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=$(readlink -f ~)/.local/kitty.app/share/icons/hicolor/256x256/apps/kitty.png|g" ~/.local/share/applications/kitty*.desktop
sed -i "s|Exec=kitty|Exec=$(readlink -f ~)/.local/kitty.app/bin/kitty|g" ~/.local/share/applications/kitty*.desktop
# Make xdg-terminal-exec (and hence desktop environments that support it use kitty)
echo 'kitty.desktop' > ~/.config/xdg-terminals.list
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 specific version to install, with:
curl -L https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/installer.sh | sh /dev/stdin \ installer=version-0.35.2
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.