Open new terminal tab in same directory as existing tab (OSC 7?)

Description of the new feature/enhancement

Have the option (or default) of a new terminal tab opening in the current directory of the window of which you hit the hotkey to open a new tab. This is the standard way most linux terminals work and is most handy. I often work in a directory where I need to launch multiple seperate processes, its a pain to CD back into the directory each time.

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

Hit the new tab hotkey, the new terminal should then be in the same folder as the previouse.

maintainer edit: Before commenting, make sure to check out

Tutorial: Opening a tab or pane in the same directory in Windows Terminal

This is largely something configurable today, this issue is just tracking another way of configuring this

There's a "standard" escape sequence (OSC 7 ; URI ST) to set the terminal emulator's belief about the current directory. It originates from macOS Terminal.app, and was later adopted by some other ones, including GNOME Terminal and as far as I know Konsole too.

Another possible approach is to do some OS-specific hacks to examine the inner state of the child process (or even further down to descendents).

Yet another possibility is to mix the two, e.g. go to the directory set via OSC 7 if it was ever emitted, otherwise dig into the process.

The advantage of the OSC 7 approach is that it's clever regarding when to and when not to follow a child process. E.g. you start another nested subshell, it'll be the subdirectory of that subshell that's taken into account because that one also emits this sequence. However, launch an app that internally changes directory (e.g. make) and it – luckily – won't be make's internal subdir that's used.

The disadvantage of OSC 7 is that it requires cooperation from the shell, or other apps that matter.

I've been rejecting this feature request for as long as this project has been open-source, and I never learned about OSC 7. This is very exciting.

I'm not happy to crawl through the process tree to dig up the leafmost process's CWD, but I am extremely happy to support OSC 7.

FYI I asked about OSC 7 handling for Alacritty, which eventually led to this issue being created in the "Terminal WG" on gitlab: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/terminal-wg/specifications/issues/20

There's not been much movement on that ticket, but you may be interested to follow it. Especially if you guys have any opinions regarding what a "formal" specification for OSC 7 might look like.

thanks for the hint, @nacitar

I've tried w/o wslpath like:
printf "\e]9;9;%s\e\\" "$PWD"
it didn't work unfortunately:

what do you mean exactly with remove the starting directory bit too?

In your windows terminal settings:

            "startingDirectory": "~"

I can confirm that mine works without that present and using PWD directly like I suggested. My guess is that is overriding it.

... also make sure you're using duplicateTab

Jacob McIntosh (@nacitar)

Thank you a lot Jacob McIntosh (@nacitar)!

I'm unsure what has worked at the end, but this combination "does the needful":

I had to ensure I'm using duplicate pane: action

        {
            "command": 
            {
                "action": "splitPane",
                "split": "auto",
                "splitMode": "duplicate"
            },
            "id": "User.splitPane.A6751878"
        },

Simplified PROMPT_COMMAND version with just $PWD works actually fine, so I've started using it:

$ echo $PROMPT_COMMAND
printf "\e]9;9;%s\e\\" "$PWD"

startingDirectory set to "current dir":

   {
                "colorScheme": "One Half Dark",
                "commandline": "wsl.exe -d Ubuntu-24.04",
                "guid": "{acbafd15-cbbb-5bb3-8a61-bed446ff4b83}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 1",
                "opacity": 95,
                "startingDirectory": "~",
                "useAcrylic": false
            }

With all this I indeed can duplicate tab to the same dir, which saves a lot of time to me! Resolved to me.

For those struggling to duplicate/split WSL tabs in same diretory, please ensure that the startup command line for the distribution profile uses wsl -d <distro> instead of ubuntu2204.exe like executable, as for some reason this affects the passing of the CWD.

Anton Golubev (@0anton)

For those struggling to duplicate/split WSL tabs in same diretory, please ensure that the startup command line for the distribution profile uses wsl -d <distro> instead of ubuntu2204.exe like executable, as for some reason this affects the passing of the CWD.

Right, or this default junk somehow generated:

C:\Windows\system32\wsl.exe --distribution-id {4ad8391d-7793-4fea-90d6-767b6df60ba0} --cd ~

Remove --cd ~, that forces to always cd into the linux user's home folder.

Thanks Anton Golubev (@0anton)

This is a commonsense and the most useful UX, really disappointed to see that it is not implemented till date. I just also wish Terminal remember its previous state when re-opened.

Pavan (@pavangayakwad)

Pavan (@pavangayakwad) https://github.com/shanselman/splitpanefix

Document critical WSL profile fix for directory persistence

Detect WSL profiles using Ubuntu.exe launcher and warn user

Implement OSC 7 for setting the CWD (microsoft#20019)

Implement OSC 7 for setting the CWD (#20019)

Hi! I've just came across this thread and started working on it, I will link the PR once I'm done working with it!

Tommaso Santamaria (@JoshuaKasa)

Tommaso Santamaria (@JoshuaKasa) what approach are you taking?
FWIW OSC 7 support merged ~1 month ago, and OSC9;9 merged years ago. If you have something else valuable to contribute in this space, I'd be highly curious

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Open new terminal tab in same directory as existing tab (OSC 7?) #3158

Description of the new feature/enhancement

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

Tutorial: Opening a tab or pane in the same directory in Windows Terminal

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Open new terminal tab in same directory as existing tab (OSC 7?) #3158

Description

Description of the new feature/enhancement

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

Tutorial: Opening a tab or pane in the same directory in Windows Terminal

Activity

egmontkob commented on Oct 11, 2019

DHowett-MSFT commented on Oct 14, 2019

davidhewitt commented on Nov 15, 2019

189 remaining items

nacitar commented on Apr 7, 2025

0anton commented on Apr 8, 2025

hktkqj commented on Apr 9, 2025

working-name commented on Apr 19, 2025

pavangayakwad commented on May 3, 2025

shanselman commented on Jan 31, 2026

JoshuaKasa commented on May 15, 2026

zadjii-msft commented on May 15, 2026

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