OS X ‘delete’ key not working in Terminal Fix

Posted by HokieTux on February 3, 2010 in Hacks

By default, the OS X terminal will not send the proper ‘^H’ character when you press the ‘delete’ key.  This isn’t a problem if you are working locally, because the terminal knows how to interpret local keystrokes without issue.

However, if you are SSH’d to a remote machine and/or are using GNU screen, there is a chance that you will no longer be able to backspace properly.

Luckily, the fix is simple.  Head into the Terminal preferences, click the ‘Advanced’ tab, and check the box about ‘delete’ sending the ‘^H’ character.  It should look something like this on Snow Leopard:

Terminal Preferences

And that’s it!  You should be all set =)

3 Comments on OS X ‘delete’ key not working in Terminal Fix

By Thomas Upton on February 4, 2010 at 6:07 am

I have no idea why this isn’t the default behavior, but this is certainly desired when working on remote Linux hosts.

By Gil Carroll on August 25, 2010 at 1:06 pm

This solution does not work for me (even though the screenshots are accurate). Frustrating. However, ‘fn + command’ seem to delete the appropriate way.

By HokieTux on September 3, 2010 at 2:46 pm

Really? That didn’t work? Strange.

Not sure what to say :-/

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