Alt-key in OSX-Terminal

30 January 2012 — 18 Comments

By default, the Alt-key doesn’t work in Mac OSX-Terminal. Today I found a simple solution for this problem:

Terminal > Preferences > Settings > Keyboard
Just check ‘Use option as meta key’ at the bottom and you’re good to go 🙂

In Linux sysadmin, Mac OSX , , ,
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18 responses to Alt-key in OSX-Terminal

  1. 
    Nori 26 September 2012 at 19:55

    Thank you!

    Reply
  2. 
    michalrus 11 July 2013 at 23:17

    Thanks! 🙂

    Reply
  3. 
    Marius Lucian Pop (@mlpinit) 22 July 2013 at 02:17

    Thank you!

    Reply
  4. 
    Guillermo Callaghan 18 September 2013 at 17:03

    Was using Midnight Commander and this thing was driving me mad. Nice one!!
    Thank you!!!

    Reply
  5. 
    Viktor 26 May 2014 at 12:19

    I can’t be grateful enough, you fucking solved my issue I had for a year or so 😀 thanks!

    Reply
  6. 
    KindWoman 6 March 2015 at 18:04

    Hi Remi,
    Please explain where the change can be made. I have a Mac with Linux OS, and there is no mention of “meta key” in Settings/keyboard, or by searching the computer. Does one change this in terminal? I tried this too but don’t know exactly how to enter the text there to make this change.
    I’m using Inkscape, wanting to alter the order of objects in sub-layers, which requires use of “alt.” I’ve disabled alt in other commands, so I think you’re on to the solution. Please do send the specific steps to do what you suggest.
    Thank you kindly for your time to respond to me.
    Best,
    Paula

    Reply
  7. 
    Gina 18 September 2015 at 10:16

    Just what I was looking for – thank you!

    Reply
  8. 
    Ian Vincent 4 April 2016 at 07:24

    Thanks a lot!

    Reply
  9. 
    Amit 17 April 2016 at 07:54

    Thank You!

    Reply
  10. 
    Nick 7 July 2016 at 21:13

    Thank You!

    Reply
  11. 
    oijoijoij 24 October 2018 at 15:16

    yeeeeeeeeeeeah this post still helps people, how amazing is that !

    Reply
  12. 
    blisterpeanuts 29 January 2019 at 14:54

    You helped me in 2019! After five years of NOT being able to use standard terminal commands like ALT-right, ALT-left, ALT-delete, etc.!!!! Thanks for posting this.

    Reply
  13. 
    Carol Neagle 7 May 2019 at 22:44

    I’m also using a Mac with a touch screen and can’t get the alt key to raise the bottom object to the top like it is supposed too.

    Reply
  14. 
    Sayling Low 13 May 2020 at 11:30

    I’m stymied here because I’m using a UK layout keyboard on my MacBook Pro. I normally access the hash # key using Option-3 because Shift-3 is the Pound currency sign £. So setting the ‘Use Option as Meta key’ checkbox allows me to access M-6 Copy Text in the Nano editor but I can’t type any ####s (confusingly in the Nano editor M-3 now Option-3 = Comment/uncomment line), except by highlighting an existing # character can copying and pasting it.

    Reply

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