Using Local Terminals in Prompt 3 for macOS

You can open a local terminal from the File menu > New Local Window or New Local Tab.

In order to use local terminals in Prompt 3 for macOS, you’ll first need to install an additional local terminal component.

Great question! Apps distributed through the Mac App Store must be sandboxed, meaning they are restricted from communicating with other apps or parts of the operating system.

To open a local terminal, we need to install a helper app which runs outside of the sandbox so that Prompt can communicate with your local shell.


Download and Installation

Download the latest version of the local terminal component.


After the download finishes:

  1. Double-click the .zip file, the Install Prompt Local Terminal.pkg will be unzipped and appear in the same folder as the .zip file.
  2. Double-click the Install Prompt Local Terminal.pkg package and follow the steps to complete the installation process.
  3. ✨ And just like that, you’re all set to open a local terminal! ✨

You may need to install a less secure version of the local terminal component. Click here for more info.

To uninstall Prompt’s local terminal component:

  1. Quit Prompt.
  2. Download the “Uninstall Prompt Local Terminal” script.
  3. Unzip the file by double clicking it in Finder.
  4. Right click the script, choose “Open” from the contextual menu that is displayed.
  5. When the alert on the right is shown, click “Open”.
  6. Follow the instructions shown in your terminal.

Verification alert shown when opening uninstaller script.

If you prefer to remove the Local Terminal components manually, you can use the following commands:

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.panic.LocalTerminal.plist

rm -f /usr/local/bin/PromptLocalTerminal

Are local terminals available in the iOS version of Prompt 3?

Not at this time. If Apple adds the ability for iOS apps to access system processes we will look at adding this functionality in a future release.