Install kitty#

Binary install#

You can install pre-built binaries of kitty if you are on macOS or Linux using the following simple command:

curl -L https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/installer.sh | sh /dev/stdin

The binaries will be installed in the standard location for your OS, /Applications/kitty.app on macOS and ~/.local/kitty.app on Linux. The installer only touches files in that directory. To update kitty, simply re-run the command.

Warning

Do not copy the kitty binary out of the installation folder. If you want to add it to your PATH, create a symlink in ~/.local/bin or /usr/bin or wherever. You should create a symlink for the kitten binary as well.

Manually installing#

If something goes wrong or you simply do not want to run the installer, you can manually download and install kitty from the GitHub releases page. If you are on macOS, download the .dmg and install as normal. If you are on Linux, download the tarball and extract it into a directory. The kitty executable will be in the bin sub-directory.

Desktop integration on Linux#

If you want the kitty icon to appear in the taskbar and an entry for it to be present in the menus, you will need to install the kitty.desktop file. The details of the following procedure may need to be adjusted for your particular desktop, but it should work for most major desktop environments.

# Create symbolic links to add kitty and kitten to PATH (assuming ~/.local/bin is in
# your system-wide PATH)
ln -sf ~/.local/kitty.app/bin/kitty ~/.local/kitty.app/bin/kitten ~/.local/bin/
# Place the kitty.desktop file somewhere it can be found by the OS
cp ~/.local/kitty.app/share/applications/kitty.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/
# If you want to open text files and images in kitty via your file manager also add the kitty-open.desktop file
cp ~/.local/kitty.app/share/applications/kitty-open.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/
# Update the paths to the kitty and its icon in the kitty desktop file(s)
sed -i "s|Icon=kitty|Icon=/home/$USER/.local/kitty.app/share/icons/hicolor/256x256/apps/kitty.png|g" ~/.local/share/applications/kitty*.desktop
sed -i "s|Exec=kitty|Exec=/home/$USER/.local/kitty.app/bin/kitty|g" ~/.local/share/applications/kitty*.desktop

Note

In kitty-open.desktop, kitty is registered to handle some supported MIME types. This will cause kitty to take precedence on some systems where the default apps are not explicitly set. For example, if you expect to use other GUI file managers to open dir paths when using commands such as xdg-open, you should configure the default opener for the MIME type inode/directory:

xdg-mime default org.kde.dolphin.desktop inode/directory

Note

If you use the venerable stow command to manage your manual installations, the following takes care of the above for you (use with dest=~/.local/stow):

cd ~/.local/stow
stow -v kitty.app

Customizing the installation#

You can install the latest nightly kitty build with installer:

curl -L https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/installer.sh | sh /dev/stdin \
    installer=nightly

If you want to install it in parallel to the released kitty specify a different install locations with dest:

curl -L https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/installer.sh | sh /dev/stdin \
    installer=nightly dest=/some/other/location

You can specify a different install location, with dest:

curl -L https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/installer.sh | sh /dev/stdin \
    dest=/some/other/location

You can tell the installer not to launch kitty after installing it with launch=n:

curl -L https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/installer.sh | sh /dev/stdin \
    launch=n

You can use a previously downloaded dmg/tarball, with installer:

curl -L https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/installer.sh | sh /dev/stdin \
    installer=/path/to/dmg or tarball

Uninstalling#

All the installer does is copy the kitty files into the install directory. To uninstall, simply delete that directory.

Building from source#

kitty is easy to build from source, follow the instructions.