Alacritty

lastmod 2026-10-23created 2018-12-2620 edits

Alacritty is the fastest terminal emulator in existence. Using the GPU for rendering enables optimizations that simply aren't possible in other emulators. Alacritty currently supports macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Installation

When installing with cargo:

Check and upgrade to the latest Rust version:

rustup update

Install dependencies (on Ubuntu):

sudo apt install cmake pkg-config libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig1-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev libxkbcommon-dev python3

(For dependencies, refer to the installation page and install them yourself)

Install with cargo:

cargo install alacritty

Post-installation tasks

alacritty/INSTALL.md at master · alacritty/alacritty · GitHub

There are some extra things you need to set up after installing Alacritty. All post-build instructions assume you are still inside the Alacritty repository.

Terminfo

To make sure Alacritty works correctly, either the alacritty or alacritty-direct terminfo must be used. The alacritty terminfo will be picked up automatically if it is installed.

If the following command returns without any errors, the alacritty terminfo is already installed.

infocmp alacritty

If it is not present yet, you can install it globally with the following command.

sudo tic -xe alacritty,alacritty-direct extra/alacritty.info

The file can be obtained from the release page or the github repository.

Afterwards, typing infocmp alacritty should show a result like the following.

$ infocmp alacritty
#   Reconstructed via infocmp from file: /etc/terminfo/a/alacritty
alacritty|alacritty terminal emulator,
    am, bce, ccc, hs, km, mc5i, mir, msgr, npc, xenl,
    colors#0x100, cols#80, it#8, lines#24, pairs#0x7fff,
    acsc=``aaffggiijjkkllmmnnooppqqrrssttuuvvwwxxyyzz{{||}}~~,
    bel=^G, bold=\E[1m, cbt=\E[Z, civis=\E[?25l,
    clear=\E[H\E[2J, cnorm=\E[?12l\E[?25h, cr=\r,
    csr=\E[%i%p1%d;%p2%dr, cub=\E[%p1%dD, cub1=^H,
    cud=\E[%p1%dB, cud1=\n, cuf=\E[%p1%dC, cuf1=\E[C,
    cup=\E[%i%p1%d;%p2%dH, cuu=\E[%p1%dA, cuu1=\E[A,
    cvvis=\E[?12;25h, dch=\E[%p1%dP, dch1=\E[P, dim=\E[2m,
    dl=\E[%p1%dM, dl1=\E[M, dsl=\E]2;\007, ech=\E[%p1%dX,
    ed=\E[J, el=\E[K, el1=\E[1K, flash=\E[?5h$<100/>\E[?5l,
    fsl=^G, home=\E[H, hpa=\E[%i%p1%dG, ht=^I, hts=\EH,
    ich=\E[%p1%d@, il=\E[%p1%dL, il1=\E[L, ind=\n,
    indn=\E[%p1%dS,
    initc=\E]4;%p1%d;rgb:%p2%{255}%*%{1000}%/%2.2X/%p3%{255}%*%{1000}%/%2.2X/%p4%{255}%*%{1000}%/%2.2X\E\\,
    invis=\E[8m, is2=\E[!p\E[?3;4l\E[4l\E>, kDC=\E[3;2~,
    kEND=\E[1;2F, kHOM=\E[1;2H, kIC=\E[2;2~, kLFT=\E[1;2D,
    kNXT=\E[6;2~, kPRV=\E[5;2~, kRIT=\E[1;2C, kb2=\EOE, kbs=^?,
    kcbt=\E[Z, kcub1=\EOD, kcud1=\EOB, kcuf1=\EOC, kcuu1=\EOA,
    kdch1=\E[3~, kend=\EOF, kent=\EOM, kf1=\EOP, kf10=\E[21~,
    kf11=\E[23~, kf12=\E[24~, kf13=\E[1;2P, kf14=\E[1;2Q,
    kf15=\E[1;2R, kf16=\E[1;2S, kf17=\E[15;2~, kf18=\E[17;2~,
    kf19=\E[18;2~, kf2=\EOQ, kf20=\E[19;2~, kf21=\E[20;2~,
    kf22=\E[21;2~, kf23=\E[23;2~, kf24=\E[24;2~,
    kf25=\E[1;5P, kf26=\E[1;5Q, kf27=\E[1;5R, kf28=\E[1;5S,
    kf29=\E[15;5~, kf3=\EOR, kf30=\E[17;5~, kf31=\E[18;5~,
    kf32=\E[19;5~, kf33=\E[20;5~, kf34=\E[21;5~,
    kf35=\E[23;5~, kf36=\E[24;5~, kf37=\E[1;6P, kf38=\E[1;6Q,
    kf39=\E[1;6R, kf4=\EOS, kf40=\E[1;6S, kf41=\E[15;6~,
    kf42=\E[17;6~, kf43=\E[18;6~, kf44=\E[19;6~,
    kf45=\E[20;6~, kf46=\E[21;6~, kf47=\E[23;6~,
    kf48=\E[24;6~, kf49=\E[1;3P, kf5=\E[15~, kf50=\E[1;3Q,
    kf51=\E[1;3R, kf52=\E[1;3S, kf53=\E[15;3~, kf54=\E[17;3~,
    kf55=\E[18;3~, kf56=\E[19;3~, kf57=\E[20;3~,
    kf58=\E[21;3~, kf59=\E[23;3~, kf6=\E[17~, kf60=\E[24;3~,
    kf61=\E[1;4P, kf62=\E[1;4Q, kf63=\E[1;4R, kf7=\E[18~,
    kf8=\E[19~, kf9=\E[20~, khome=\EOH, kich1=\E[2~,
    kind=\E[1;2B, kmous=\E[M, knp=\E[6~, kpp=\E[5~,
    kri=\E[1;2A, mc0=\E[i, mc4=\E[4i, mc5=\E[5i, meml=\El,
    memu=\Em, oc=\E]104\007, op=\E[39;49m, rc=\E8,
    rep=%p1%c\E[%p2%{1}%-%db, rev=\E[7m, ri=\EM,
    rin=\E[%p1%dT, ritm=\E[23m, rmacs=\E(B, rmam=\E[?7l,
    rmcup=\E[?1049l\E[23;0;0t, rmir=\E[4l, rmkx=\E[?1l\E>,
    rmm=\E[?1034l, rmso=\E[27m, rmul=\E[24m,
    rs1=\Ec\E]104\007, rs2=\E[!p\E[?3;4l\E[4l\E>, sc=\E7,
    setab=\E[%?%p1%{8}%<%t4%p1%d%e%p1%{16}%<%t10%p1%{8}%-%d%e48;5;%p1%d%;m,
    setaf=\E[%?%p1%{8}%<%t3%p1%d%e%p1%{16}%<%t9%p1%{8}%-%d%e38;5;%p1%d%;m,
    setb@, setf@,
    sgr=%?%p9%t\E(0%e\E(B%;\E[0%?%p6%t;1%;%?%p5%t;2%;%?%p2%t;4%;%?%p1%p3%|%t;7%;%?%p4%t;5%;%?%p7%t;8%;m,
    sgr0=\E(B\E[m, sitm=\E[3m, smacs=\E(0, smam=\E[?7h,
    smcup=\E[?1049h\E[22;0;0t, smir=\E[4h, smkx=\E[?1h\E=,
    smm=\E[?1034h, smso=\E[7m, smul=\E[4m, tbc=\E[3g,
    tsl=\E]2;, u6=\E[%i%d;%dR, u7=\E[6n,
    u8=\E[?%[;0123456789]c, u9=\E[c, vpa=\E[%i%p1%dd,

Desktop Entry

Many Linux and BSD distributions support desktop entries for adding applications to the system menu. The following installs the desktop entry for Alacritty.

sudo cp target/release/alacritty /usr/local/bin # or anywhere else in $PATH
sudo cp extra/logo/alacritty-term.svg /usr/share/pixmaps/Alacritty.svg
sudo desktop-file-install extra/linux/Alacritty.desktop
sudo update-desktop-database

If you have problems with Alacritty's logo, you can replace it with the prerendered PNGs and simplified SVGs available in the extra/logo/compat directory of the github repository.

Manual Page

Installing the manual page requires the additional dependencies gzip and scdoc.

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/share/man/man1
scdoc < extra/man/alacritty.1.scd | gzip -c | sudo tee /usr/local/share/man/man1/alacritty.1.gz > /dev/null
scdoc < extra/man/alacritty-msg.1.scd | gzip -c | sudo tee /usr/local/share/man/man1/alacritty-msg.1.gz > /dev/null
scdoc < extra/man/alacritty.5.scd | gzip -c | sudo tee /usr/local/share/man/man5/alacritty.5.gz > /dev/null
scdoc < extra/man/alacritty-bindings.5.scd | gzip -c | sudo tee /usr/local/share/man/man5/alacritty-bindings.5.gz > /dev/null

Shell completions

To get automatic completions for Alacritty's flags and arguments you can install the provided shell completions.

Zsh

To install the completions for zsh, place the extra/completions/_alacritty file in a directory referenced by $fpath.

If you have not yet registered such a directory through ~/.zshrc, you can add one like this.

mkdir -p ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zsh_functions
echo 'fpath+=${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zsh_functions' >> ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zshrc

Then copy the completion file to this directory:

cp extra/completions/_alacritty ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zsh_functions/_alacritty

Bash

To install the completions for bash, you can source the extra/completions/alacritty.bash file in your ~/.bashrc file.

If you do not plan to delete the source folder of alacritty, you can run

echo "source $(pwd)/extra/completions/alacritty.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

Otherwise you can copy it to the ~/.bash_completion folder and source it from there:

mkdir -p ~/.bash_completion
cp extra/completions/alacritty.bash ~/.bash_completion/alacritty
echo "source ~/.bash_completion/alacritty" >> ~/.bashrc

Event Print

alacritty --print-events

Good for printing things like keyboard/mouse events.

Change font

# Font configuration
font:
  normal:
    # Font family
    #
    # Default:
    #   - (macOS) Menlo
    #   - (Linux/BSD) monospace
    #   - (Windows) Consolas
    family: 'DroidSansMono Nerd Font'

  # Point size
  size: 10.0

Import another yaml

import:
  - /path/to/alacritty.yml

Jump word

Ctrl+{arrow key} does not jump word #1408

Lets the cursor jump word by word with the Alt+Left and Alt+Right keys.

key_bindings:
  - { key: Left,  mods: Alt, chars: "\x1bb" }
  - { key: Right, mods: Alt, chars: "\x1bf" }

Function Key Mapping in Vim

When vim runs inside tmux, using a Function Key together with Ctrl binds the keymap as something like <C-F1>.

However, when run without tmux, the key is not mapped correctly.

To check this behavior, enter <c-v> in vim's Insert Mode and then press another key; that key is printed as-is.

The results of testing this way are as follows:

Meta keys	mapping range
-	<F1> ~ <F12>
Shift	<F13> ~ <F24>
Ctrl	<F25> ~ <F36>
Shift+Ctrl	<F37> ~ <F48>

Apply your keymaps using the keymaps above.

Troubleshooting

Font sizes differ on different screens

Font sizes differ on different screens #1339

Fonts are rendered at different sizes on each monitor.

Unable to store text in clipboard: Failed to set new owner of XCB selection

[6186.949132391s] [WARN ] [alacritty] Unable to store text in clipboard: Failed to set new owner of XCB selection

Favorite site

Github - alacritty

author Zer0 sitemap