πEnhancing Your MacOS Terminal Experience
Enhancing Your MacOS Terminal Experience with iTerm2
Elevate your terminal experience on MacOS by following this quick tutorial on installing iTerm2 and applying a custom color scheme. This will not only improve the aesthetics of your terminal but also potentially make it easier to read and work with.
Step 1: Install Homebrew
Homebrew is a package manager for MacOS that simplifies the process of installing software on MacOS. Run the following command in your terminal to install Homebrew:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
Step 2: Install iTerm2
With Homebrew installed, you can easily install iTerm2 by running:
brew install --cask iterm2
Step 3: Download and Apply iTerm2 Color Scheme
Choose your desired iTerm2 color scheme from iTerm2 Color Schemes.
Download the theme file and save it using the following extension:
.itermcolors
.Open iTerm2.
Go to iTerm > Preferences > Profiles > Colors tab.
Click on Color Presets... at the bottom right > Import...
Select your downloaded
.itermcolors
file.Once imported, select it from the list of Color Presets.

Step 4: Install Oh My Zsh
using the following command:
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
Step 5: Install Syntax Highlighting and Auto-Suggestions Plugins
Syntax Highlighting:
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting
Auto-Suggestions:
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions
After cloning, add zsh-syntax-highlighting
and zsh-autosuggestions
to the plugins
section in ~/.zshrc
.
plugins=(git zsh-syntax-highlighting zsh-autosuggestions)
Step 6: Install and Configure the Powerlevel10k Theme
Clone the Powerlevel10k repository:
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k
Update the
ZSH_THEME
line in your~/.zshrc
file to use Powerlevel10k:
ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k"
Apply the changes by sourcing
~/.zshrc
:
source ~/.zshrc
Step 7: Install a Nerd Font
To fully enjoy Powerlevel10k, you'll need a Nerd Font. Choose and download your preferred Nerd Font from Nerd Fonts. Install the font on your system then set it from iTerm2 preferences.
Step 8: Beautifying the ls
Command with colorls
Ruby gem
ls
Command with colorls
Ruby gemInstall colorls
:
sudo gem install colorls
To avoid typing colorls
every time, we'll create an alias in the .zshrc
file. This will allow us to use ls
as a substitute command. Open ~/.zshrc
and add:
alias ls='colorls'
Apply Changes: For the alias to take effect, source your .zshrc
file by running:
source ~/.zshrc
Et voilΓ !

Reference:
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