Setting up Terminal on macOS
April 29, 2020
Setting up convenient Terminal defaults on macOS can be done manually or
automatically. This post improves upon the previous post
by providing a simple bash or zsh script for setting up useful defaults,
which are to:
- Disable the bell sound and flash
- Use option key as the meta key in Terminal
- Close the window if the shell exits cleanly
- Enable Secure Keyboard Entry
This can all be done using the /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy tool. Here are the
options being changed:
| Key | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| SecureKeyboardEntry | YES | |
| Bell | NO | |
| VisualBell | NO | |
| useOptionAsMetaKey | YES | |
| shellExitAction | 1 | Close if the shell exited cleanly |
The SecureKeyboardEntry is the only global choice. The other options are
specific to the default theme.
Here is the script: (Note: the last command kills the Terminal app in order to load the settings)
PLIST="$HOME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist"
THEME=`/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print 'Startup Window Settings'" $PLIST`
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set 'SecureKeyboardEntry' YES" $PLIST
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set 'Window Settings':${THEME}:Bell NO" $PLIST
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set 'Window Settings':${THEME}:VisualBell NO" $PLIST
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set 'Window Settings':${THEME}:useOptionAsMetaKey YES" $PLIST
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set 'Window Settings':${THEME}:shellExitAction 1" $PLIST
killall Terminal