Oh My Zsh is an open source, community-driven framework for managing your zsh configuration.
That sounds boring. Let's try this again.
Oh My Zsh is a way of life!
Once installed, your terminal shell will become the talk of the town or your money back! With each keystroke in your command prompt, you'll take advantage of the hundreds of powerful plugins and beautiful themes. Strangers will come up to you in cafés and ask you, "that is amazing! are you some sort of genius?"
Finally, you'll begin to get the sort of attention that you have always felt you deserved. ...or maybe you'll use the time that you're saving to start flossing more often.
To learn more, visit ohmyz.sh and follow @ohmyzsh on Twitter.
Getting Started
Prerequisites
Disclaimer: Oh My Zsh works best on macOS and Linux.
- Unix-based operating system (macOS or Linux)
- Zsh should be installed (v4.3.9 or more recent). If not pre-installed (
zsh --version
to confirm), check the following instruction here: Installing ZSH curl
orwget
should be installedgit
should be installed
Basic Installation
Oh My Zsh is installed by running one of the following commands in your terminal. You can install this via the command-line with either curl
or wget
.
via curl
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
via wget
sh -c "$(wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh -O -)"
Using Oh My Zsh
Plugins
Oh My Zsh comes with a shit load of plugins to take advantage of. You can take a look in the plugins directory and/or the wiki to see what's currently available.
Enabling Plugins
If you spot a plugin (or several) that you would like to use with Oh My Zsh, you will need to edit the ~/.zshrc
file. Once you open it with your favorite editor, you'll see a spot to list all the plugins that you'd like Oh My Zsh to load on initialization.
For example, this line might begin to look like...
plugins=(git bundler osx rake ruby)
Using Plugins
Most plugins (should! we're working on this) include a README, which documents how to use them.
Themes
We'll admit it. Early in the Oh My Zsh world, we may have gotten a bit too theme happy. We have over one hundred themes now bundled. Most of them have screenshots on the wiki. Check them out!
Selecting a Theme
Robby's theme is the default one. It's not the fanciest one. It's not the simplest one. It's just the right one (for him).
Once you find a theme that you want to use, you will need to edit the ~/.zshrc
file. You'll see an environment variable (all caps) in there that looks like:
ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell"
To use a different theme, simply change the value to match the name of your desired theme. For example:
ZSH_THEME="agnoster" # (this is one of the fancy ones)
# you might need to install a special Powerline font on your console's host for this to work
# see https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/wiki/Themes#agnoster
Open up a new terminal window and your prompt should look something like this:
In case you did not find a suitable theme for your needs, please have a look at the wiki for more of them.
If you're feeling feisty, you can let the computer select one randomly for you each time you open a new terminal window.
ZSH_THEME="random" # (...please let it be pie... please be some pie..)
Advanced Topics
If you're the type that likes to get their hands dirty, these sections might resonate.
Advanced Installation
Some users may want to change the default path, or manually install Oh My Zsh.
Custom Directory
The default location is ~/.oh-my-zsh
(hidden in your home directory)
If you'd like to change the install directory with the ZSH
environment variable, either by running export ZSH=/your/path
before installing, or by setting it before the end of the install pipeline like this:
export ZSH="$HOME/.dotfiles/oh-my-zsh"; sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
Manual Installation
1. Clone the repository:
git clone git://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh.git ~/.oh-my-zsh
~/.zshrc
file:
2. Optionally, backup your existing cp ~/.zshrc ~/.zshrc.orig
3. Create a new zsh configuration file
You can create a new zsh config file by copying the template that we have included for you.
cp ~/.oh-my-zsh/templates/zshrc.zsh-template ~/.zshrc
4. Change your default shell
chsh -s /bin/zsh
5. Initialize your new zsh configuration
Once you open up a new terminal window, it should load zsh with Oh My Zsh's configuration.
Installation Problems
If you have any hiccups installing, here are a few common fixes.
- You might need to modify your
PATH
in~/.zshrc
if you're not able to find some commands after switching tooh-my-zsh
. - If you installed manually or changed the install location, check the
ZSH
environment variable in~/.zshrc
.
Custom Plugins and Themes
If you want to override any of the default behaviors, just add a new file (ending in .zsh
) in the custom/
directory.
If you have many functions that go well together, you can put them as a XYZ.plugin.zsh
file in the custom/plugins/
directory and then enable this plugin.
If you would like to override the functionality of a plugin distributed with Oh My Zsh, create a plugin of the same name in the custom/plugins/
directory and it will be loaded instead of the one in plugins/
.
Getting Updates
By default, you will be prompted to check for upgrades every few weeks. If you would like oh-my-zsh
to automatically upgrade itself without prompting you, set the following in your ~/.zshrc
:
DISABLE_UPDATE_PROMPT=true
To disable automatic upgrades, set the following in your ~/.zshrc
:
DISABLE_AUTO_UPDATE=true
Manual Updates
If you'd like to upgrade at any point in time (maybe someone just released a new plugin and you don't want to wait a week?) you just need to run:
upgrade_oh_my_zsh
Magic!
Uninstalling Oh My Zsh
Oh My Zsh isn't for everyone. We'll miss you, but we want to make this an easy breakup.
If you want to uninstall oh-my-zsh
, just run uninstall_oh_my_zsh
from the command-line. It will remove itself and revert your previous bash
or zsh
configuration.
Contributing
I'm far from being a Zsh expert and suspect there are many ways to improve – if you have ideas on how to make the configuration easier to maintain (and faster), don't hesitate to fork and send pull requests!
We also need people to test out pull-requests. So take a look through the open issues and help where you can.
Do NOT send us themes
We have (more than) enough themes for the time being. Please add your theme to the external themes wiki page.
Contributors
Oh My Zsh has a vibrant community of happy users and delightful contributors. Without all the time and help from our contributors, it wouldn't be so awesome.
Thank you so much!
Follow Us
We're on the social media.
Merchandise
We have stickers and shirts for you to show off your love of Oh My Zsh. Again, this will help you become the talk of the town!
License
Oh My Zsh is released under the MIT license.
About Planet Argon
Oh My Zsh was started by the team at Planet Argon, a Ruby on Rails development agency.