windows users by their rendering of "Mac" in all uppercase as if it were "IBM".

[@ooooo6089]

HELPPP Error: homebrew/cask-fonts was deprecated. This tap is now empty and all its contents were either deleted or migrated.

[@soheilsalmani3405]

brew install --cask font-meslo-lg-nerd-font

[@castawaydotcom]

How do you move the window (with mouse) if the titlebar disappears