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I some how screw up my iterm configuration. Now I click the iterm icon, it shows the menu bar and icon on the dock, but it won't pop up any windows.

So I tried : * remove it from /Application and reinstall it. * remove the ~/Library/Application Support/iTerm

But that does not solve my problem.

Any other ideas please?

Thank you.

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migrated from stackoverflow.com Jul 21 '09 at 19:04

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4 Answers

Here's a quote from the iTerm page:

Where does iTerm store its settings?

Since version 0.8.0, all the setting is stored in ~/Library/Preferences/iTerm.plist. In case something goes wrong, you can delete this file and iTerm will generate a new settings file that should always work.

Quit iTerm before you delete the preferences file and when you restart, it should be OK.


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There may be a preferences file that also needs to be deleted, from the following directory:


Not sure what it is called for iTerm, but it is likely to be something like:


Don't delete the whole directory, though!

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BE CAREFUL don't delete the entire directory. To find the other files you need to delete, use an uninstaller like AppZapper. –  Andrew Scagnelli Jul 21 '09 at 23:06
Yes, sorry I didn't make that clear! –  Matthew Schinckel Jul 22 '09 at 3:35
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iterm2 settings are stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.googlecode.iterm2.plist. Removing that file will allow the program to reset to the defaults.

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I had some problems (it was hanging on a paste of one normal character), and the following rm solved it for me.

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/iTerm/
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