How to make your terminal look cool 😎
Tags: beginners, tutorial, productivity, terminal
Published: 2022-12-07 09:44:04

Have you ever wondered if you could turn your boring terminal into a cool one to make it even more exciting and make you feel more productive perhaps? Turns out it there are multiple solutions for this and they are really easy to implement! Follow along and you will be able to configure your terminal the way you want by the end of this article.

## How do you come about configuring the terminal?

First, make sure you have Homebrew installed, in order to clone and install the things you need from GitHub.

## Install/update Homebrew


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

If you are using wget instead of curl, run the following command:

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

If you already have Homebrew installed, I recommend you update it.

```
brew update
```

Homebrew is now installed. Great!

## Install Oh my Zsh

Run the following commmand in order to install Oh my Zsh, which is the first "styled" version of your terminal.

```
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
```

If you are using wget instead of curl, run the following command:

```
sh -c "$(wget https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh -O -)"
```

## Install the Powerlevel10k theme

In order to clone the theme, run the following command:

```
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k
```

Then, create a `~/.zshrc` file on a folder of your choice. I recommend in your home/desktop folder. 

```
touch ~/.zshrc
```

Then, configure the `~/.zshrc` file to use the Powerlevel10k theme. Depending on what text editor you are using, the following commands apply for your circumstances. Pick the one you prefer to use.

For nano users:

```
nano ~/.zshrc
```

For vim users:

```
vim ~/.zshrc
```

Apply the following changes to the "ZSH_THEME":

```
ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k"
```

Now save the changes you have made.
For Mac users:

1. press `esc` + `up` arrow key
2. press the `X` key
3. press `Y` to save the changes
4. exit the terminal and run the following command:

```
source ~/.zshrc
```

For Windows users:

1. press `ctrl` + `x` key
2. press `Y` key to save the changes
3. hit `enter`
4. exit the terminal and run the following command:

```
source ~/.zshrc
```

## Configure Powerlevel10k

The terminal will take you through the configuration of Powerlevel10k. If it does not prompt you to the following setup, run the following command:

```
p10k configure
```

Make the choices you feel work best for you, but if you are unsure about some, Powerlevel10k will recommend you some to make it easier.

![powerlevel10k configuration prompt](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/avk5cm63f2jcde32x81x.png)

After going through all these steps, you should be able to have made your terminal look much cooler 👏😎

All the documentation for Homebrew, Oh my Zsh and Powerlevel10k can be accessed here:

- https://brew.sh/
- https://ohmyz.sh/#install
- https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k#installation