This standalone terminal emulator, usually included with Cygwin, can be used as an alternative to the Windows Powershell and emulators xterm as well as a few other terminals.
MinTTY is a free and open source Cygwin emulator app and SSH/telnet client, developed by Andy Koppe for Windows.
The download has been tested by an editor here on a PC and a list of features has been compiled; see below. We've also created some screenshots of MinTTY to illustrate the user interface and show the overall usage and features of this Cygwin emulation program.
Terminal emulator compatible with Cygwin and other projects
MinTTY is a free and open source terminal emulator for Cygwin, the Unix-like environment for Windows.
It works with Cygwin, MSYS or Msys2, and derived projects.
It features a native Windows user interface and does not require a display server; its terminal emulation is aimed to be compatible with xterm.
MinTTY works on all Windows versions from Windows XP onwards. Similarly to other Cygwin/MSYS terminals based on pseudo terminal ("pty") devices.
Windows console input/output has inter-working problems with "pty" mode (most notably character set, but also character-wise input and signal processing incompatibilities, see input/output interaction). Cygwin compensates for this issue via the ConPTY API of Windows.
Features of MinTTY
- 256 colors and True-Color support, optional CMYK color specification.
- Alternative fonts: simultaneous display of multiple fonts.
- Bidirectional rendering, flexible bidi controls.
- Character composition with full Unicode support, using dead keys and Compose key.
- Extended character attributes support: shadowed, subscript, superscript (terminfo) and overstrike.
- Full Unicode support, comprehensive character encoding support and wide character handling.
- Full character attributes support, including italic, underline styles and colors, overline, strikeout, rapid blinking.
- Full emoji support, including all emoji sequences.
- Image display support
- Reflow option on terminal resize (re-breaking of wrapped lines).
- Secondary fonts: script-specific alternative font usage.
- Sixel graphics support
- Tektronix 4014 vector graphics emulation.
- Windows IME support
- Xterm-compatible terminal emulation, coverage of all DEC terminal series screen control features.
Compatibility and License
MinTTY has been released under the open source GPL license on Windows from SSH/telnet clients. The license provides the options to freely download, install, run and share this program without any restrictions. The source code for MinTTY should be freely available and modifications are certainly permitted as well as the option to inspect the software.
What version of Windows can MinTTY run on?
MinTTY can be used on a computer running Windows 11 or Windows 10. Previous versions of the OS shouldn't be a problem with Windows 8 and Windows 7 having been tested. It comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit downloads.
Filed under:
- MinTTY Download
- Free SSH/Telnet Clients
- Open source and GPL software
- Cygwin Emulation Software
