How to Add a New Profile in Windows Terminal

Windows Terminal lets you create multiple profiles for different shells. Here is how to add a new profile in Windows Terminal.

After many requests from developers, power users, and even regular users, Microsoft finally released the new Windows Terminal application. The best thing is, rather than replacing the already existing shells like Command Prompt and PowerShell, Windows Terminal acts as a central location for all these shells and provides a simple yet powerful user interface to use and control them. In addition, if you have installed Ubuntu or other Linux-based OS, those shells are automatically added to the Windows Terminal.

Generally, Windows Terminal can detect any existing shells in the Windows OS and add them as a separate profile. Applications and developers can also add them to the Windows Terminal. That is one of the reasons why you see Linux shell in Windows Terminal as soon as you install a Linux-based OS via Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Apart from the default profiles, there might be situations where you need to create custom profiles in Windows Terminal. The new profile can be an altogether new shell, duplicate an existing shell or existing shell with arguments and custom configuration. In those cases, you can easily create and add a new profile in Windows Terminal. Since you can customize Windows Terminal profiles individually, it will be easy to differentiate between duplicate profiles.

This quick and straightforward guide lets me show you how to add a new profile in Windows Terminal.

Add new profile in Windows Terminal

To add a new profile in the Windows Terminal, follow the simple steps below.

Open the Windows Terminal application.
Click the dropdown button on the title bar.
Select the “Settings” option.
Click “Add new” option on the sidebar.
Type a name in the “Profile name” field.
Click the “Browse” button next to the Command Line field.
Select the CMD shell exe file and click “Open.”
Hit the “Save” button.
With that, you have added a new profile to the Windows Terminal.

First, open the Windows Terminal application. You can do that by searching for “Windows Terminal” in the Start menu. After opening it, click the dropdown icon on the title bar and select the “Settings” option.

On the Settings page, click the “Add new” option on the sidebar.

Now, type a name in the “Profile name” field. This is the name that appears in the profile selection dropdown menu and as the default tab title.

Next, click the “Browse” button next to the Command Line field, select the CMD exe file, and click the “Open” button. For example, if you want to add PowerShell to the profile, select the “PowerShell.exe” file. In my case, I’m leaving the defaults.

(Optional) If you want to set a custom starting directory, you can do that by unchecking the “Use parent process directory” checkbox and adding the path to the “Starting directory” field. This option is beneficial if you want the shell to start in a specific directory rather than in the default directory.

Finally, click the “Save” button.

With that, you have successfully added a new profile to the Windows Terminal. You can customize Windows Terminal by changing the terminal profile background, tab title, font, cursor style, etc. You will find all the relevant options on the profile page itself.