Getting started

Download MXterm Pro from the download page. On a Mac you get a DMG that runs natively on both Apple silicon and Intel, and it needs macOS 10.15 or later. On a Windows PC the download page offers an installer for Windows 10 or 11 on x64; there is no ARM64 build. The rest of this page was checked against the macOS app, and where Windows is known to differ the text says so.

After you click a download button on the site, an Install in three steps popup shows the steps for the file you chose. They are the same steps as below.

1. Open the DMG you downloaded.
2. Drag MXterm Pro into Applications.
3. Open MXterm Pro from Applications.
4. If macOS asks whether you want to open an app downloaded from the internet, choose Open.

On macOS the app is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple.

On Windows:

1. Run the .exe you downloaded.
2. If Windows SmartScreen shows Windows protected your PC, click More info, then Run anyway. The installer is not code-signed yet, so Windows lists the publisher as Unknown.
3. Follow the installer's steps.

The first time the app opens, a six-slide tour titled Welcome to MXterm Pro appears. Click Next to step through it or Skip Tour to close it; the language menu in its header lists every language the app offers, and picking one switches the tour and the app to it. The tour opens by itself once and does not come back after you close it; you can replay it from the logo menu, under Welcome tour.

Behind the tour the window has a single tab, New Tab, showing the workspace composer. The interface starts in the first language on your system's language list that the app offers, and in English if none of them is offered; a language you picked earlier is kept. The app offers English, Tiếng Việt, 简体中文, 日本語, 한국어, Español, Français, Türkçe, Bahasa Indonesia, Português (Brasil) and Deutsch. You can change it later in Settings, where each language is listed under its own name.

A workspace is a tab holding a grid of terminal panes that all start in one folder. Nothing runs until you create it.

1. Under Working folder, type a path or click Browse. It starts at your home folder, and folders you used before are listed under Recent.
2. Under How many terminals?, choose 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 16 or 20. The preview below shows the grid you will get. Layout switches between Horizontal (a grid) and Vertical (one row of tall columns, panes side by side). Vertical offers 1 to 6 panes, and a count it does not offer drops to the largest one below it.
3. Under AI agents, use the − and + buttons to set how many panes run each agent. The list leads with Claude Code, Codex, Grok and Gemini CLI, then the Terminal (Plain Shell) row, then OMP; the other agents follow, installed ones first. An agent whose CLI the app can't find is marked Not installed and has an Install button, which opens that agent's install guide; MXterm Pro never runs the install for you. For Cursor Agent that CLI is cursor-agent. While the app is still checking, or if the check failed (a Retry link appears), no agent can be ticked and every pane is a plain shell.
4. Panes you leave unassigned run a plain shell. The Terminal (Plain Shell) row lets you pick that shell and set the number of plain panes explicitly.
5. Review the three options under the preview (see the table below), then click Create workspace or press Cmd+Enter (Ctrl+Enter on Windows).

The composer always offers Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, GitHub Copilot, Qwen Code, Amp, Gemini CLI, Cursor Agent, Antigravity, OMP (Oh My Pi) and Grok. Further agents, such as Aider, Goose, Kimi Code and Devin, appear only once MXterm Pro finds their CLI on your machine. The composer starts with 2 terminals and only puts agents you have installed on them. With Claude Code and Codex installed it proposes one of each. Otherwise the first two installed agents on the list split the panes, half (rounded up) to the first; with one agent installed it gets half and the rest are plain shells, and with none every pane is a plain shell. When you click Create workspace, the composer remembers that choice (agents, plain terminals, layout and pane count) and starts from it next time, scaled to the pane count you pick; a remembered agent that is no longer installed becomes a plain shell. Check the AI agents rows before you create the workspace.

If the folder already has agent sessions, a Resume sessions list appears under the folder field. Tick a session to reopen it in its own pane. A workspace holds at most 20 panes, so ticking stops once you reach that. A session you tick takes priority over the resume option for its pane.

If the folder is a git repository with no commits yet, Isolate features in git worktrees first commits an empty .gitkeep as Initial commit, because a worktree needs a commit to start from. Nothing else in the folder is staged or committed.

The composer has two columns, the working folder on the left and the terminals on the right, while the tab is wide enough. When it is not, for instance with the sidebar and the right panel both open, the columns stack into one.

More on agents and worktrees is in Agents and Control Room (formerly War Room).

Bypass Mode tells agents to skip their approval prompts, so they run commands and change files without asking you first. It is off unless you turn it on: out of the box your agents stop and ask.

If you used an earlier version, the composer shows a notice until you dismiss it or change the box: Bypass Mode is now off by default. Agents will ask before running commands or editing files. Turn it back on with the switch below. If you had already ticked or unticked the box yourself, your own choice is kept.

To turn it on:

1. Open the composer: press Cmd+T (Ctrl+T on Windows), or click + at the end of the tab strip and choose New tab.
2. Tick Enable Bypass Mode (Auto-approve CLI permissions).

Bypass Mode adds each supported agent's own skip-approval flag, which MXterm Pro knows for 14 agents. The others, including OpenCode, GitHub Copilot, Amp, Cursor Agent, Antigravity and OMP, start with their normal command whether Bypass Mode is on or off.

The choice is saved as soon as you change it. Every agent pane started after that follows it, including panes reopened the next time you launch the app. The composer box is the switch for flag-based bypass. Goose has no flag, so its auto mode is an environment variable offered only in Settings.

• New tab: press Cmd+T (Ctrl+T). The tab opens on the composer and starts no shells until you create the workspace. Clicking + at the end of the tab strip opens a menu instead, described next; its first row, New tab, does the same as Cmd+T.
• The + menu: a search field sits on top; typing filters folders and agents, and Enter opens the first match. New terminal opens one tab with a plain shell in the folder of the tab in front when that is a local tab with a folder, otherwise in your most recent folder, otherwise in your home folder. New terminal in ~ does the same in your home folder when that differs, and Open folder… asks for a folder first. Under Recent, up to six recent folders each open a terminal tab in that folder (a search lists every match). Under Agents in and the folder's name, each installed agent opens one tab with one pane running it in that folder, with no worktree and no resume. If no agent is installed, one row takes you to Settings → Agents. Every row except New tab opens exactly one tab with one pane, and the Free plan's limits apply as for any new tab.
• Name: a workspace tab takes its folder's name. Double-click a tab to rename it; Enter saves and Esc cancels.
• Switch: click a tab, press Cmd+1 to Cmd+8 for a tab by number, or press Cmd+← / Cmd+→ on macOS for the previous or next tab (Ctrl+Alt+← / Ctrl+Alt+→ on Windows).
• Order: drag a tab to move it, or press Cmd+↑ (Ctrl+↑ on Windows) to move the active tab one place to the left. Cmd+Shift+← and Cmd+Shift+→ move it left or right, but macOS may take them before the app sees them. Cmd+↓ does not move a tab: it scrolls the focused pane to the bottom and focuses its input. The sidebar list keeps the same order.
• Width: a tab is at most 220px wide, and a longer name is cut off. Hover it to see the whole name.
• Own window: right-click a tab and choose Move Tab to New Window (offered when the window has more than one tab). Move to Main Window brings it back, and Merge All Windows in the menu bar icon puts everything together again. See Panes and splits.
• Close: hover a tab and click its ×. If the tab has more than one terminal, Confirm Closing Workspace Tab asks first, and Close Tab ends every process in it. A tab with one terminal closes straight away.
• Closing the last tab brings the composer back.

The sidebar on the left lists your workspaces under Workspaces. Each row has a project icon and two lines: the name, then its number of panes and, when its conversations are known, the tokens they used on this Mac (up to the last 30 days) and the cost at list prices, such as 6 Panes · 1.7M · $0.41. Hover a workspace and use its ⋮ menu to Rename or Close it, or drag it to reorder. New Workspace opens a new composer tab. Workspaces, Terminals and the Machines and SSH group start as equal thirds of the sidebar's height, with soft card rows. Drag the line between two sections to resize them, and double-click it to put that line back. The heights are kept when you hide the sidebar and when you restart. Machines and SSH share one height, because only one of them is open at a time. Below the workspaces, Terminals lists the active workspace's terminals, with the agent and its token figure on the second line, followed by the git branch of the pane's folder when one is known (not for SSH panes or panes of other computers); click one to focus its pane. Its All | Recent switch changes the list: Recent shows every pane of every tab on this Mac, newest output first, and the order holds still while you use it, so a click lands on the row you aimed at (panes of other machines are not in it). Hover a title that is cut off to see all of it. Under them, Machines lists other MXterm Pro computers you have paired with (see Panes and splits) and starts open only when one is paired; a settings button in its header opens Settings on Remote Access & Devices. Open a machine to see its tabs as cards with their panes, each pane in one of five states as on the phone, and, for a tab whose Control Room is live, a row you can open to read its last 100 messages (read only). A machine's ⋯ menu also offers New Control Room… and New session… (see Panes and splits). You can pin a machine or a tab and drag rows to reorder them; if a saved address stops working, MXterm Pro tries the machine's other known addresses on its own (local network or Tailscale). A tab you opened from another machine ends its second line in Workspaces with that machine's name and how it is reached, such as 4 Panes · Mac Thuy · Tailscale, and its panes in Terminals show their own names and agents with the machine's name at the end. Below that, SSH lists your saved SSH hosts: click one to open it in a new tab. Its header has a New Host button and a button that opens the SSH & SFTP manager. At the bottom are Settings and the app version.

Hide or show the sidebar with Cmd+B on macOS (Ctrl+B on Windows) or the sidebar button at the left of the title bar. More shortcuts are on Keyboard shortcuts, and splitting and arranging panes is covered in Panes.

Everything on this page works on Free. Free has no pane limit: you can open as many panes as you like across all tabs and windows. Besides panes, Free counts six things by default, and a Pro licence removes all of them. Pro also adds My Devices (open your other signed-in Macs with no code or password) and a Standing (non-expiring) access password.

These are the default numbers. mxterm.net can change them for Free within fixed ranges, and a change can expire, after which the defaults apply again. A limit is checked when you add something: lowering it never closes what is already open or saved, and adding a second machine on Free opens the upgrade dialog while the machines you already have stay. The same goes for a second Control Room with members: a room with no members does not count, and the rooms you already have stay. The app itself enforces the Control Room and machine limits. The MXterm phone app (iPhone, iPad) is not counted toward the limit of 1 other computer that can control this Mac. Only other computers running MXterm count; browsers do not. The two remote control limits refuse only something new: a computer already paired and a pane already shared stay as they are.

Remote access has one more Pro line: Free can turn on an access password that lasts up to 8 hours (Temporary), while a Standing password, or a Temporary one longer than 8 hours (up to 7 days), needs Pro. A password is at least 6 characters. See Settings.

Browsing, editing, uploading and downloading files over SFTP are free, and so is the Token Meter.

When you reach a limit, a dialog names it and offers Get MXterm Pro, Enter License Key or Not now. Plans are on Pricing; activating a key is described in Settings.

Closing the only MXterm Pro window quits the app, on every platform. It does not keep running in the background: every terminal and agent in every tab is stopped. Quitting stops every live connection. MXterm Pro is built to save your shares and restore them on the next launch once the same pane is running again; a share that cannot be verified is dropped, never widened.

If you have opened a second window, closing one of them is not quitting. A window with terminals still in it asks Close this window? first, and offers to move its tabs to the other window instead of ending them. Only the last window closing quits the app.

While the app is running, its icon in the menu bar (the system tray on Windows) brings the window forward when clicked, and its menu has Show MXterm Pro, Merge All Windows, Check for Updates… and Quit.

When you open the app again, your workspace tabs come back with their pane layouts, and each pane starts again in its folder. A Claude Code pane reopens its own conversation by id when the app remembered one, and starts a new conversation otherwise. Gemini CLI, OMP and Grok panes are started with --resume and Codex panes with codex resume, so you can pick up the previous conversation; other panes start fresh. Tabs that were still on the composer are not restored.

The app also remembers, about every 3 seconds, what each pane is running. For Claude Code and OMP it keeps the conversation that was open, so the pane reopens that one and not a picker or the latest one in the folder. If that conversation no longer exists, Claude Code, OMP and Grok retry with plain --resume in most shells, instead of stopping at a bare prompt. If you started an agent yourself in a plain terminal pane, the pane comes back running that agent, resumed the same way, but without its Bypass Mode flag. On Windows the app does not read what a pane is running, so none of this remembering happens there.