This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Cristobal Dabed
So i have been using Ghostty with Zellij on macOS for a while, as my favourite goto terminal and workspace.
Problem
However, some things have been bothering me for a while that I couldn't sort out until now:
- The Option key on macOS wasn't being interpreted as Alt correctly in the terminal
- Jumping forward a word with
Option+Rightwould trigger Zellij's floating pane toggle instead - Reordering tabs with Alt+i and Alt+o did not work as expected
This happens because macOS terminals convert Option+Right to Alt+f (for "forward word" navigation), which conflicts with Zellij's Alt+f floating pane keybinding.
Solution
1. Configuring Ghostty to treat Option as Alt
Set the macos-option-as-alt option in your Ghostty config e.g.:
# Enable Option key as Alt for keybindings
# Use 'left' so right Option key can still type special characters
macos-option-as-alt = left
This lets us use the left Option key as Alt for Zellij keybindings, while the right Option key can still type special characters (',~, |, etc.).
2. Rebinding the floating pane shortcut
Since Option+Right still is interpreted as Alt+f by the terminal, we need to change Zellij's floating pane keybinding. This can be changed in your Zellij config e.g.:
bind "Alt Shift f" { ToggleFloatingPanes; }
Hope this helps you out, if you have been struggling with the same issues like i did 👋
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Cristobal Dabed
Cristobal Dabed | Sciencx (2025-11-09T18:40:23+00:00) Ghostty + Zellij 👻 setup on Mac. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/11/09/ghostty-zellij-%f0%9f%91%bb-setup-on-mac/
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