Ghostty Configuration

Guidance for configuring the Ghostty terminal emulator. Ghostty uses text-based config files with sensible defaults and zero required configuration.

Config File Locations

Since Ghostty 1.2.3 the config file is named config.ghostty (the .ghostty extension lets editors apply syntax highlighting). The extensionless config name is still loaded for backwards compatibility.

XDG Path (All Platforms):

• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ghostty/config.ghostty
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ghostty/config
• XDG_CONFIG_HOME defaults to ~/.config if undefined

macOS Additional Path:

• ~/Library/Application Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty/config.ghostty
• ~/Library/Application Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty/config

Loading order: all matching files are loaded, later files overriding earlier ones. Within a location config.ghostty loads before config. On macOS all macOS-path files load after all XDG-path files, so the macOS path wins on conflicts. Config is optional; with no file Ghostty uses its defaults.