⚡ Multi-Term

A native macOS terminal multiplexer for power users.

Run multiple terminal sessions in a single window with draggable, resizable, color-coded panes.

Built with Swift · SwiftUI · AppKit · SwiftTerm

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✨ Features

• 🖥️ Multiple terminal panes — Spawn as many terminals as you need, each running its own independent shell session
• 🖱️ Drag & drop layout — Freely position and resize panes on a dot-grid canvas
• 🎨 Color-coded panes — Assign colors to terminals for instant visual identification
• ✏️ Rename terminals — Double-click or right-click the title bar to rename any pane
• 📂 Project tabs — Organize terminal groups into separate project workspaces
• 📁 File explorer — Sidebar that auto-syncs to the focused terminal's working directory via OSC 7 shell integration
• ⚡ Native performance — Zero-overhead keyboard input through direct AppKit event handling
• 🍎 macOS native — No Electron, no web views. Pure Swift + SwiftUI + AppKit

📸 Screenshots

📦 Installation

Download a release

Grab the latest release from the Releases page:

Format	Description
Multi-Term-x.x.x.pkg	macOS installer — double-click to install to /Applications
Multi-Term-x.x.x.zip	Portable — unzip and drag Multi-Term.app to /Applications

Note

Multi-Term is ad-hoc signed (not notarized with Apple Developer ID). On first launch, right-click the app → Open to bypass Gatekeeper.

Build from source

Requires Xcode 15+ and macOS 13 (Ventura) or later.

git clone https://github.com/SingularityAI-Dev/multi-term.git
cd multi-term
swift build
swift run

Create distributable packages

./build-dist.sh

This produces Multi-Term.app, Multi-Term-x.x.x.pkg, and Multi-Term-x.x.x.zip in the dist/ directory.

🚀 Usage

Action	How
New terminal	Click + in the tab bar
Move a pane	Drag the colored title bar
Resize a pane	Drag the bottom edge
Focus a terminal	Click inside the terminal area
Rename	Double-click the title bar, or right-click → Rename…
Change color	Right-click title bar → Color → pick a preset
Close a pane	Right-click title bar → Close Terminal
New project tab	Click + next to the tab bar

🏗️ Architecture

Multi-Term uses a hybrid SwiftUI + AppKit architecture:

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  SwiftUI Shell                                       │
│  ┌────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐  │
│  │  File  │  AppKit Terminal Canvas (NSView)      │  │
│  │Explorer│  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐    │  │
│  │  (OSC7 │  │ Terminal 1  │  │ Terminal 2  │    │  │
│  │  sync) │  │ (zsh)       │  │ (zsh)       │    │  │
│  │        │  └─────────────┘  └─────────────┘    │  │
│  └────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘  │
│  Tab Bar: [ Development ] [ Staging ] [ + ]          │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

• SwiftUI handles the outer chrome — tab bar, file explorer sidebar, and window management
• AppKit handles the terminal canvas — all panes are native NSView subviews with frame-based positioning, ensuring standard AppKit hit-testing and first-responder keyboard input
• SwiftTerm provides the terminal emulator with full xterm-256color support, mouse reporting, and Metal-accelerated rendering

Why not pure SwiftUI?

SwiftUI's NSViewRepresentable embeds AppKit views inside an NSHostingView that intercepts all events via hitTest. Combined with .offset() using CALayer transforms (which don't affect AppKit's frame-based hit testing), the terminal views never receive mouse or keyboard events. Multi-Term solves this by hosting all terminals in a single AppKit NSView container where standard event routing works naturally.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how to get started:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feat/my-feature
3. Make your changes and test locally with swift build && swift run
4. Commit with a descriptive message: git commit -m "feat: add split-pane support"
5. Push to your fork: git push origin feat/my-feature
6. Open a Pull Request against main

Development guidelines

• Follow existing code style and naming conventions
• Keep commits focused — one feature or fix per commit
• Test on macOS 13+ before submitting
• Update the README if adding user-facing features

Ideas for contributions

• Split-pane tiling (horizontal/vertical splits)
• Layout persistence (save/restore pane positions across launches)
• Custom shell support (bash, fish, nushell via settings)
• Keyboard shortcuts (Cmd+T new tab, Cmd+N new pane, etc.)
• Themes and font customization
• Search within terminal scrollback
• Drag-and-drop file paths into terminals

Reporting issues

Found a bug? Please open an issue with:

• macOS version
• Steps to reproduce
• Expected vs actual behavior
• Console output if available (run from Terminal.app to see logs)

⚙️ Requirements

• macOS 13.0 (Ventura) or later
• App Sandbox must be disabled (SPM builds have no sandbox by default)

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• SwiftTerm by Miguel de Icaza — the terminal emulator powering Multi-Term