Migrate to Warp from Windows Terminal

Warp on Windows covers everything you use Windows Terminal for today, including profiles, PowerShell, color schemes, and keybindings, with Agent Mode and blocks on top. This page walks through the migration.

What Warp can help transfer

Warp doesn’t have a one-click Windows Terminal importer. Because Windows Terminal stores profiles, color schemes, and keybindings in a single JSON file, Warp’s Agent can read that file and translate matching values into Warp’s settings.toml:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\settings.json

Use Warp’s Agent to migrate your settings (recommended)

The fastest way to bring over your Windows Terminal setup is to ask Warp’s Agent to translate settings.json directly. Warp ships a settings.toml file and a bundled modify-settings skill that lets the Agent read your existing config and write equivalent values into Warp’s settings, including translating your color schemes into a Warp custom theme.

1. In the Warp app, open a new tab and switch to Agent Mode with Ctrl+I.

2. Paste this prompt into Agent Mode, then press Enter.

   Read my Windows Terminal settings.json at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\settings.json and port the active profile and color scheme into my Warp settings.toml using the modify-settings skill. Create a matching custom theme. Show me a diff before applying.

3. Review the proposed diff, then approve the changes. Warp hot-reloads settings.toml.

If you’d rather configure each setting manually through the Settings UI, the steps below cover the most common cases.

What to reconfigure manually

Default shell

Warp on Windows supports PowerShell (pwsh and powershell.exe), Command Prompt (cmd), bash, zsh, and fish. Warp auto-detects your login shell. To override it, open Settings > Features > Session in the Warp app and choose a shell from Startup shell for new sessions.

If you use PowerShell modules or a custom $PROFILE, Warp loads them the same way Windows Terminal does.

Profiles

Windows Terminal uses profiles to group shell, theme, starting directory, and font together. Warp doesn’t have a single profile concept; instead, match each dimension separately:

• Shell - Configure from Settings > Features > Session in the Warp app.
• Starting directory - Configure Working directory from Settings > Features > Session in the Warp app.
• Font family and size - Configure from Settings > Appearance > Text, fonts, & cursor in the Warp app.
• Color scheme - Configure from Settings > Appearance > Themes in the Warp app. Translate your Windows Terminal color scheme into a custom Warp theme using the same 16 ANSI color values.
• Reusable layouts - create a tab config for each workflow that used to be a profile.

Color scheme

Windows Terminal’s schemes array defines foreground, background, cursor, and ANSI colors. To match an existing scheme:

1. Copy the color values from the scheme you use in your settings.json.
2. In the Warp app, open Settings > Appearance > Themes, then choose a preset that matches or create a custom theme.

Keybindings

Warp’s default keyboard shortcuts cover most Windows Terminal bindings. For custom bindings from settings.json’s actions array, add them in Settings > Keyboard shortcuts in the Warp app.

Prompt

If you use oh-my-posh or a custom PowerShell prompt, it continues to work in Warp. To choose between Warp’s native prompt and your existing shell prompt, open Settings > Appearance > Prompt in the Warp app. See prompt.

Warp-native equivalents

Use this table to find Warp equivalents for Windows Terminal features you might look for after switching:

From Windows Terminal	In Warp
Profiles	Tab configs + themes + per-session shell settings
Tabs and panes	Tabs, vertical tabs, split panes
Command palette	Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P)
Oh My Posh prompts	Keep using them; pick Shell prompt (PS1) in Warp
Quake mode	Global hotkey

Beyond Windows Terminal’s feature set, Warp adds Agent Mode, blocks, and Warp Drive. See Warp for Windows installation if you haven’t installed yet.