How Can I Clear the Terminal in Visual Studio Code?

Robert Thorne
Robert Thorne
• • 10 min read

I Need to Clean the Contents of the Terminal in Visual Studio Code. Every Time I Use Maven, the Output of the Terminal Is Attached to the Previous Build, Which...

How Can I Clear the Terminal in Visual Studio Code?

I need to clean the contents of the terminal in Visual Studio Code.

Every time I use Maven, the output of the terminal is attached to the previous build, which is confusing me.

How do I clear the terminal window with some command or keyboard shortcut?

cls doesn't work; it only hides the text.

3

32 Answers

1
2

Use Ctrl+K. This goes clean your console in Visual Studio Code.

Per comments, in later versions of VSCode (1.29 and above) this shortcut is missing / needs to be created manually.

  • Navigate: File > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts
  • search for workbench.action.terminal.clear
  • If it has no mapping or you wish to change the mapping, continue; otherwise note & use the existing mapping
  • Double click on this entry & you'll be prompted for a key binding. Hold CTRL and tap K. Ctrl + K should now be listed. Press enter to save this mapping
  • Right click the entry and select Change when expression. Type terminalFocus then press enter.
  • That's it. Now, when the terminal is in focus and you press Ctrl+K you'll get the behaviour you'd have expected to get from running clear/cls.
15

Ctrl + Shift + P and select Terminal:clear

2

FOR VERSIONS AT AND ABOVE v1.32 SEE BELOW

Bindings for this command still need to be setup manually, even at v1.33.1, which I am at. The command is there under Terminal: Clear but the binding is blank. Here is how you can setup bindings in v1.32 and up.

Open up the Keyboard Shortcuts with Ctrl+K, Ctrl+S. Then click on the {} next to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab to open up the keybindings.json file.

After doing so, find some open space anywhere in the file, and type in the key bind below.

{
    "key": "ctrl+k",
    "command": "workbench.action.terminal.clear",
    "when": "terminalFocus"
}

FOR VERSIONS UP TO v1.32 SEE BELOW

This is for Visual Studio Code v1.18 up to v1.32, I believe; I am on v1.29.1. Since apparently there are a whole lot of assumptions about the default bindings, here is how you set up a binding, then use it. Keep in mind this binding will completely delete all of the history in your terminal too.

Open up the Keyboard Shortcuts with Ctrl+K, Ctrl+S. Once you are in Keyboard Shortcuts, click on keybindings.json in the text that says ....open and edit keybindings.json. Then on the RIGHT side, in the keybindings.json, add this (make sure you put a comma before the first { if there are one or more bindings already):

{
    "key": "ctrl+k",
    "command": "workbench.action.terminal.clear",
    "when": "terminalFocus"
}

FOR ALL VERSIONS

Remember, the "key": can be whatever binding you want. It doesn't HAVE to be Ctrl + K.

To use the keybinding, you must have focus in your terminal, and then do the binding.

3

To clear Terminal in VS Code simply press Ctrl + Shift + P key together this will open a command palette and type command Terminal: Clear. Also you will go to View in taskbar upper left corner of vs code and open Command pallete.

This will clear the terminal easily & work for any directory you have open in your terminal. This is for Windows, also try if it works for Mac.

This is command is work in all VS code versions include latest version 1.52.1

6

Go to

  1. File >Preferences >Keyboard shortcuts.
  2. Search for "Terminal: clear"
  3. By default no keyboard shortcut is assigned.
  4. Just click on the Plus (+)icon in the banner and give the preferred shortcut of your choice to clear the terminal.
  5. I prefer to use ctrl+k as that shortcut is not assigned with any command.
1

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Shortcut

Mac: cmd + k

Windows: ctrl + k

Robert Thorne

Robert Thorne

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Robert Thorne covers electric vehicle innovations, autonomous driving systems, global mobility trends, and automotive engineering developments.