How to geek up your MacOS Terminal in few simple steps

iTerm2 — https://iterm2.com

First let us install iTerm2 terminal.

iTerm2 is a terminal emulator for macOS. iTerm2 is a replacement for Terminal and the successor to iTerm. It works on Macs with macOS 10.14 or newer. iTerm2 brings the terminal into the modern age with features you never knew you always wanted.

brew install --cask iterm2

Or, download and install iTerm2 directly from here: https://iterm2.com/downloads.html

Oh My Zsh — https://ohmyz.sh

Now, let us install oh My Zsh. Oh My Zsh is an open source, community-driven framework for managing your Zsh configuration.

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

When the installation is done, edit ~/.zshrc and set ZSH_THEME="agnoster" for the default look.

Powerlevel9k / Powerlevel10k — https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k

Powerlevel10k is a theme for Zsh. It emphasizes speed, flexibility and out-of-the-box experience. Why Powerlevel10k? Well, because it’s a drop-in replacement for Powerlevel9k, just a lot faster to render your prompt. ls feels fast again!

So if you prefer the Powerlevel10k look with added info such as exit codes and timestamps on the right, run:

git clone https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/themes/powerlevel10k

Then edit your ~/.zshrc and set ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k". Once you are done, when you start a new terminal session, the Powerlevel10 configure wizard will be launched to set your prompt, beware, there are many many options!

If you configure wizard didn’t launch automatically, type “p10k configure” in the terminal and enter.

p10k configure

Answer all the questions to your liking and you are done. It should look like this:

iTerm2 Terminal

If you have trouble with icons, make sure you check the box for “Use built-in Powerline glyphs” as shown below from iTerm2 preferences.

Icon-issue