Termux opens directly into a terminal emulator backed by a persistent foreground service. Each terminal window runs a shell process (bash by default), and you can have multiple independent sessions running side by side without stopping existing processes when you switch away.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/termux/termux-app/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Opening the terminal
Launch Termux from the app drawer. On first run, the bootstrap environment is installed automatically — a minimal set of packages that provides a working shell,apt, and core utilities. Once that completes, you land at a shell prompt inside your home directory (/data/data/com.termux/files/home).
Tap anywhere on the terminal to show the soft keyboard. Tapping while the keyboard is already visible keeps it visible and moves the cursor; tapping while it is hidden shows it again.
Multiple sessions
Termux supports running several shell sessions at the same time. Each session is independent: you can compile code in one session while running a server in another.Open a new session
Swipe in from the left edge of the screen to open the session drawer, then tap the + (new session) button. You can also long-press the + button to give the session a name, or to start a failsafe session.
Switch between sessions
Swipe in from the left edge to reveal the session list and tap any session to switch to it. A toast notification briefly shows the session name when you switch.
The session list drawer
Swipe right from the left edge of the terminal to open the session list drawer. The drawer shows all currently open sessions, a + button to create a new one, a keyboard toggle button, and a settings button.- Tap a session in the list to switch to it.
- Long-press a session in the list to rename it.
- Tap the keyboard icon to toggle the soft keyboard.
- Long-press the keyboard icon to toggle the extra keys bar.
Touch gestures
Two-finger pinch to zoom
Two-finger pinch to zoom
Pinch in or out on the terminal with two fingers to decrease or increase the font size. The change persists across restarts.
Single tap
Single tap
Tapping the terminal shows the soft keyboard if it is not already visible. When
terminal-onclick-url-open is enabled in ~/.termux/termux.properties, tapping a detected URL opens it in the default browser instead.Long-press for context menu
Long-press for context menu
Swipe from left edge
Swipe from left edge
Swipe inward from the very left edge of the screen to reveal the session list drawer. Swipe back or tap the terminal area to close it.
Text selection and copy/paste
To select text, long-press and drag on the terminal. Selection handles appear once text is highlighted. While in selection mode:- The session drawer is locked closed to prevent accidental navigation.
- Use Share selected text from the context menu (long-press while text is selected) to share the highlighted content.
- To paste clipboard content, open the context menu and choose the paste option, or use the extra keys bar if it has a PASTE key configured.
Paste is also available via the Ctrl+Alt+V hardware keyboard shortcut.
URL detection
Termux scans the visible terminal transcript for URLs. There are two ways to interact with detected URLs:- Tap to open — when
terminal-onclick-url-open=trueis set in~/.termux/termux.properties, tapping a URL in the terminal opens it immediately in the default browser. - Context menu → Select URL — long-press the terminal to open the context menu, then choose Select URL to see a list of all URLs found in the current transcript. Tap a URL to copy it to the clipboard; long-press a URL in the list to open it in the browser.
Bell notification behavior
When a program sends the terminal bell character (BEL,\a), Termux can respond in three ways. Configure the behavior by setting bell-character in ~/.termux/termux.properties:
| Value | Behavior |
|---|---|
vibrate (default) | Vibrate the device |
beep | Play an audible beep |
ignore | Do nothing |
Terminal transcript (scrollback)
Termux maintains a scrollback buffer so you can review earlier output. Scroll up with a single finger to read older lines. The buffer size is configurable via theterminal-transcript-rows property in ~/.termux/termux.properties, with a minimum of 100 rows and an upper limit enforced by the terminal emulator.
To share the full transcript (everything in the buffer), long-press the terminal and choose Share transcript from the context menu. The transcript is also used when Termux scans for URLs via the Select URL option.