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Is there any way to disable Command+W in the terminal?

On several occasions I have accidentally closed a terminal window containing important information when I meant to close a Safari tab and did not realize that the terminal was the active window.

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3 Answers

up vote 21 down vote accepted

To disable ⌘W in Terminal, do the following:

  • From the  menu in the top left corner of the screen, select System Preferences. Click on Keyboard then Keyboard Shortcuts then Application Shortcuts. enter image description here

  • Click the + button to add a new shortcut

  • Select "Terminal.app" for the application, and for the command, type Close Window (this is case sensitive). In the shortcut box, give it a different shortcut, like ⌘ControlW enter image description here

  • Now ⌘W will not close your terminal windows.

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I mis-spoke in my question. I actually meant to prevent closing a tab, but your answer still works well with the slight change of "Close Window" to "Close Tab". BTW, thanks for the VERY complete answer. – Ralph Mar 19 '12 at 13:05
@Daniel: Nice screenshots! May I ask which program you used to take them? Or did you change your desktop background to all-white? – Roy Tinker Mar 19 '12 at 16:16
3  
The program is called "Mac OS X" :-) Command-shift-4, spacebar, click in the window. – Daniel Lawson♦ Mar 19 '12 at 16:20
up vote 13 down vote

You can set a prompt before closing in the preferences:

Terminal Preferences → Settings → Shell

enter image description here

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Answers crossed paths. This is a good one too. – Daniel Lawson♦ Mar 19 '12 at 12:44
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I think this is the best solution for this particular use case. Disabling standard shortcuts makes me feel icky and would get frustrating when muscle-memory kicks in when I want to close a terminal tab/window. – ghoppe Mar 19 '12 at 17:58
up vote 1 down vote

Goto Keyboard System Preferences and select "Keyboard Shortcuts". Then choose Application Shortcuts from the left and click +. Choose "Terminal.app" and enter a menu item that is not that critical. I chose "Bring All to Front". Then click into Keyboard Shortcut and hit CMD+W. Click OK.

Using this technique have have successfully redirected the CMD+W shortcut in Terminal.

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