If you’ve been sleeping on the Windows Terminal, you might want to wake up. Microsoft has been quietly transforming this command-line tool from a nice-to-have into something genuinely exceptional, and most people haven’t even noticed.

In fact, the Windows Terminal gave me so much confidence that I’ve ditched Linux for Windows for development. Given just how incredible Windows Terminal has gotten, you might want to start using it too.

6 A complete overhaul you’ll actually feel

Windows Terminal finally gets the glow-up it always needed.

Credit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf

The biggest change to the Windows Terminal isn’t flashy, but you will notice it if you’re a frequent terminal dweller. Microsoft has completely rebuilt how Windows Terminal handles windows and processes. Previously, every terminal window ran as a separate process, which caused all sorts of headaches. Now, all your terminal windows live inside a single process, sharing resources much more efficiently and reliably.

The terminal can now run in the background without any visible windows. It also makes global hotkeys more reliable. Startup performance has gotten noticeably better, too. Opening a new terminal window when one’s already running, also known as a “warm start”, feels snappier because you’re not spinning up entirely new processes. There’s also less inter-process communication going on behind the scenes, making everything feel cleaner and more responsive.

Then there are changes that you will notice. Features like GPU-accelerated rendering, Unicode improvements, and richer profile customization all come together to make a much better user experience.

You also get features like multi-pane support and quake mode—a dropdown feature inspired by old-school shooters—that make multitasking with the terminal much easier. In fact, WSL2 was how I could run this colorful CLI app for Windows that’s better than Task Manager. It also let me switch to a text-based calendar and it was shockingly efficient. The Windows Terminal is a lot more powerful, usable, and in no way lacking in features, at least for my requirements.

5 Tab tearout is finally here

Because it’s 2025, and we deserve drag-and-drop tabs

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It’s been a while since Microsoft introduced tabs to Windows programs like File Explorer, Notepad, and, of course, Windows Terminal. But tab tearout, a feature that lets you drag tabs from an existing window to create new ones or merge two windows into one, was crucially missing.

Well, it’s finally here. According to Microsoft, implementing this required a massive codebase rewrite that took years. Developers initially pursued a different technical approach before pivoting to the current implementation. Regardless, it’s here, and it works exactly how you’d expect it to.

If you’ve got one Windows Terminal window running with multiple tabs, you can drag any of them out to create a separate window. And if you want to merge two separate windows into one with tabs, you guessed it, just drag the tab to the right place.

4 SSH profiles that generate themselves

The terminal just became your sysadmin sidekick

If you regularly SSH into remote servers, this feature alone might convert you. Windows Terminal now has automatic SSH profile generation. The terminal reads your OpenSSH config files and automatically creates profiles for all your frequently accessed hosts.

This means you no longer have to manually edit JSON files or add new SSH connections by hand. Your hosts just appear in a convenient folder in the new tab menu, ready to connect.

3 Path translation that speaks your language

No need to go file hunting in the terminal anymore

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Another feature that’ll save you hours of navigating file paths in the terminal is path translation. When you drag and drop a file in the Windows Terminal, it automatically translates the file paths. You can choose between different translation modes—Windows, WSL, MSYS2, or Cygwin—and the terminal ensures the file path is converted to match your shell.

Drop any file into PowerShell, and you get a Windows path. Drop it in a WSL bash session, and you get a proper Unix path. It’s a small feature, but the amount of time it saves having to navigate around a terminal just to execute a specific file saves so much time and effort.

2 A functioning settings interface

The new interface is clean, usable, and finally built for humans

Credit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf

Previously, customizing the Windows Terminal meant diving into a JSON configuration file, making your changes, and hoping you didn’t break anything. Well, Microsoft has now taken out the guesswork and given you a proper settings user interface for options that were previously JSON-exclusive.

You can now configure bell sounds, compatibility settings, cell width, profile-specific background and foreground colors, and spatial padding directly through the Windows Terminal settings interface. There’s even a visual icon picker, editor for padding settings, and the new customization page for the New Tab menu lets you add folders, rearrange profiles, and nest items all via a drag-and-drop interface.

Right-clicking now feels like a power move, not a gamble

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Right-clicking a tab in the Windows Terminal now brings up an actual context menu with options for splitting, moving, zooming, and closing panes, changing tab color, renaming tabs, and more. Right-clicking inside the terminal window lets you paste text as usual.

There are also small quality-of-life improvements, such as a find feature and the ability to export text from the terminal into a text file. They make the terminal more modern and approachable to new users who might not be willing to part with their mice just yet. And if that’s not enough, there are apps you can use that are productivity game changers for anyone who uses the Windows Terminal.

Windows Terminal is in pretty good shape

Windows Terminal becoming the default command-line application in Windows 11 hinted that Microsoft is committed to the tool. And with all these features, improvements, and constant updates, it’s also serious about actively improving itself.

The overall user experience has significantly improved, and none of the improvements require you to change your workflows. You just fire up the terminal, use it as you like, and you’re good to go. You’re not learning new tricks—you’re just doing what you always did, but faster and with less friction.

If you haven’t updated Windows Terminal in a while, or if you’re still using the old console because the terminal seemed unnecessary, give the latest version a shot. Microsoft has a great thing going on here.