Customize Termux: the complete guide to your Android terminal

Termux is the most powerful terminal emulator on Android. But out of the box, it looks… plain. The good news? Everything is customizable. This guide covers every available configuration option.

Where is the configuration?

Termux uses three files in ~/.termux/:

File	Purpose
termux.properties	Terminal behavior (keyboard, appearance, shortcuts)
colors.properties	Terminal colors (16-color palette + background + foreground)
font.ttf	Custom font

After every change, apply settings:

termux-reload-settings

Or fully restart the Termux app.

If the terminal concept itself is new, what a TTY is and why it still matters gives the background.

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termux.properties: all options

Appearance

Property	Values	Default	Description
fullscreen	true/false	false	Hides Android status and navigation bars
use-fullscreen-workaround	true/false	false	Fixes display bugs in fullscreen mode
use-black-ui	true/false	false	Forces dark theme for drawer and dialogs
night-mode	true/false/system	system	Follows Android dark mode
terminal-margin-horizontal	0–100 dp	3	Left/right margin
terminal-margin-vertical	0–100 dp	0	Top/bottom margin
terminal-toolbar-height	0.4–3.0	1.0	Toolbar height scale
terminal-cursor-style	block/underline/bar	block	Cursor style
terminal-cursor-blink-rate	0+ ms	0	Blink speed (0 = no blink)
terminal-transcript-rows	integer	auto	Scrollback buffer size

Example — immersive terminal:

fullscreen = true
use-fullscreen-workaround = true
use-black-ui = true
terminal-cursor-style = underline

Keyboard & Extra Keys

The extra keys bar is the double row above the keyboard showing ESC, CTRL, ALT, arrows, etc.

Property	Values	Default	Description
extra-keys	JSON array	2 rows	Defines which keys are shown
extra-keys-style	default	default	Key style
extra-keys-text-all-caps	true/false	true	Auto-capitalize key labels
hide-soft-keyboard-on-startup	true/false	false	Hide keyboard on start
soft-keyboard-toggle-behaviour	show/hide/enable/disable	show/hide	Keyboard toggle behavior
enforce-char-based-input	true/false	false	Force character-by-character input
ctrl-space-workaround	true/false	false	Fixes Ctrl+Space on some devices

Completely hide the bar (if you have a physical keyboard):

extra-keys = [[]]

Minimalist single row:

extra-keys = [['ESC','/','-','HOME','UP','END','PGUP']]

Custom two rows:

extra-keys = [['ESC','|','/','-','HOME','UP','END'],['TAB','CTRL','ALT','LEFT','DOWN','RIGHT','ENTER']]

Tip: Toggle the bar anytime with Volume Up + K.

If you also type in other Android apps, the CMDglows keyboard for Android offers its own Ctrl action mode.

Session Shortcuts

Termux sessions are like terminal tabs. Manage them via the drawer (swipe from left) or these physical keyboard shortcuts:

Property	Default	Description
shortcut.create-session	ctrl + t	New session
shortcut.next-session	ctrl + 2	Next session
shortcut.previous-session	ctrl + 1	Previous session
shortcut.rename-session	ctrl + n	Rename session
disable-hardware-keyboard-shortcuts	false	Disable all physical keyboard shortcuts

Behavior

Property	Values	Default	Description
back-key	back/escape	back	Android back button = app back or Escape key
volume-keys	virtual/volume	virtual	Volume keys = system volume or terminal shortcuts
bell-character	vibrate/beep/ignore	vibrate	Terminal bell behavior
terminal-onclick-url-open	true/false	false	Open URLs by clicking on them
disable-terminal-session-change-toast	true/false	false	Disable session change notification

System

Property	Values	Default	Description
allow-external-apps	true/false	true	Allow Termux to launch Android apps
default-working-directory	path	~	Startup directory
delete-tmpdir-files-older-than-x-days-on-exit	-1 to 100000	3	Auto-cleanup temp files
run-termux-am-socket-server	true/false	true	Android communication server
disable-file-share-receiver	true/false	false	Disable file share receiver
disable-file-view-receiver	true/false	false	Disable file view receiver

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colors.properties: terminal colors

This is where it gets interesting. The ~/.termux/colors.properties file controls the entire color palette of your terminal.

How it works

Your terminal uses 16 standard ANSI colors. When a program (git, npm, Claude Code, vim…) wants to display colored text, it uses an ANSI code referencing one of these 16 colors:

Color	Property	Used for
Black	color0 / color8 (bright)	Secondary background, muted text
Red	color1 / color9	Errors, git deletions, failures
Green	color2 / color10	Success, git additions, confirmations
Yellow	color3 / color11	Warnings, modified files
Blue	color4 / color12	Titles, directories, links
Magenta	color5 / color13	Keywords, accents
Cyan	color6 / color14	Info, parameters, strings
White	color7 / color15	Primary light text

Plus three special properties:

• foreground — default text color
• background — background color
• cursor — cursor color

Example: Nord theme

foreground=#d8dee9
background=#2e3440
cursor=#d8dee9

color0=#3b4252
color1=#bf616a
color2=#a3be8c
color3=#ebcb8b
color4=#81a1c1
color5=#b48ead
color6=#88c0d0
color7=#e5e8f0

color8=#4c566a
color9=#bf616a
color10=#a3be8c
color11=#ebcb8b
color12=#81a1c1
color13=#b48ead
color14=#8fbcbb
color15=#eceff4

Choose a theme

Browse and preview all 114 themes in our interactive tool → Termux Theme Previewer

Three ways to install a theme:

1. Manually — paste into ~/.termux/colors.properties
2. Termux
   — F-Droid app with built-in selector (no preview though)
3. Dotfiles — versioned file + symlink (recommended for developers)

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Custom fonts

Termux uses a single font file: ~/.termux/font.ttf. To change it:

# Download JetBrainsMono Nerd Font (with icons)
curl -fsSL "https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/download/v3.2.1/JetBrainsMono.zip" -o font.zip
unzip -q font.zip "JetBrainsMonoNerdFont-Regular.ttf"
cp JetBrainsMonoNerdFont-Regular.ttf ~/.termux/font.ttf
termux-reload-settings

Nerd Fonts add icons to your terminal (folders, git, languages…), essential for tools like Starship, Neovim, or Yazi.

Alternative: install Termux

from F-Droid for a visual font picker.

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Managing config with dotfiles

The best approach for developers: version your Termux configuration in a dotfiles repo and symlink it.

Recommended structure

dotfiles/
├── termux/
│   ├── termux.properties
│   └── colors.properties
├── dotfiles/
│   └── termux.sh
└── ...

In your install script

mkdir -p "$HOME/.termux"
ln -sf "$HOME/dotfiles/termux/termux.properties" "$HOME/.termux/termux.properties"
ln -sf "$HOME/dotfiles/termux/colors.properties" "$HOME/.termux/colors.properties"
termux-reload-settings

Benefits:

• Git-versioned configuration
• Reproducible on any new device
• Shareable with your team

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Recommended complete configuration

Here’s our optimized config for mobile development:

# ~/.termux/termux.properties

# Immersive appearance
fullscreen = true
use-fullscreen-workaround = true
use-black-ui = true
terminal-cursor-style = underline

# Hide extra keys bar (physical keyboard)
extra-keys = [[]]

# Behavior
terminal-onclick-url-open = true
disable-terminal-session-change-toast = true
back-key = escape

For the other Termux pages on the site, see the Termux page.

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Our Termux dotfiles (open source)

We use this exact configuration daily. Our dotfiles repo includes:

• Optimized termux.properties for mobile development
• Automatic install script with symlinks
• Neovim, Starship, Zoxide, Nerd Fonts — all preconfigured
• AI coding agents setup (LLM CLI, Shell-GPT)

github.com/dianedef/dotfiles — clone, run bash dotfiles/termux.sh, done.

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ShipGlows — server dev environments

If you develop on a server (VPS, Codespace), ShipGlows automates everything: isolation with Flox, process management with PM2, HTTPS with Caddy, SSH tunnels and public URLs via DuckDNS.

github.com/commandglows/shipglows — an interactive CLI to deploy and manage your dev environments.

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🎯 Training: Code on Mobile

Want to go further? Module IX of the CMDglows Training teaches you how to:

• Configure Termux for optimized server access
• Understand why SSH ≠ Mosh for AI coding tools
• Use OpenCode/KiloCode from your phone
• Structure your workflow for mobility