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Feature: Add support for Infinite Scrollback #1410
Description
Summary of the new feature/enhancement
I know at least gnome-terminal supports infinite scrollback as a checkbox option in profile settings; it would be great to have that here (I'd love to be able to replace X server+gnome-terminal for WSL).
I checked to make sure that there wasn't an issue for this already, and I saw that you have a TODO comment in the code for this, so I figured I'd open a GitHub issue so that you can use the 👍 to figure out how to rank it.
Proposed technical implementation details (optional)
Looks like the plan is for users to set HistorySize to -1
Reacted by Michael Klose, epicabsol, pedromql, Sean Fausett, autoantwort, Nicolas PHUNG, Padmassun Rajakareyar, Luan Vitor Simião Oliveira, Snir Broshi, Yusef Napora and 144 more
Reacted by Zieng, Mel Massadian, Scott Stensland, Mathias Aerts, Chief Sloperator, James Johnston and Alberto Peinado Checa
Activity
[-]Infinite Scrollback[/-][+]Add support for Infinite Scrollback[/+]JushBJJ commentedon Jun 22, 2019
Would the buffer content be stored inside a file?
egmontkob commentedon Jun 24, 2019
In GNOME Terminal (VTE) we store the scrollback in a compressed and encrypted file. Storing it in memory could easily result in heavy swapping, followed by the OOM killer kicking in. We store it on disk even if it's configured to have a finite size.
The file is unlinked immediately after creating it, so it's freed up in the unlikely case that gnome-terminal (or another VTE-based terminal) crashes. During normal operation, the file handle is released (and thus the file contents get freed up) and encryption key is explicitly zeroed out in the memory when the terminal tab/window is closed.
We used to store it in unencrypted file, but people were worried about privacy / data leakage issues e.g. if the computer gets stolen, see e.g. a generic security report and the tracking bug. (A nice extension would be if we could detect if the file system is encrypted and then skip this step.)
Konsole, on the other hand, warns you in its config dialog that "When using [unlimited scrollback], the scrollback data will be written unencrypted to temporary files." If fixed scrollback is configured, Konsole stores it in memory (and again, informs the user about it and the corresponding risks).
[-]Add support for Infinite Scrollback[/-][+]Feature: Add support for Infinite Scrollback[/+]26 remaining items
martingalvan-volue commentedon Jul 26, 2024
Thanks for the info. I haven't tried this yet, but hopefully it can serve as a workaround until Microsoft fixes Windows Terminal.
martingalvan-volue commentedon Nov 7, 2024
Hi, just wanted to check whether there's been any progress on this issue.
effleurager commentedon Nov 8, 2024
You do realise you're the only person affecting this effect?
martingalvan-volue commentedon Nov 8, 2024
I don't understand what you mean by this. I just thought I'd ping this to see if there's been any progress, as it's been over 5 years since it was reported and people are still tripping over it.
andre-m-coquim-alb commentedon Nov 24, 2024
Is it possible for an issue as old as this one to be considered a priority and be put out of the backlog, or will it be one of those issues that will remain in backlog forever independently of how many people come here and put a thumbs up or comment on it? Is there anything we, common users can do to give it some kindo of priority?
To me it affects me every day since I have to do compilations that easily pass the current scrollback limit and obligates me to use an alternative terminal, since if an error occurs it will possibly be lost due to the limited scrollback in windows terminal.
ramapcsx2 commentedon Nov 24, 2024
To add to that, we'll take interim workarounds as well. If the full proper fix is too involved, then at least bolt something on in the meanwhile?
Cheers :p
martingalvan-volue commentedon Jun 20, 2025
Hi, I just got hit by this issue once again. I saw that Dustin L. Howett (@DHowett) has set a milestone for this, does that mean there's work being done here?
evilZardoz commentedon Jul 29, 2025
macOS user here transitioning to Windows - this is a significant thing holding me back. The macOS terminal can hold around 2GB of scrollback (before it crashes). Understand that we need to throw memory at this problem (how efficient would it be? Will I need more than 16 or 32GB RAM in my device for it?).
Glad it's being worked on, at least!
Features for usefulness could include a "save buffer and clear" feature to export the entire buffer to a text file. "Open windows from previous session" would probably want to truncate any buffers that may be stored - macOS terminal does this.
lhecker commentedon Jul 29, 2025
I apologize, I accidentally forgot about finishing the PR, as I was working on another project since earlier this year (msedit). I'll see if I can finish it up in the near term.
andre-m-coquim-alb commentedon Oct 9, 2025
Hi, lhecker, your PR #18290 seems to have failed some checks, can you please take a look when you have time?
AldebaraanMKII commentedon Jan 18, 2026
I just encountered this problem. I could not scroll back to the beginning and had to run my script again to get the initial output. A shame that this is not implemented yet.
yuceltoluyag commentedon Apr 18, 2026
Can we have infinite scrollback? (#18290)