Extraterm

Extraterm is an open source terminal emulator for Linux, macOS and Windows, written in TypeScript by Simon Edwards. The README calls it a project to expand the terminal with features for modern workflows, and the user guide describes its design as maximalist. It suits people who want shell output handled as structured blocks and are willing to trade some resource use and polish for features that most terminals do not have.

The current version, released as ExtratermQt from 0.60.0 onward, runs on Qt 6 and Node.js through NodeGui. It replaced the older Electron version, which stopped at 0.59.4 in January 2022, and both can be installed side by side. Many features are implemented as extensions that can be enabled or disabled in the Extensions settings tab, and the features page notes that some features are still only in the old Electron version.

Settings are changed through a Settings tab opened from the hamburger menu, with tabs for general options, appearance, session types, keybindings, frames and extensions. They are stored as JSON, mainly extraterm.json, in an extratermqt directory under the platform's config location such as ~/.config/extratermqt/ on Linux, alongside folders for user themes and keybindings. Placing an application_paths.json next to the executable moves the settings directory, which allows a portable install. Built-in keybinding sets cannot be edited directly; you duplicate one and change the copy.

With the bash, zsh or fish shell integration, each command's output is placed in a frame that shows its exit status and can be deleted, collapsed or moved to its own tab. The show command displays files and images in the terminal, and the from command feeds a previous frame's output, from any tab, into a new command. Other features include a command palette, a mini-map of the scrollback, tabs that can be dragged into splits or separate windows, a regex-based Colorizer, ligatures, iTerm2 themes and iTerm2-style inline images. The project is not at 1.0 and the site asks users to tolerate the occasional bug. Rendering uses Qt's painter rather than the GPU, and the 0.82.0 release, from May 2026, ships only Linux and Windows builds.