Settings and troubleshooting

ttyl has no configuration file. It reads a few environment variables and uses what your terminal can do.

Environment variables

Variable	What it does
`TTYL_ICONS`	Set to `plain` if icons look like boxes or question marks. ttyl then uses plain Unicode symbols instead of Nerd Font icons.
`VISUAL`, `EDITOR`	The editor that `ctrl-e` opens in the composer. ttyl tries `$VISUAL`, then `$EDITOR`, then `vi`.
`DEVNULL_URL`	The server ttyl talks to. The default is `https://dev-null.sh`. Set it to use a local copy of dev-null.sh while you develop.
`XDG_CONFIG_HOME`	Where ttyl keeps the key this terminal signs in with, in `ttyl/device_ed25519`. The default is `~/.config`.
`XDG_STATE_HOME`	Where ttyl keeps your drafts, in `ttyl/drafts`. The default is `~/.local/state`.

For example, to start ttyl with plain icons:

TTYL_ICONS=plain ttyl

Terminal

Any terminal size works. Colors look best in a terminal with truecolor support, which most current terminals have.

ttyl shows Nerd Font icons by default. If your terminal font is not a Nerd Font, set TTYL_ICONS=plain.

Images show as real pictures in a terminal that can draw them, such as Ghostty, kitty, WezTerm or iTerm2. Other terminals show them with colored half-block characters. See View images.

tmux

tmux blocks two things ttyl needs by default. ttyl turns on allow-passthrough for its own pane when TERM_PROGRAM is tmux or TERM starts with tmux. If it can't tell it runs in tmux, or to turn both on for every pane, add these lines to ~/.tmux.conf, then run tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf:

set -g allow-passthrough on
set -g set-clipboard on

allow-passthrough lets images through as real pictures, and lets y copy links.
set-clipboard also lets y copy links.

Linux

Install wl-clipboard on Wayland or xclip on X11. ttyl uses them to copy links and to paste images with ctrl-v.
O and sign-in open your browser with xdg-open.
After you approve the terminal, the browser hands the approval back to ttyl through a devnull: link handler that ttyl registers with xdg-mime. The desktop cannot launch a binary whose path has a space or a quote, so keep ttyl in a path without them.
Sign in from a desktop session. The browser must run on the same computer as ttyl to hand the approval back.

macOS

A binary downloaded in the browser is blocked until you remove the quarantine flag. In the folder with the binary, run:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ttyl

Installs with Homebrew, the install script or cargo are not blocked.

y copies links and ctrl-v pastes images through the macOS clipboard, with nothing to install. O and sign-in open your browser with open.

Something else

Open an issue with your terminal, your operating system and what you see.