Windows Terminal is Microsoft’s modern terminal that hosts Command Prompt, PowerShell, WSL, and more. Here’s how to become a power user.

Basic Navigation

  • Ctrl+Shift+T — New tab
  • Ctrl+Shift+D — Duplicate current tab
  • Ctrl+Shift+W — Close tab
  • Alt+Shift+D — Split pane vertically
  • Alt+Shift+- — Split pane horizontally
  • Alt+Arrow — Move between panes
  • Alt+Shift+Arrow — Resize pane

Open Settings

Ctrl+, opens the settings UI. You can edit in the GUI or open the JSON file directly. The GUI is fine for most customizations. Go to Profiles → Defaults for settings that apply to all profiles.

Custom Theme

In settings, add a new color scheme:

{
  "name": "Dracula",
  "background": "#282a36",
  "foreground": "#f8f8f2",
  "black": "#21222c",
  "red": "#ff5555",
  "green": "#50fa7b",
  "yellow": "#f1fa8c",
  "blue": "#bd93f9",
  "purple": "#ff79c6",
  "cyan": "#8be9fd",
  "white": "#f8f8f2"
}

Assign it to a profile under Appearance → Color scheme.

Oh My Posh

Install Oh My Posh for a beautiful prompt:

winget install JanDeDobbeleer.OhMyPosh

Add to your PowerShell profile ($PROFILE):

oh-my-posh init pwsh | Invoke-Expression

Choose a theme: oh-my-posh init pwsh --config ~/theme.json | Invoke-Expression. Get themes from ohmyposh.dev.

Profile Configuration

Create custom profiles for SSH servers. In settings → Add new profile:

{
  "name": "My Server",
  "commandline": "ssh user@myserver.com",
  "icon": "🖥️"
}

This creates a dedicated entry in the dropdown menu that opens an SSH session with one click.