WebStorm 2025.1 Help

Terminal

WebStorm includes an embedded terminal emulator for working with your command-line shell from inside the IDE. Use it to run Git commands, set file permissions, and perform other command-line tasks without switching to a dedicated terminal application.

Enable the Terminal plugin

This functionality relies on the Terminal plugin, which is bundled and enabled in WebStorm by default. If the relevant features are not available, make sure that you did not disable the plugin.

  1. Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open settings and then select Plugins.

  2. Open the Installed tab, find the Terminal plugin, and select the checkbox next to the plugin name.

Initially, the terminal emulator runs with your default system shell, but it supports many other shells, such as Windows PowerShell, Command Prompt cmd.exe, sh, bash, zsh, csh, and so on. For more information about changing the shell, refer to Terminal settings.

Open the Terminal tool window

  • Go to View | Tool Windows | Terminal or press Alt+F12.

    By default, the terminal emulator runs with the current directory set to the root directory of the current project. For more information about changing the default start directory, refer to Terminal settings.

  • Right-click any file (for example, in the Project tool window Alt+1 or any open editor tab) and select Open in | Terminal to open the Terminal tool window with a new session in the directory of that file.

Start a new local session

  • To start a new session in a separate tab, click the Add button on the toolbar or press Ctrl+Shift+T.

    New session in the terminal

To run multiple sessions inside a tab, right-click the tab and select Split Right or Split Down in the context menu.

Splitting the terminal (Split Down)

The Terminal saves tabs and sessions when you close the project or WebStorm. It preserves tab names, the current working directory, and even the shell history.

To close a tab, click the Close button on the Terminal toolbar or press Ctrl+F4.

Press Alt+Right and Alt+Left to switch between active tabs. Alternatively, you can press Alt+Down to see the list of all terminal tabs.

To clear the terminal screen, press Ctrl+L.

Start a new SSH session

  1. On the toolbar, click Start a new SSH session and select New SSH Session.

    Starting a new SSH session from the Terminal
  2. Enter the address of the host to which you want to connect, and provide authentication data.

    Providing data in the SSH Session dialog

    Or, if you have configured SSH configurations, you can select one of them from the list.

Start an SSH session via an SSH configuration

To terminate the connection, click Terminate session in the terminal tab.

Rename terminal tab

  • Right-click the tab and select Rename Session from the context menu.

  • To search for a certain string in a terminal session, press Ctrl+F. This searches all text in the session: the prompt, commands, and output.

    Searching in the Terminal

By default, the search is not case-sensitive. You can click the Match Case icon Match case in the search field to make it case-sensitive.

Configure the terminal emulator

  • Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open settings and then select Tools | Terminal.

  • Alternatively, click on the Terminal toolbar and select Settings.

For more information, refer to Terminal settings.

Run IDE features from the terminal

Instead of running a specific command in the integrated terminal and reading console output, you can use the relevant IDE feature, like a tool window or a dialog that implements this functionality. For example, you can launch an npm, yarn, gulp, or grunt command from the Terminal tool window and view its output in the Run or Debug tool window.

Enable running WebStorm commands from the Terminal

  1. Open the Settings dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S) and go to Tools | Terminal.

  2. Select the Run Commands using IDE checkbox.

Run a command in the Run or Debug tool window from the terminal

  1. Type a command (npm run dev) in the terminal and notice how it is highlighted.

    Smart command execution highlighting for npm run dev command in the Terminal
  2. Instead of pressing Enter, which runs the command in the terminal, press Ctrl+Enter to open the corresponding GUI element. In this example, it will open the Run tool window with the output of the npm serve command.

    Run tool window shows the output of the npm dev command

    To run the command in the Debug tool window, press Ctrl+Shift+Enter.

Run a WebStorm command from the Run Anything popup

You can run most of the commands recognized by Run Anything in the Run or Debug tool window.

  1. Open the Run Anything popup by pressing Ctrl twice.

  2. Start typing a command, for example, npm test.

  3. Select the command from the list and press Ctrl+Enter to show its output in the Run tool window or Shift+Enter to show the output in the Debug tool window.

Run an npm command in the Run or Debug tool window from the Run Anything popup

Select Terminal engine

There are currently three terminal engines in WebStorm:

  • Classic. This is our standard terminal emulator, built on the JediTerm library, with user input (commands and keystrokes) sent directly to the underlying shell.

  • Experimental 2024 (deprecated). This terminal (known as New Terminal in WebStorm 2024.*) integrated advanced IDE features, such as autocompletion and AI capabilities. However, it also introduced compatibility challenges, and as a result, it has been deprecated. Selecting this terminal engine will be available only to those who enabled it in WebStorm 2024.*. You can find the documentation for it in the earlier version of WebStorm Help.

  • Reworked 2025 (Beta). This is currently a work in progress aimed at ensuring better performance and compatibility with classic CLI behavior.

  1. Open the Terminal tool window: View | Tool Windows | Terminal.

  2. In the tool window header, click Options and select a terminal engine.

    Terminal Select Engine

    Alternatively, open the IDE settings (Ctrl+Alt+S) and go to Tools | Terminal | Terminal engine.

Last modified: 06 May 2025