Installing terminal-svg

Homebrew (macOS and Linux)#

brew install russmckendrick/tap/terminal-svg

The tap formula covers macOS and Linux, on both Apple Silicon/ARM and Intel/AMD, and installs the same binaries as the release page. Upgrade with brew upgrade terminal-svg.

Prebuilt binaries from GitHub releases#

Every tagged release on the releases page ships a binary per platform, each with a matching .sha256 checksum file:

The names are stable across releases, so https://github.com/russmckendrick/terminal-svg/releases/latest/download/<file> always fetches the newest version.

Linux#

curl -LO https://github.com/russmckendrick/terminal-svg/releases/latest/download/terminal-svg-linux-amd64
chmod +x terminal-svg-linux-amd64
sudo mv terminal-svg-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/terminal-svg

On ARM (Raspberry Pi, AWS Graviton, etc.) swap amd64 for arm64. No sudo? Put it somewhere on your own PATH instead, e.g. ~/.local/bin/terminal-svg.

The Linux binaries are glibc builds (*-unknown-linux-gnu) and run on any mainstream distro from the last several years; on musl-based systems like Alpine, build from source.

macOS#

Homebrew above is the easy path. To install the raw binary instead:

curl -LO https://github.com/russmckendrick/terminal-svg/releases/latest/download/terminal-svg-darwin-arm64
chmod +x terminal-svg-darwin-arm64
sudo mv terminal-svg-darwin-arm64 /usr/local/bin/terminal-svg

Use darwin-amd64 on Intel Macs. The binaries are not notarized: fetched with curl they run as-is, but if you download one through a browser, Gatekeeper will quarantine it — clear that with:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine terminal-svg

Windows#

In PowerShell:

# Somewhere on your PATH — adjust to taste
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\terminal-svg" | Out-Null
Invoke-WebRequest `
  -Uri https://github.com/russmckendrick/terminal-svg/releases/latest/download/terminal-svg-windows-amd64.exe `
  -OutFile "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\terminal-svg\terminal-svg.exe"

Then add that folder to your PATH if it isn't already (takes effect in new terminals):

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable(
  "Path",
  [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Path", "User") + ";$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\terminal-svg",
  "User")

The executable is unsigned, so SmartScreen may warn on first run — "More info → Run anyway", or verify the checksum first (below) if you'd rather not take a stranger's word for it.

Verifying checksums#

Each binary has a <file>.sha256 next to it on the release page, containing the SHA-256 in the standard <hash> <filename> format.

# Linux
curl -LO https://github.com/russmckendrick/terminal-svg/releases/latest/download/terminal-svg-linux-amd64.sha256
sha256sum -c terminal-svg-linux-amd64.sha256

# macOS
curl -LO https://github.com/russmckendrick/terminal-svg/releases/latest/download/terminal-svg-darwin-arm64.sha256
shasum -a 256 -c terminal-svg-darwin-arm64.sha256

# Windows — compare the two hashes by eye
(Get-FileHash terminal-svg-windows-amd64.exe -Algorithm SHA256).Hash.ToLower()
Get-Content terminal-svg-windows-amd64.exe.sha256

Checking it works#

terminal-svg --version
terminal-svg --list-themes
echo hello | terminal-svg -o hello.svg

Shell completions and man page#

The binary generates its own completions — pick your shell:

# zsh (any directory on your $fpath works)
terminal-svg --completions zsh > ~/.zfunc/_terminal-svg

# bash
terminal-svg --completions bash > /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/terminal-svg

# fish
terminal-svg --completions fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/terminal-svg.fish

elvish and powershell are supported too. For a man page:

terminal-svg --man > /usr/local/share/man/man1/terminal-svg.1
# or read it without installing
terminal-svg --man | man -l -

Building from source#

You need a Rust toolchain (1.85 or newer — the crate uses the 2024 edition); rustup is the usual way to get one. The JetBrainsMono Nerd Font faces in assets/fonts/ are vendored in the repo and baked into the binary at build time, so there's nothing extra to fetch.

# Straight from GitHub
cargo install --git https://github.com/russmckendrick/terminal-svg

# Or from a checkout
git clone https://github.com/russmckendrick/terminal-svg
cd terminal-svg
cargo install --path .

Both put terminal-svg in ~/.cargo/bin. For a binary without installing, cargo build --release leaves it at target/release/terminal-svg.

Uninstalling#

• Homebrew: brew uninstall terminal-svg
• Manual binary: delete it (/usr/local/bin/terminal-svg or wherever you put it)
• Cargo: cargo uninstall terminal-svg

terminal-svg writes nothing outside the SVGs (and .cast files) you ask it for — no caches to clean up. If you created a config file (~/.config/terminal-svg/config.toml), delete it too.