2026-06-03

electerm Desktop

June 3, 2026

electerm is an open-source, cross-platform terminal emulator, SSH client, SFTP client, and remote desktop tool. It is the original desktop version of electerm, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

What is electerm?

electerm is a desktop application that combines a terminal emulator with support for multiple remote connection protocols. It is licensed under MIT and is free to use.

Supported platforms:

Windows — Windows 7 and later (X64/ARM64), also available on Windows Store
macOS — macOS 10.15 and later (x64/arm64), available via Homebrew
Linux — x64/arm64/Loong64, available via Snap, AppImage, and Debian/Ubuntu repositories. Also supports older Linux with glibc 2.17+ (UOS, Kylin, Ubuntu 18.04, etc.)

Features

Terminal and file management

Multi-tab terminal emulator
Built-in SFTP file manager — browse, upload, download, and edit files
Double-click to directly edit remote files
Split view with terminal and SFTP side by side

Multi-protocol support

SSH — Full SSH client with key-based authentication
SFTP — File transfer over SSH
FTP — FTP client
Telnet — Telnet client
Serial port — Serial port communication
RDP — Remote Desktop Protocol client
VNC — VNC client
SPICE — SPICE protocol client

SSH features

SSH agent forwarding
Port forwarding (local and remote)
X11 forwarding
SSH tunneling (guide)
Connection hopping and connection jump (guide)
SSH certificate authentication (guide)
Zmodem support (rz, sz)
Trzsz support (trz/tsz), compatible with tmux

Customization

Many built-in UI and terminal themes (including iTerm themes)
Custom CSS support (examples)
Terminal background images
Terminal keyword highlighting (regex examples)
Configurable fonts and font sizes
Transparent window support (macOS, Windows)
Global hotkey to toggle window visibility (default: ctrl + 2)

Productivity

Quick commands — save and reuse frequently used commands
Quick input to one or all terminals (batch and mirror input)
Workspace feature (guide)
Deep link support (guide)
Auto data sync to GitHub Gist, Gitee, WebDAV, custom server, or electerm cloud (guide)
Data import and export

AI integration

AI assistant integration supporting DeepSeek, OpenAI, and other OpenAI-compatible APIs
Generate commands, explain output, create bookmarks from natural language
MCP (Model Context Protocol) widget for AI assistants and external tools integration (guide)
Agent mode for automated server operations

How to install

Download from website

Download the installer for your platform from the official website.

Package managers

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install --cask electerm

# Windows (winget)
winget install electerm.electerm

# Windows (scoop)
scoop install electerm

# Linux (Snap)
sudo snap install electerm

# npm
npm i -g electerm

Other options

Windows Store
AppImage for Linux
Debian/Ubuntu repository packages

For upgrade instructions and troubleshooting, see the GitHub repository.

Source code

electerm is open source under the MIT license:

GitHub Repository — Source code, issues, and discussions
Wiki — Documentation and guides

Support

GitHub Discussions — Community discussions
Discord — Discord community
Support page — Ways to support the project
WeChat group — Join the WeChat group

Videos

Electerm Usage Demo — Full feature walkthrough (10:01)
Electerm Bookmark Operations — Managing bookmarks (3:00)
Electerm Theme Settings and Editing — Theme customization (2:21)
Electerm SFTP Transfer Files and Folders — File transfer with SFTP (1:55)
Electerm Connection Jump — SSH connection jump (2:04)