Migrate to Warp from macOS Terminal

Warp gives Terminal.app users everything they already have — shell, theme, font, prompt — plus split panes, tabs, blocks, and Agent Mode for an AI-assisted workflow. This page walks through both an agent-driven migration and the manual GUI steps.

What transfers automatically

Warp doesn’t ship a Terminal.app importer, but it can do most of the work for you agentically. Most Terminal.app users run near-default settings, so the migration usually takes only a few minutes either way.

Use Warp’s agent to migrate your settings (recommended)

The fastest way to bring over a Terminal.app theme is to ask Warp’s agent to translate it directly. Warp ships a settings.toml file and a bundled modify-settings skill that lets the agent read your Terminal.app preferences and write equivalent values into Warp’s settings, including creating a matching custom theme.

1. In Warp, open a new tab and switch to Agent Mode with ⌘+I.

2. Paste a prompt like:

   Read my Terminal.app preferences with defaults read com.apple.Terminal and port the active profile (theme, font, window size) into my Warp settings.toml using the modify-settings skill. Create a matching custom theme. Show me a diff before applying.

3. Review the proposed diff and approve. Warp hot-reloads settings.toml.

If you’d rather configure each setting manually through the Settings UI, the steps below cover the most common cases.

What to reconfigure manually

Shell

Warp auto-detects your login shell on first launch. macOS has shipped with zsh as the default since Catalina (2019); if you changed your shell with chsh, Warp picks that up too.

To change it later, go to Settings > Features > Session and pick a shell from Startup shell for new sessions.

Theme and colors

Terminal.app ships with a handful of profiles (Basic, Pro, Homebrew, Ocean, etc.). Match them in Warp:

1. Open Settings > Appearance > Themes.
2. Pick a preset theme. Warp’s built-in library includes many themes similar to Terminal.app’s defaults.
3. For exact color matches, create a custom theme using the ANSI color values you can inspect in Terminal.app’s Settings > Profiles > Text tab.

Font

1. In Settings > Appearance > Text, fonts, & cursor, pick your font family and size to match what you use in Terminal.app.

Window size and transparency

Configure in Settings > Appearance > Size, opacity, & blurring. See size, opacity, and blurring.

Prompt

Terminal.app uses whatever prompt your shell’s PS1 (or zsh’s PROMPT) defines. In Warp, choose:

1. Warp prompt - Warp’s native prompt with drag-and-drop chips for git branch, directory, and more.
2. Shell prompt (PS1) - keeps your existing shell prompt exactly as it appears in Terminal.app.

Configure in Settings > Appearance > Prompt.

Warp-native equivalents

Most Terminal.app features have a Warp equivalent with additional capabilities on top:

From Terminal.app	In Warp
Profiles	Tab configs for layouts and startup commands; themes for appearance (Warp has no single profile object)
Window groups / arrangements	Tab configs
Tabs	Tabs, vertical tabs
Split panes	Split panes (Terminal.app doesn’t support)
Copy-on-select	Settings > Features > Session
Inspector	Command inspector (exit code, duration, working directory)

Beyond matching Terminal.app, Warp adds Agent Mode for natural-language commands, blocks for structured command output, and Warp Drive for shared workflows. New to Warp? Start with the Warp quickstart.