How can I configure Mac Terminal to have color ls output? I am using MacOS 10.5
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6This is a great question... I've always expected ls --color (a la gnu ls) to just work everywhere. MacOS doesn't accept --color, so I assumed that it didn't have colored output as an option at all. – Armentage May 1 '11 at 16:35
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cyberciti.biz/faq/apple-mac-osx-terminal-color-ls-output-option – slm Sep 14 '18 at 13:22
Edit:
~/.bash_profile
or
~/.profile
and add the following line to simply enable color output via ls
:
export CLICOLOR=1
To customize the coloring shown by ls
you can optionally add this variable, LSCOLORS
.
Examples
Default
export LSCOLORS=ExFxCxDxBxegedabagacad
You can use this if you are using a black background
export LSCOLORS=gxBxhxDxfxhxhxhxhxcxcx
If you'd like to mimic the colors of a typical Linux terminal:
export LSCOLORS=ExGxBxDxCxEgEdxbxgxcxd
Once you've add the above to either ~/.bash_profile
or ~/.profile
you can either logout/login or source the file in your shell, for eg:
$ . ~/.bash_profile
NOTE: If you need help in selecting colors to use you can use this online tool called LSCOLORS Generator.
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1@JamieCook I find Mikulas' colors more linux consistent. Specifically, a broken symlink should be dark red. With your lscolors its blue... this is not a small issue. – Ray Foss Jul 10 '17 at 14:51
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1
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1@RayFoss indeed, that is no small issue, but OS X cannot make a difference between valid and broken symlinks by default. The only viable alternative is to use gnu ls – Ciprian Tomoiagă Aug 8 '18 at 8:23
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2@StevieG Works for me on High Sierra. Make sure you set it right:
echo $CLICOLOR
should give 1? – Franklin Yu Dec 11 '18 at 21:39
You can add
alias ls='ls -G'
to your ~/.bash_profile
to get colored ls
output.
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44Mine is alias ls="ls -Gp" — the -p adds a slash after each directory. For me, it provides that much more visual differentiation, which is helpful. – Quinn Taylor Jun 12 '09 at 15:40
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40I see your
-p
and raise you a-F
which in addition puts an*
after executables,|
after pipes,@
after symlinks, et cetera. – aib Dec 27 '10 at 18:57 -
25Just for fun, throw in a -h, which will format sizes in "human readable" units, i.e. 100b 10k, 23m, 4.2g – Armentage May 1 '11 at 16:29
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3If you don't have a .bash_profile already at ~/.bash_profile, be sure to source it, so that it will work. Do this with "source ~/.bash_profile" – y3sh Jul 28 '11 at 18:00
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2Dunno if this has changed since 2011, but you can replace the alias with
export CLICOLOR=1
to accomplish the same thing. – David Lord May 31 '15 at 11:47
I find that all I need really is adding this to my ~/.bash_profile
or ~/.bashrc
(for Bash) or ~/.zshrc
(for Zsh, the new default shell in Catalina)
export CLICOLOR=1
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1
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You have to either: 1. close you terminal and reopen, 2. resource the config file:
. ~/.bash_profile
, or 3. logout/login – slm Sep 14 '18 at 13:07
If you want a readable Mac OS X Terminal color scheme, you may want to look into this:
http://toddwerth.com/2008/01/25/a-black-os-x-leopard-terminal-theme-that-is-actually-readable/http://toddwerth.com/2011/07/21/the-original-ir_black-for-os-x-lion/
I've been using this for over a year now, and I might not be able to function without it!
Here's an updated link:
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6As of Mac OS X Lion 10.7, Terminal allows customizing the ANSI colors, so using SIMBL or other extensions is no longer necessary. It also supports 256 colors. – Chris Page Sep 4 '11 at 8:59
Also you can customize the prompt color (and its format) by adding:
PS1='\[\e[0;33m\]\h:\W \u\$\[\e[m\] '
to ~/.bash_profile
or ~/.profile
file. Where 0;33
is regular yellow which looks nice in my black/semitransparent terminal window.
Here is a full list of colors and their explanations: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Color_Bash_Prompt
Another option is to use the GNU ls
which is part of the 'coreutils' program.
You can get it via Rudix or Homebrew (brew info coreutils
)or Macports or Fink. That might be preferable to using a "Mac OS X-only" solution if you use the same shell config files on different systems, or are already familiar with GNU ls.
Personally, I'm using Oh My Zsh for adding color and other tricks to my Terminal. I think that is the easiest way.
oh-my-zsh is an open source, community-driven framework for managing your Zsh configuration.
It comes bundled with a ton of helpful functions, helpers, plugins, themes, and a few things that make you shout…
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Super late to the party... but do you happen to recall what theme is being used in your screenshot? – Eric Harlan Aug 15 '20 at 19:34
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@EricHarlan you got all the theme there github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/wiki/Themes – StrawHara Aug 16 '20 at 9:46
UPDATE: I switched to Oh my zsh a year back and it is awesome. My favourite theme is lambda-mod and my version of it.
Combining all the answers here is what I use:
COLOR_RED="\033[0;31m"
COLOR_YELLOW="\033[0;33m"
COLOR_GREEN="\033[0;32m"
COLOR_OCHRE="\033[38;5;95m"
COLOR_BLUE="\033[0;34m"
COLOR_WHITE="\033[0;37m"
COLOR_RESET="\033[0m"
#git_color
function git_color {
local git_status="$(git status 2> /dev/null)"
if [[ ! $git_status =~ "working directory clean" ]]; then
echo -e $COLOR_RED
elif [[ $git_status =~ "Your branch is ahead of" ]]; then
echo -e $COLOR_YELLOW
elif [[ $git_status =~ "nothing to commit" ]]; then
echo -e $COLOR_GREEN
else
echo -e $COLOR_OCHRE
fi
}
#git_branch
function git_branch {
local git_status="$(git status 2> /dev/null)"
local on_branch="On branch ([^${IFS}]*)"
local on_commit="HEAD detached at ([^${IFS}]*)"
if [[ $git_status =~ $on_branch ]]; then
local branch=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
echo "($branch)"
elif [[ $git_status =~ $on_commit ]]; then
local commit=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
echo "($commit)"
fi
}
PS1='\[\033[01;32m\]\u\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]'
PS1+="\[\$(git_color)\]" # colors git status
PS1+="\$(git_branch)" # prints current branch
PS1+="\[$COLOR_BLUE\]\[$COLOR_RESET\]\$ "
export PS1
export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
export CLICOLOR=1
export LSCOLORS=gxBxhxDxfxhxhxhxhxcxcx
alias ls="ls -Gp"
Simply add the following line to ~/.bash_profile
file:
export PS1=" \[\033[34m\]\u@\h \[\033[33m\]\w\[\033[31m\]\[\033[00m\] $ "
This is my preferred colors. You can customize each part of prompt's color by changing m
codes (e.g. 34m
) which are ANSI color codes.
List of ANSI Color codes:
- Black: 30m
- Red: 31m
- Green: 32m
- Yellow: 33m
- Blue: 34m
- Purple: 35m
- Cyan: 36m
- White: 37m
Forget all those decades-old cryptic codes for gosh sakes, use the built in Terminal --> Preferences... Settings pane to set the default skin, and edit the ANSI colors to your liking. You can set the font, too. I prefer Menlo 12pt. This is how any regular Joe can do it, and avoid all the crazy command-line, unix-esque way of doing things as other posters have suggested.
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13I think anybody experienced enough to even know that
ls
can have colored output is also able to run a few Unix commands to configure it correctly. – nohillside♦ Sep 21 '12 at 21:35 -
7But this just makes ls show in one colour it does not make links, directories, files show in different colours as ls can do – mmmmmm Sep 25 '12 at 12:29
For the Catalina version, you need to add export CLICOLOR=1
in ~/.zshrc
.
If you want to adjust the colour palette, change colours theme in terminal settings.
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