terminator(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | KEYBINDINGS | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

TERMINATOR(1)             Manual for Terminator             TERMINATOR(1)

NAME         top

       terminator - multiple GNOME terminals in one window

SYNOPSIS         top

       terminator [options]

DESCRIPTION         top

       This manual page documents Terminator, a terminal emulator
       application.

       Terminator is a program that allows users to set up flexible
       arrangements of GNOME terminals. It is aimed at those who normally
       arrange lots of terminals near each other, but don’t want to use a
       frame based window manager.

OPTIONS         top

       This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long
       options starting with two dashes (`-'). A summary of options is
       included below.

       -h, --help
           Show summary of options.

       -v, --version
           Show the version of the Terminator installation.

       -m, -M, --maximise, --maximize
           Start with a maximised window.

       -f, --fullscreen
           Start with a fullscreen window.

       -b, --borderless
           Instruct the window manager not to render borders/decorations
           on the Terminator window (this works well with --maximise).

       -H, --hidden
           Hide the Terminator window by default. Its visibility can be
           toggled with the hide_window keyboard shortcut
           (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+A by default).

       -T FORCEDTITLE, --title=FORCEDTITLE
           Force the Terminator window to use a specific name rather than
           updating it dynamically based on the wishes of the child
           shell.

       --geometry=GEOMETRY
           Specify the preferred size and position of Terminator’s
           window; see X(7).

       -e COMMAND, --command=COMMAND
           Run the specified command instead of the default shell or
           profile specified command.
           Note: if Terminator is launched as x-terminal-emulator -e
           behaves like -x, and the longform becomes --execute2=COMMAND.

       -x COMMAND [ARGS], --execute=COMMAND [ARGS]
           Run the rest of the command line instead of the default shell
           or profile specified command.

       --working-directory=DIR
           Set the terminal’s working directory.

       -g FILE, --config=FILE
           Use the specified file for configuration.

       -r ROLE, --role=ROLE
           Set a custom WM_WINDOW_ROLE property on the window.

       -l LAYOUT, --layout=LAYOUT
           Start Terminator with a specific layout. The argument here is
           the name of a saved layout.

       -s LAYOUT, --select-layout=LAYOUT
           Open the layout launcher window instead of the normal
           terminal.

       -p, --profile=PROFILE
           Use a different profile as the default.

       -i, --icon=FORCEDICON
           Set a custom icon for the window (by file or name)

       -u, --no-dbus
           Disable DBus.

       -d, --debug
           Enable debugging output (please use this when reporting bugs).
           This can be specified twice to enable a built-in python
           debugging server.

       --debug-classes=DEBUG_CLASSES
           If this is specified as a comma separated list, debugging
           output will only be printed from the specified classes.

       --debug-methods=DEBUG_METHODS
           If this is specified as a comma separated list, debugging
           output will only be printed from the specified functions. If
           this is specified in addition to --debug-classes, only the
           intersection of the two lists will be displayed.

       --new-tab
           If this is specified and Terminator is already running, DBus
           will be used to spawn a new tab in the first Terminator
           window.

       --toggle-visibility
           If this is specified and Terminator is already running, DBus
           will be used to toggle Terminator window visibility. Usable
           under Wayland to replace hide keyboad shortcut.

KEYBINDINGS         top

       The following default keybindings can be used to control
       Terminator. Most of these keybindings can be changed in the
       Preferences.

       F1
           Launches the full HTML manual.

   Creation & Destruction
       The following items relate to creating and destroying terminals.

       Ctrl+Shift+O
           Split terminals Horizontally.

       Ctrl+Shift+E
           Split terminals Vertically.

       Ctrl+Shift+T
           Open new tab.

       Ctrl+Shift+I
           Open a new window.
           (Note: unlike in previous releases, this window is part of the
           same Terminator process.)

       Super+I
           Spawn a new Terminator process.

       Alt+L
           Open layout launcher.

       Ctrl+Shift+W
           Close the current terminal.

       Ctrl+Shift+Q
           Close the current window.

   Navigation
       The following items relate to moving between and around terminals.

       Alt+Up
           Move to the terminal above the current one.

       Alt+Down
           Move to the terminal below the current one.

       Alt+Left
           Move to the terminal left of the current one.

       Alt+Right
           Move to the terminal right of the current one.

       Ctrl+PageDown
           Move to next tab.

       Ctrl+PageUp
           Move to previous tab.

       Ctrl+Shift+N or Ctrl+Tab
           Move to the next terminal within the same tab.

       Ctrl+Shift+P or Ctrl+Shift+Tab
           Move to the previous terminal within the same tab.

   Organisation
       The following items relate to arranging and resizing terminals.

       Ctrl+Shift+Right
           Move parent dragbar right.

       Ctrl+Shift+Left
           Move parent dragbar left.

       Ctrl+Shift+Up
           Move parent dragbar up.

       Ctrl+Shift+Down
           Move parent dragbar down.

       Super+R
           Rotate terminals clockwise.

       Super+Shift+R
           Rotate terminals counter-clockwise.

       Ctrl+Shift+PageDown
           Swap tab position with next tab.

       Ctrl+Shift+PageUp
           Swap tab position with previous tab.

       Drag and Drop
           The layout can be modified by moving terminals with Drag and
           Drop. To start dragging a terminal, click and hold on its
           titlebar. Alternatively, hold down Ctrl, click and hold the
           right mouse button. Then, **release Ctrl**. You can now drag
           the terminal to the point in the layout you would like it to
           be. The zone where the terminal would be inserted will be
           highlighted.

   Focus
       The following items relate to helping to focus on a specific
       terminal.

       F11
           Toggle window to fullscreen.

       Ctrl+Shift+X
           Toggle between showing all terminals and only showing the
           current one (maximise).

       Ctrl+Shift+Z
           Toggle between showing all terminals and only showing a scaled
           version of the current one (zoom).

       Ctrl+Shift+Alt+A
           Hide the initial window. Note that this is a X11 global
           binding, and can only be bound once. On Wayland use window
           manager keyboard shortcuts to call terminator
           --toggle-visibility.

   Grouping & Broadcasting
       The following items relate to grouping and broadcasting.

       Super+T
           Group all terminals in the current tab so that any input sent
           to one of them goes to all of them.

       Super+Shift+T
           Remove grouping from all terminals in the current tab.

       Super+G
           Group all terminals so that any input sent to one of them goes
           to all of them.

       Super+Shift+G
           Remove grouping from all terminals.

       Alt+A
           Broadcast to all terminals.

       Alt+G
           Broadcast to grouped terminals.

       Alt+O
           Broadcast off.

   Miscellaneous
       The following items relate to miscellaneous terminal related
       functions.

       Ctrl+Shift+C
           Copy selected text to clipboard.

       Ctrl+Shift+V
           Paste clipboard text.

       Ctrl+Shift+S
           Toggle scrollbar.

       Ctrl+Shift+F
           Search within terminal scrollback.

       Ctrl+Shift+R
           Reset terminal state.

       Ctrl+Shift+G
           Reset terminal state and clear window.

       Ctrl+Plus (+)
           Increase font size.
           Note: this may require you to press shift, depending on your
           keyboard.

       Ctrl+Minus (-)
           Decrease font size.
           Note: this may require you to press shift, depending on your
           keyboard.

       Ctrl+Zero (0)
           Restore font size to original setting.

       Ctrl+Alt+W
           Rename window title.

       Ctrl+Alt+A
           Rename tab title.

       Ctrl+Alt+X
           Rename terminal title.

       Super+1
           Insert terminal number, i.e. 1 to 12.

       Super+0
           Insert padded terminal number, i.e. 01 to 12.

AUTHORS         top

       Terminator was written by Chris Jones <cmsj@tenshu.net> and
       others.

       This manual page was written by Chris Jones <cmsj@tenshu.net> and
       others.

SEE ALSO         top

       terminator_config(5)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the util-linux (a random collection of Linux
       utilities) project. Information about the project can be found at
       ⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩. If you have
       a bug report for this manual page, send it to
       util-linux@vger.kernel.org. This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git⟩ on
       2025-08-11. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that
       was found in the repository was 2025-08-05.) If you discover any
       rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
       believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
       or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
       COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a
       mail to man-pages@man7.org

Terminator                      2023-04-01                  TERMINATOR(1)

Pages that refer to this page: terminator_config(5)