Skip to content

Terminal

Jump to bottom
Mehdi edited this page Sep 2, 2026 · 10 revisions

Terminal

SSH Pilot's terminal is where you interact with your servers. It supports tabs, split view, broadcast mode, and more.

Opening a Terminal

  • SSH connection -- Double-click a server in the sidebar, or select it and press Enter
  • Local terminal -- Press Ctrl+Shift+T (Cmd+Shift+T on macOS), or click the local terminal button in the header bar
  • New tab for same server -- Press Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on macOS). You can do the same thing by a middle-click or 3-finger tap.

Each connection opens in its own tab at the top of the window.

Tab Basics

Switching between tabs

  • Click any tab in the tab bar
  • Press Ctrl+Page Down / Ctrl+Page Up to go to the next/previous tab

Closing a tab

  • Click the x on the tab, or press Ctrl+Shift+W (Cmd+Shift+W on macOS). You can also close a tab by middle-clicking it.

Renaming a tab

  • Right-click the tab and select Rename - Double clicking a tab title also allows you to rename.
  • Type a new name and press Enter

Moving tabs

  • Drag a tab to reorder it
  • Press Ctrl+Shift+Page Up / Ctrl+Shift+Page Down to move left/right

Tab overview

  • Press Ctrl+Shift+Tab (Cmd+Shift+Tab on macOS) to see all open tabs as thumbnails

Split View

Split view lets you view multiple terminals side by side in a grid. This is great for monitoring one server while working on another.

Split view with multiple terminals

Creating a split view

Method 1 -- From the header bar:

  1. Click the split view button in the header bar
  2. A new split-view tab opens with an empty grid
  3. Drag connections from the sidebar into the panes, or click the + button in a pane to pick a connection

Method 2 -- From an existing tab:

  1. Right-click a tab header
  2. Select Split Right or Split Down

Method 3 -- Drag a connection into a terminal:

  1. Drag a connection (or group) from the sidebar
  2. Drop it onto any existing terminal tab
  3. The terminal converts to a split view with the new connection added

This works with both single connections and groups. Dragging a group opens all its connections in the split view.

Layout options

Split view supports two layouts:

  • Side by side -- Terminals arranged in columns - This turns into a grid automatically if you open more than 2 tabs.
  • Top and bottom -- Terminals arranged in rows

Toggle between layouts using the buttons in the split view header.

Resizing panes

Drag the border between panes to resize them.

Adding more panes

Click the + button in any empty pane to add another terminal. You can also drag connections from the sidebar into empty panes.

Closing a pane

Use the regular close tab shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+W) to close the focused pane.

Keyboard navigation

Assign shortcuts in Settings > Shortcuts > Split View to:

  • Focus adjacent panes (left, right, up, down)
  • Resize panes with the keyboard
  • Add new panes

Broadcast Mode

Broadcast mode sends the same command to multiple terminal tabs at once. This is useful for running the same command on a cluster of servers.

Step 1 -- Enable broadcast mode

Press Ctrl+Shift+B (Cmd+Shift+B on macOS). A broadcast bar appears at the bottom of the terminal.

Step 2 -- Type your command

Type the command you want to run on all open terminals.

Step 3 -- Send

Press Enter. The command is sent to every open terminal tab.

Step 4 -- Disable broadcast mode

Press Escape or close the broadcast bar to stop broadcasting. After that, typing goes to only the focused terminal.

Warning: Be careful with broadcast mode. A command like rm -rf / will run on every open terminal.

Terminal Features

Copy and paste

Copy:

  • Ctrl+Shift+C (Cmd+C on macOS) -- copy selected text
  • Or enable Copy on selection (below) to auto-copy when you select text

Paste:

  • Ctrl+Shift+V (Cmd+V on macOS) -- paste from clipboard
  • Or enable Paste on right-click (below) to paste with right-click

Copy on selection

When enabled, text is automatically copied to the clipboard as soon as you finish selecting it. No keyboard shortcut needed -- just select and it is ready to paste elsewhere.

To enable: Settings > Terminal > Mouse > Copy on selection

Paste on right-click

When enabled, right-clicking in the terminal pastes the clipboard contents. If you need the context menu instead, hold Shift and right-click.

To enable: Settings > Terminal > Mouse > Paste on right-click

Right-click behavior Paste on right-click OFF Paste on right-click ON
Right-click Opens context menu Pastes from clipboard
Shift + right-click Opens context menu Opens context menu

Find in terminal

  1. Press Ctrl+Shift+F (Cmd+Shift+F on macOS) to open the search bar
  2. Type your search term
  3. Press Enter or Ctrl+G to find next
  4. Press Shift+Enter or Ctrl+Shift+G to find previous
  5. Press Escape to close the search bar

Zoom

  • Zoom in -- Ctrl+= (Cmd+= on macOS)
  • Zoom out -- Ctrl+- (Cmd+- on macOS)
  • Reset zoom -- Ctrl+0 (Cmd+0 on macOS)

Open URLs

Hold Ctrl and click a URL in the terminal to open it in your default browser.

Change terminal theme

Click the terminal theme button in the header bar to pick a different color scheme. Choose from dark, light, dracula, monokai, solarized, and more.

Change terminal font

Go to Settings > Terminal > Font to choose your preferred monospace font.

Terminal Backend

SSH Pilot supports two terminal backends. You can switch between them in Settings > Terminal > Backend.

VTE (default)

The native GTK4 terminal widget. This is the default on macOS and the fallback on Linux.

  • Lightweight and fast
  • Native GTK4 integration
  • UTF-8 only (no encoding selector needed)
  • Best for most users

PyXterm.js

An embedded xterm.js terminal running inside a WebKitGTK 6 view. This is available on Linux only (not macOS, because WebKitGTK is not used on the macOS build).

  • Better compatibility with modern terminal applications (htop, vim, tmux, mc)
  • Supports multiple character encodings (selectable in Settings)
  • Command autocomplete from local history and snippets
  • Slightly heavier than VTE (uses WebKit)

Requirements: WebKit 6.0 and the xterm.js assets (bundled or from your system's libjs-xterm package).

Switching backends

  1. Open Settings > Terminal > Backend
  2. Select your preferred backend
  3. If you have open terminal tabs, the change applies to new tabs only. Existing tabs keep their current backend.

Note: On macOS, only VTE is available. PyXterm.js will not appear as an option.

Tips

Tip: If you use a tiling window manager or text expander (like Espanso) and experience conflicts, enable Terminal Shortcut Pass-through in Settings > Terminal > Keyboard. This disables all SSH Pilot shortcuts and passes keys directly to the terminal.

Tip: Press F9 (or Cmd+B on macOS) to hide or show the sidebar. For auto-hide on connect and related settings, see Plain Terminal Mode.

Next Steps

Clone this wiki locally