On this tutorial, we will look at how to install Wez’s Terminal Emulator (WezTerm) on macOS. WezTerm is a terminal emulator that is GPU-accelerated and can run on Linux, Windows and macOS. This emulator has been written by @wez and also implemented on Rust. Rust is a language that is used to build software that is both reliable and efficient as well as empower most people. With WezTerm, there are so many things you can achieve easily, like changing the fonts and colors of your terminal emulator, and also mouse bindings. There are so many features associated with WezTerm. Below are just a few of those features;

  • Known to run on Linux, macOS and Windows
  • Comes with multiple windows
  • Bags many render attributes unlike other emulators
  • Supports implicit and explicit hyperlinks
  • The SSH client comes with native tabs
  • Multiplex terminal tabs, panes and windows

Installing Wez’s Terminal Emulator (WezTerm) on macOS

Having looked at a brief introduction of WezTerm, we can then proceed to look at how to install it on macOS. On this guide, we will look at the three methods on how to install Wez’s Terminal Emulator (WezTerm) on macOS. The first method we will use is installing WezTerm using brew, the second method is while using MacPorts and the final method is while using the WezTerm.app package.

Method 1. Install Wez’s Terminal Emulator using Brew

To install Wez’s Terminal using brew, you need to have brew on your system. So to install brew, run the command that is shown in the code section below;

$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Check the output below;

╭─annalianie at technixleo in ~ 22-07-26 - 15:49:52
╰─○ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
==> Checking for `sudo` access (which may request your password)...
Password:
==> This script will install:
/usr/local/bin/brew
/usr/local/share/doc/homebrew
/usr/local/share/man/man1/brew.1
/usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/_brew
/usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/brew
/usr/local/Homebrew

Press RETURN/ENTER to continue or any other key to abort:
==> /usr/bin/sudo /usr/sbin/chown -R annalianie:admin /usr/local/Homebrew
==> Downloading and installing Homebrew...
remote: Enumerating objects: 2234, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (865/865), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (13/13), done.
remote: Total 2234 (delta 854), reused 857 (delta 851), pack-reused 1369
Receiving objects: 100% (2234/2234), 867.98 KiB | 716.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1501/1501), completed with 272 local objects.
From https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
 * [new branch]          dependabot/bundler/Library/Homebrew/sorbet-static-and-runtime-0.5.10172 -> origin/dependabot/bundler/Library/Homebrew/sorbet-static-and-runtime-0.5.10172
   fe853fcb9..1af0bcde2  master     -> origin/master
 * [new tag]             3.5.3      -> 3.5.3
 * [new tag]             3.5.4      -> 3.5.4
 * [new tag]             3.5.5      -> 3.5.5
 * [new tag]             3.5.6      -> 3.5.6
HEAD is now at 1af0bcde2 Merge pull request #13601 from bayandin/cleaup-github-headers
Updated 2 taps (homebrew/core and homebrew/cask).
==> Installation successful!

==> Homebrew has enabled anonymous aggregate formulae and cask analytics.
Read the analytics documentation (and how to opt-out) here:
  https://docs.brew.sh/Analytics
No analytics data has been sent yet (nor will any be during this install run).

==> Homebrew is run entirely by unpaid volunteers. Please consider donating:
  https://github.com/Homebrew/brew#donations

==> Next steps:
- Run brew help to get started
- Further documentation:
    https://docs.brew.sh

Once you have brew on your system, proceed to install WezTerm on macOS using brew by utilizing the following two commands as shown in the command section;

$ brew tap wez/wezterm
$ brew install --cask wez/wezterm/wezterm$

The output is as shown in the representation below;

╭─annalianie at technixleo in ~ 22-07-26 - 15:52:07
╰─○ brew tap wez/wezterm
==> Tapping wez/wezterm
Cloning into '/usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/wez/homebrew-wezterm'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 144, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (144/144), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (96/96), done.
remote: Total 144 (delta 37), reused 116 (delta 28), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (144/144), 20.93 KiB | 892.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (37/37), done.
Tapped 2 casks and 1 formula (16 files, 36.0KB).
╭─annalianie at technixleo in ~ 22-07-26 - 15:55:24
╰─○ brew install --cask wez/wezterm/wezterm
==> Caveats
Cask wezterm related executables like 'wezterm', 'wezterm-gui',
'wezterm-mux-server', are linked into
  /usr/local/bin/    for x86 Mac,
  /opt/homebrew/bin/ for M1 Mac.

Removal of them is ensured by 'brew uninstall --cask wezterm'.

==> Downloading https://github.com/wez/wezterm/releases/download/20220624-141144-bd1b7c5d/WezTerm
==> Downloading from https://objects.githubusercontent.com/github-production-release-asset-2e65be
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Installing Cask wezterm
==> Moving App 'WezTerm.app' to '/Applications/WezTerm.app'
==> Linking Binary 'wezterm' to '/usr/local/bin/wezterm'
==> Linking Binary 'wezterm-gui' to '/usr/local/bin/wezterm-gui'
==> Linking Binary 'wezterm-mux-server' to '/usr/local/bin/wezterm-mux-server'
==> Linking Binary 'strip-ansi-escapes' to '/usr/local/bin/strip-ansi-escapes'
🍺  wezterm was successfully installed!

For a nightly build, use the command;

$ brew install --cask wez/wezterm/wezterm-nightly

You can upgrade to a new version of nightly using the command;

$ brew upgrade --cask wezterm-nightly --no-quarantine --greedy-latest

Method 2. Install Wez’s Terminal Emulator on macOS using MacPorts

To install WezTerm using MacPorts, utilize the commands below on your terminal;

$ sudo port selfupdate
$ sudo port install wezterm

The following represents the output when Wez’s Terminal Emulator is installed using MacPorts;

╭─annalianie at technixleo in ~ 22-07-26 - 16:40:06
╰─○ sudo port selfupdate
Password:
--->  Updating MacPorts base sources using rsync
MacPorts base version 2.7.2 installed,
MacPorts base version 2.7.2 downloaded.
--->  Updating the ports tree
--->  MacPorts base is already the latest version

The ports tree has been updated. To upgrade your installed ports, you should run
  port upgrade outdated
╭─annalianie at technixleo in ~ 22-07-26 - 16:42:25
╰─○ sudo port install wezterm
--->  Computing dependencies for wezterm
--->  Fetching archive for wezterm
--->  Attempting to fetch wezterm-20220624-141144-bd1b7c5d_0.darwin_21.x86_64.tbz2 from https://packages.macports.org/wezterm
--->  Attempting to fetch wezterm-20220624-141144-bd1b7c5d_0.darwin_21.x86_64.tbz2.rmd160 from https://packages.macports.org/wezterm
--->  Installing wezterm @20220624-141144-bd1b7c5d_0
--->  Activating wezterm @20220624-141144-bd1b7c5d_0
--->  Cleaning wezterm
--->  Updating database of binaries
--->  Scanning binaries for linking errors
--->  No broken files found.
--->  No broken ports found.

Method 3. Install Wez’s Terminal Emulator on macOS using the WezTerm.app package

The first step here is to download the WezTerm package onto your system by tapping on either download for macOS or nightly for macOS. Once the download is complete, double tap on the downloaded file and it will be extracted. Double click on the WezTerm extracted file to open WezTerm Application. Tap on open for an app downloaded from the internet to be opened.

Double tap on the WezTerm icon to launch it.

Step 2. Configure WezTerm on macOS

$HOME/.wezterm.lua is by default where the configuration file is, if you do not find it, you can as well create the directory. To create it use the touch command. This is done as follows;

touch $HOME/.wezterm.lua

You need a text editor, to edit the file created above. If you do not have a text editor on your system, you should then proceed to install one using brew, install as follows;

brew install vim

Since we have the text editor we can then proceed to edit the file and configure it to fit your needs, to do so, open the file using the command shown below on your terminal;

vim ~/.wezterm.lua

To change both the font and color, you can as well use the following code;

local wezterm = require 'wezterm'
return {
  font = wezterm.font 'JetBrains Mono',
  color_scheme = 'Batman',
}

Conclusion

Up to this point, we have managed to reach a conclusion on how to install WezTerm on macOS. On the tutorial above, we managed to cover three methods on how to install Wez’s Terminal Emulator (WezTerm) on macOS. On our first method, we showed you how to install WezTerm using brew, followed by how to use MacPorts to install WezTerm, and finally using WezTerm.app package. Among the above methods having proved that they are workable, you can use one to do the installation. We also went ahead to show you how to do the WezTerm configuration. Check below for more articles on our site;

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