6 ms·

Search in scroll back is coming in 1.3, unfortunately that's going to be 6 months away. There's a lot happening in the Ghostty app though, check out the 1.2 re

Search in scroll back is coming in 1.3, unfortunately that's going to be 6 months away. There's a lot happening in the Ghostty app though, check out the 1.2 release notes

sbrother 1y ago
Is there a blog post anywhere that explains why it has taken so long to get search working? Ghostty is such a nice app but that's such a fundamental feature that there has to be a good reason... It's the only thing keeping me on iTerm2.
- esseph 1y ago
  Does nobody use grep?
  - threecheese 1y ago
    How can you use grep to search the scrollback/screen buffer?
    - vulcan01 1y ago
      Ghostty has a write_scrollback_file action you can use to write the scrollback to a temporary file. I have this set to cmd+shift+f, so I simply less [cmd+shift+f] [enter] You can use grep similarly.
    - lytedev 1y ago
      I don't want to presume your use case, but Ghostty has a command for dumping the buffer to a file, which I use for processing output "too late" to use grep. keybind = ctrl+alt+shift+o=write_scrollback_file:open
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - godelski 1y ago
      Try a pager instead. Batcat is more feature rich but there's always the good old less (and more) command. Both work great with grep. I do things like the following multiple times a day $ cat foo.log | less $ cat foo.log | $PAGER $ cat foo.log | grep 09-23-2025 | less Side note / pro tip: on a new line in the terminal press control-x control-e. If you're in zsh you need to edit your config but this will work out of the box for bash.
      - jdub 1y ago
        You can leave the cat at home. less foo.log grep 09-25-2025 foo.log | less
        hamandcheese 1y ago
        https://mrmr.io/cat https://mrmr.io/cat
        asimovDev 1y ago
        but he will feel lonely if he doesn't participate :(
  - 9dev 1y ago
    What good is grep if you want to search the build log on your screen that took an hour in the making? Should have thought of tee-ing it, well duh.
    - esseph 1y ago
      You just rawdog that to stdout without a log file?
      - wewtyflakes 1y ago
        I do. Setting up log files for each and every command seems tedious. I would rather just cmd+f to search and have it work for everything, as it is a property of the terminal, rather than a specific command.
      - tom_ 1y ago
        Of course. Why not? I can use the terminal's search facility to search its infinite scrollback buffer.
      - 9dev 1y ago
        If I don't anticipate problems, or things are slower than I thought? Sure
  - ikiris 1y ago
    "Do you not have phones?"
- quantisan 1y ago
  Try Cmd-Shift-J. It dumps your buffer to a temp file, with the file path made ready for you. I do that and then open the temp file with vi.
  - sbrother 1y ago
    That's the workaround I've used. I still want to be able to just press command F and see "error" highlighted throughout the scrollback.
scosman 1y ago
Best news I've heard all day.

Search in scroll back is coming in 1.3, unfortunately that's going to be 6 months away. There's a lot happening in the Ghostty app though, check out the 1.2 release notes

sbrother 1y ago

Is there a blog post anywhere that explains why it has taken so long to get search working? Ghostty is such a nice app but that's such a fundamental feature that there has to be a good reason... It's the only thing keeping me on iTerm2.

esseph 1y ago
Does nobody use grep?
- threecheese 1y ago
  How can you use grep to search the scrollback/screen buffer?
  - vulcan01 1y ago
    Ghostty has a write_scrollback_file action you can use to write the scrollback to a temporary file. I have this set to cmd+shift+f, so I simply less [cmd+shift+f] [enter] You can use grep similarly.
  - lytedev 1y ago
    I don't want to presume your use case, but Ghostty has a command for dumping the buffer to a file, which I use for processing output "too late" to use grep. keybind = ctrl+alt+shift+o=write_scrollback_file:open
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - godelski 1y ago
    Try a pager instead. Batcat is more feature rich but there's always the good old less (and more) command. Both work great with grep. I do things like the following multiple times a day $ cat foo.log | less $ cat foo.log | $PAGER $ cat foo.log | grep 09-23-2025 | less Side note / pro tip: on a new line in the terminal press control-x control-e. If you're in zsh you need to edit your config but this will work out of the box for bash.
    - jdub 1y ago
      You can leave the cat at home. less foo.log grep 09-25-2025 foo.log | less
      - hamandcheese 1y ago
        https://mrmr.io/cat https://mrmr.io/cat
      - asimovDev 1y ago
        but he will feel lonely if he doesn't participate :(
- 9dev 1y ago
  What good is grep if you want to search the build log on your screen that took an hour in the making? Should have thought of tee-ing it, well duh.
  - esseph 1y ago
    You just rawdog that to stdout without a log file?
    - wewtyflakes 1y ago
      I do. Setting up log files for each and every command seems tedious. I would rather just cmd+f to search and have it work for everything, as it is a property of the terminal, rather than a specific command.
    - tom_ 1y ago
      Of course. Why not? I can use the terminal's search facility to search its infinite scrollback buffer.
    - 9dev 1y ago
      If I don't anticipate problems, or things are slower than I thought? Sure
- ikiris 1y ago
  "Do you not have phones?"
quantisan 1y ago
Try Cmd-Shift-J. It dumps your buffer to a temp file, with the file path made ready for you. I do that and then open the temp file with vi.
- sbrother 1y ago
  That's the workaround I've used. I still want to be able to just press command F and see "error" highlighted throughout the scrollback.

scosman 1y ago

Best news I've heard all day.