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I like to adjust my terminal window size to fit whatever I'm working on at the moment- sometimes a tiny screen just to tail a log file, and sometimes I stretch it all the way across the screen to read some wide output.

Whenever I open a new tab in the terminal it, resizes the window, losing whatever sizing adjustments I've made. How can I make it preserve the current window size when opening a new tab?

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Are you talking about creating a second tab in an existing window? That shouldn’t resize the window. If it does, please file a bug report developer.apple.com/bugreporter or provide feedback at apple.com/feedback/macosx.html – Chris Page Jul 4 '12 at 3:33
Which OS version? – Chris Page Jul 4 '12 at 3:34
Yes, happens on creating the 2nd tab in any Terminal window. OSX Lion – Caffeine Coma Jul 5 '12 at 11:50

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This behavior is due to the Window settings in Terminal. All new terminals open to what is specified under Window (default is 80 x 24). When you open a tab, it resizes the window to the new tab.

I wasn't able to find a solution to this for Terminal.app, however, I've since switched to iTerm 2, and it doesn't suffer from this issue. All new tabs open to the same dimensions as the existing window they're opened into, rather than resizing the window to the default.

You can find iTerm 2 at http://www.iterm2.com/

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“When you open a tab, it resizes the window to the new tab.” If it does that, that’s a bug. I can’t reproduce it. What OS version? – Chris Page Jul 4 '12 at 3:36
So iTerm2 is nice, but it has its own problems- page up/down and home/end do not work on a full-size keyboard. The solutions on iTerm's FAQ do not help. Frustrating. – Caffeine Coma Jul 5 '12 at 11:54
Chris, it happened to me frequently in Lion. I just tried it in Mountain Lion, and it doesn't appear to occur anymore. – billc Aug 12 '12 at 1:34
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1) Open Terminal

2) Click on Terminal on the menubar, go to Preferences

3) Select Startup

4) Change the option 'New tabs open with' to 'Same Settings'

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Already tried that- no effect. – Caffeine Coma Jul 2 '12 at 4:59
That’s the default setting. Was it not already that way? – Chris Page Jul 4 '12 at 3:35

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