Features

The complete feature list of MLC Terminal — everything the app can do.

Why MLC Terminal?

Built for exactly these goals:

Lightweight — runs snappily even on small VPSes; no Electron, tiny memory footprint
Many connections at once — dozens of hosts in parallel, instant switching with no reconnect
A modern terminal — OSC sequences, 24-bit truecolor, inline image preview
Click, don't type — click links and file paths right in the terminal output
Quick tunnels — open a localhost link through an SSH tunnel in one click, no manual ssh -L
Fast file browser — copy/paste and drag & drop between hosts
Preview for many file types — images, PDFs, Markdown, code, archives right in the browser
Truly cross-platform — native client for Windows, macOS and Linux; connects to any SSH server (Linux, Unix, macOS, Windows)
Simple, effective monitoring — CPU, memory, disk and network at a glance
Docker without detours — manage remote containers and shell straight into them

As many hosts as you like — instant switching, no reconnect, no re-login
A pooled, multiplexed SSH connection per host
As many shell tabs per host as the work needs — when the server's own channel limit (MaxSessions) is reached, another connection opens behind the scenes instead of refusing the tab
Authentication via password, SSH key, or SSH agent
Auto-detects available keys from ~/.ssh/
Encrypted keys: the passphrase is asked for at connect time and held only until you close the app — a wrong one is caught against the key itself, so you hear about it at the prompt rather than as a puzzling connection error
SSH agent availability is detected up front — where no agent is running, none is reachable, or none holds a key, the option is greyed out with the reason instead of failing on connect
Go passwordless: app-generated Ed25519 key, one-click install into authorized_keys (choice remembered per host)
Host-key fingerprint verification on first connect
Colour tags by environment (production, staging, homelab, cloud)
Host groups in the sidebar
Auto-connect on startup

Splits like a modern IDE — horizontal or vertical, nested arbitrarily deep
Drag tabs between panes
Drop on a pane edge = split-and-move in one gesture
Per-host tab types: Overview, Terminal (multiple), Files, Monitor, Docker, Notes, Settings
Tab labels that tell shells apart — protected-session name, remote-set title, or working directory
The status dot pulses while output is arriving, so a busy background pane is visible without switching to it
Overflow menu when there are many tabs
Session memory: automatic "last session" snapshot (panes, open previews, working directories, SFTP root) restored on reconnect
Per host: Last session · named default layout · Nothing

True 24-bit colour
Inline images via Sixel and the iTerm2 protocol
Clickable links (OSC-8 hyperlinks and plain URLs in text)
Clickable file paths — Ctrl+click (or plain click, configurable) opens the file in the viewer, :line:col included
Per-command markers (OSC 133): green/red per command, click to re-run, copy the command, or copy its output
Live working directory in the footer (OSC 7)
Desktop notifications from scripts (OSC 9)
Progress bar in the footer (OSC 9;4): normal, indeterminate, paused, failed
Kitty keyboard protocol (CSI u) — Shift+Enter and other modified keys reach the remote application unambiguously
Choose who owns the mouse inside a protected session: MLC Terminal (native scrollbar, native selection, copy to the system clipboard — the default) or tmux (the wheel reaches tmux's own scroll history, and vim, less and htop inside the session receive it)
150+ terminal themes with live preview
Per-tab theme switching (up to 20 in the quick picker)
Shell-integration snippet (bash/zsh), copy with one click

Full remote file browser over SSH
Multiple root directories as bookmarks
Drag & drop upload and download
Inline preview: images, PDFs, Markdown (with code highlighting + Mermaid), HTML, archives
Hex view for binaries (with ASCII column)
Editor with syntax highlighting (Bash, Go, TypeScript, Python, YAML and more)
Right-click a preview tab to copy its full path, its filename, or its directory — or reveal the file in the tree
Servers without an SFTP subsystem are detected and the file features are greyed out with a reason, rather than failing when you reach for them

Live gauges for CPU, memory, disk, and network
History of the recent past as sparklines
No service on the server: a small helper runs once per reading and exits (it stays in ~/.mlcterm/agent; delete it to remove)
Enabled per host

Auto-detected when the remote user is in the docker group
Runs over the Docker socket via SSH — no extra setup, no Portainer
List containers (status, image, uptime, ports)
Start, stop, pause and resume
Tail logs live
Interactive shell into any container (opens as its own tab, drag it beside the list)

Open localhost links through an SSH tunnel with a click — no manual ssh -L
Per-host tunnel manager: list, add, and close active local forwards
X11 forwarding per host (requires a local X server: XQuartz / VcXsrv / native on Linux)

SSH passwords encrypted locally with AES-GCM
Private keys never leave your machine — no upload
Key passphrases are never written to disk — asked once per app run and forgotten when the app closes, because anything that survives a restart gives back the protection the passphrase exists for
Host-key fingerprints verified on first connect
Post-quantum key exchange automatically, whenever the server supports it
Post-quantum badge per host: quantum-safe · classical · not connected, plus a sidebar hint for classical connections
Optional master password on startup
No telemetry, no subscription

Trial (30 days, no account): everything Pro has — no registration, and no rush while you evaluate
Standard (free, no login): terminal, SFTP file browser, up to 3 saved hosts
Pro: Docker, live monitoring, unlimited hosts — register before the end of 2026 and Pro is free for a year; licensed after that

When the trial ends the app keeps working: everything you set up stays, including hosts beyond the third. Only the Pro features stop.