The Windows 11 App You Already Have (But Have NO Idea What It Does)

[00:00:00]So this right here is Windows Terminal.

[00:00:02]And if you're on Windows 11, you already have it.

[00:00:05]You didn't install it, you didn't choose it, but most of the time you open PowerShell or Command Prompt, it's actually running inside this app.

[00:00:14]And most people have no idea it's even there.

[00:00:17]And I'll be honest, for years I barely touched anything related to the Terminal or running commands because I always preferred a graphical user interface.

[00:00:25]It's only really since I started building my own apps that I've been using it every single day, and I've found a bunch of things this app can do that almost nobody talks about.

[00:00:35]Now just so we're on the same page, this isn't a video about a bunch of commands that you need to memorize.

[00:00:40]It's also not about the recently announced Intelligent Terminal.

[00:00:44]This is about the Terminal app that's installed on Windows 11 by default, the window that everything runs inside, and what it can actually do for you.

[00:00:53]And the nice part is it doesn't matter which shell you use, whether that's PowerShell, or if you've got Windows Subsystem for Linux, because Terminal is the window around all of them.

[00:01:04]And if you're still on Windows 10, don't worry, you're not left out here.

[00:01:07]You can install the Windows Terminal for free from the Microsoft Store, as long as you're on a reasonably recent version of Windows 10.

[00:01:15]So in this video I'm going to show you seven lesser known Windows Terminal tricks, plus a bonus at the end that honestly looks like something out of a video game.

[00:01:24]And a couple of the best ones are right in the middle.

[00:01:27]So don't skip ahead.

[00:01:31]So let's begin with the one you can see straight away, and that's splitting the window.

[00:01:35]Most people, when they need a second shell, just open a second window, and then a third, and before you know it, you're alt-tabbing between four different windows.

[00:01:43]You don't have to do that, you can just split the one you've already got.

[00:01:47]So if I hold alt and shift and press the plus key, you'll notice the window splits side by side.

[00:01:54]And if I do alt and shift and then the minus key, it splits top and bottom instead.

[00:02:00]To jump between them, I just hold alt and use the arrow keys.

[00:02:04]And if I want to resize one, I can hold alt and shift and use the arrows.

[00:02:09]And when I'm done with a pane, I can close it with shift and W.

[00:02:13]Here's the part people don't realize.

[00:02:15]They don't all have to be the same shell.

[00:02:18]If I open the little drop down up here next to the tabs, and I hold alt while I click a different profile, it opens that one as a split pane instead of a new tab.

[00:02:28]So now I've got PowerShell on one side and Command Prompt right next to it, in the same window.

[00:02:34]That's genuinely useful if you're, say, watching a log scroll in one pane, while you actually work in the other one, or if you're running multiple AI agents or chats at the same time.

[00:02:48]So that's splitting a single window.

[00:02:50]And this next one is really the same idea.

[00:02:53]And that's tabs.

[00:02:54]If I press Ctrl, Shift and T, I get a new tab.

[00:02:58]And if I open that drop down again, you can see it lists every shell I've got set up.

[00:03:03]So PowerShell, Command Prompt, and if you've installed Windows Subsystem for Linux, your Linux setup will show up right here too.

[00:03:10]And you can jump straight to a specific one.

[00:03:12]So Ctrl, Shift and 1 opens my first profile.

[00:03:16]Ctrl, Shift and 2 the second and so on.

[00:03:18]And to flip between the tabs I've already got open, I just use Ctrl and Tab.

[00:03:22]You can also right click on a tab and rename it so it's easier to keep track of what you're working on in which tab.

[00:03:32]Now this next one is one I haven't seen many other people talking about.

[00:03:35]So let me just split it into a few panes again.

[00:03:38]And I'll open something called the Command Palette.

[00:03:41]And don't worry, that's the very next trick.

[00:03:43]I'll come back to it.

[00:03:45]For now, just press Ctrl, Shift and P. And if I type in Broadcast, and I pick Toggle Broadcast input to all panes, have a look at what happens when I type.

[00:03:56]Whatever I put into this one pane, every other pane gets exactly the same keystrokes at the same moment.

[00:04:02]So if I run a command like ping or ask it for the date, all of them fire at once.

[00:04:08]Now think about where that's useful.

[00:04:10]If you're the kind of person who's connected into a few different machines at the same time, or running the same thing on a couple of servers, you type the command once and it runs everywhere in one go.

[00:04:21]And you toggle it back off the same way you turned it on.

[00:04:23]There's no default shortcut for this one, which honestly is a big part of why nobody finds it, because it's tucked away in that command palette.

[00:04:32]And by the way, if you're getting any value out of this video, please do me a favor and hit that like button and consider subscribing to the channel for more videos like this.

[00:04:43]So since you just saw me use it, let's talk about the command palette properly.

[00:04:47]Because this is the one thing I'd point a complete beginner to first, because it's basically a cheat sheet of commands for the whole app.

[00:04:55]So if I press Ctrl Shift and P, I can now see every single thing this terminal can do all listed in one place.

[00:05:02]And if a feature has a keyboard shortcut, it shows you that shortcut right next to it.

[00:05:07]So the honest truth is you don't have to memorize any of the shortcuts I'm showing you today, except this one.

[00:05:13]Because if you can't remember one, you just open this with Ctrl Shift and P, type what you want in plain English, and then press Enter.

[00:05:22]And there's a nice little extra in here.

[00:05:24]If I press backspace to delete the little arrow at the beginning of that line, it flips into a command mode where I can type a terminal command directly and then also run it.

[00:05:37]Now this next one isn't something that I have turned on permanently, but it is nice to know about for when you need it.

[00:05:44]If I hold Ctrl and Shift and scroll my mouse wheel down, you'll notice the whole window turns transparent, and you can start to see the desktop or whatever's sitting behind it.

[00:05:55]On Windows 11, this just works the moment you scroll, and on Windows 10 it works too.

[00:06:00]You just have to switch on a setting called Use Acrylic, and then you'll get a slightly blurry version of it rather than this clean one.

[00:06:07]And where this is actually handy is if you've got instructions open in a browser or a note sitting behind the terminal, you can make the terminal window transparent until you can read what's behind it instead of alt tabbing back and forth.

[00:06:23]Next let's look at some of the customization options that you have inside of the Windows terminal.

[00:06:27]First off, the quick way.

[00:06:28]If I open the settings with Ctrl and comma and go into a profile and then into appearance, there's a whole list of color schemes built in, and I can switch between them live and just pick whatever I like.

[00:06:40]But the one I really wanted to show you is background images.

[00:06:44]Now right here in the settings, you can browse for an image file on your computer and set it as the terminal background.

[00:06:50]You can also change the opacity of the image to make the text more readable.

[00:06:55]And just so you know, you're not limited to a still image.

[00:06:58]You can even drop in an animated GIF and it'll play behind your text.

[00:07:02]But that's a bit too much for me personally.

[00:07:04]I like to keep it at a still image, but it is there if it's your thing.

[00:07:12]So next up, I've just got a few fast ones for you that I genuinely think you'll use every single day.

[00:07:17]The first one, if you've got a load of output that's already scrolled past and you're looking for something in it, you can press Ctrl shift and F, and you can search back everything in that window.

[00:07:27]Then also any web link that shows up in your output, you can just hold Ctrl and click it and it opens straight in your browser.

[00:07:34]No copying and pasting.

[00:07:36]And if the text is ever too small, which is really handy if you're recording or sharing your screen, you can hold Ctrl on the keyboard and scroll up or down on the mouse wheel to make it bigger or smaller.

[00:07:46]And then two quick things I've seen many people ask about is if you want a shell running as administrator from a window that isn't currently running as admin, you can just hold Ctrl and click the profile in that dropdown and it opens as admin.

[00:08:00]And if you want everything on your PC to open in here by default, you go into the settings into startup and set the default terminal application to Windows Terminal.

[00:08:10]And from then on, every terminal window lands in this app.

[00:08:14]Okay, it's time for the last one.

[00:08:18]And this is also the bonus.

[00:08:19]I've got to be honest, I don't expect any one of you to know that this is even possible.

[00:08:23]So you know how in some games you tap a key and then a console drops from the top of the screen?

[00:08:29]Windows Terminal can do exactly that.

[00:08:31]It's just switched off by default.

[00:08:33]Now I know some of you are going to say that other apps have done this for years, and that is fair.

[00:08:38]But the point is, this one's built right into the terminal you already have with no extra software at all.

[00:08:44]If I open the settings file with this shortcut here, which you can also open with Ctrl Shift and comma, and I drop in this one line that turns on what's called global summon.

[00:08:55]When this specific command binds it to the Windows key and the backtick, and I now save it, I can now from anywhere in Windows, tap the Windows key and backtick and the terminal drops down from the top.

[00:09:08]It lands on whatever screen my mouse is on.

[00:09:11]It stays out of the way and it's one key from anywhere.

[00:09:14]The only thing to keep in mind is it needs the terminal already running in the background for that hot key to work.

[00:09:20]So let me know in the comments down below which one of these tricks you didn't actually know about and which ones you want to try out for yourself because I'm genuinely curious.

[00:09:28]And if you're interested in more tricks like this, you should definitely go ahead and watch this video that's on screen now.

[00:09:34]I'll see you there.