Mac iTerm… geeky style!

Every Mac geek installs iTerm the first time they start their new Macs and if you're a GEEK, it's probably opened all the time.

There's a great set of tips to make it even better:

  • Start with your Mac
  • Shows with a keyboard command
  • Stay hidden from your Dock
  • Stay hidden when switching Apps (⌘+Tab)

Hiding windows when you start iTerm

  1. Open iTerm and close all windows
  2. In the menu, click Window > Save Window Arrangement
  3. Open Preferences>Arrangement and choose the new arrangement as default
  4. Open Preferences>General and in Startup, check the "Open default window arrangement".

That's it… now, when iTerm starts, it won't open a new window.

Making iTerm "float"

iTerm floating over Chrome while I create this article

To make iTerm float over all windows and open with a keyboard shortcut (I'm using ⌘+Option+Space as it's easy to remember and to execute) just follow these steps:

  1. Open Preferences>Keys and mark the checkboxes in Hotkey
  2. Choose your hotkey
Mark these checkboxes and choose a command to start iTerm from above

Starting iTerm with your Mac

Well, this is an easy one…

  1. Open System Preferences
  2. Go to Users and Groups
  3. Go to Startup Items
  4. Drag iTerm to the list or click the [+] button and choose iTerm

Hiding iTerm from your Dock… the final magic

The final and magic step will hide iTerm from your Dock.

  1. In the Finder go to Applications and find iTerm (you can ⌘+click iTerm in the Dock and it will go to the right place)
  2. Right click and choose Show package content
  3. Under Contents, find the file Info.plist and open this file in a text editor (Sublime, Textmate…)
  4. Go to the end of the file and just before the dict closing tag — </dict> add

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<true/>

The End

That's it… close iTerm… open it again and it will be hiden, waiting for your command…