Cassie Breviu for Microsoft Azure

Posted on Dec 5, 2019 • Updated on May 20, 2020

Easily add Anaconda Prompt to Windows Terminal to make life better

#python #productivity #tutorial #terminal

I love the Windows Terminal and if you haven't tried it out yet I highly recommend it. Its super customizable which is absolutely lovely. Here are the steps to add Anaconda Prompt to Windows Terminal.

Prerequisites

Add Anaconda Prompt

Open Windows Terminal and click the arrow and then settings. This will open the settings.json file to customize the terminal.
Duplicate the cmd settings by copying and pasting them below or highlight CTRL + D if using visual studio to duplicate the selected text. (I ♥ shortcuts)
Update the guid to something unique
Update the name to Anaconda
Next update the commandline to the cmd for Anaconda Prompt. The easiest way to do this is to grab the target path from the Anaconda Prompt shortcut.
- Search for Anaconda Prompt in the windows search bar
- Right click and open file location
- Right click on the Anaconda Prompt shortcut
- Click properties
- Grab the target path
- Delete the extra text to get the path (shown below)
- If you prefer you can replace the "C:\Users\xxx" to "%USERPROFILE%" The new terminal settings.json should look something like this:
Optional: Update the icon to the Anaconda navigator icon
- It will be the same root path as above up to the anaconda3
- Append \\Menu\\anaconda-navigator.ico to the end.
- End result should look something like this: "icon": "%USERPROFILE%\\AppData\\Local\\Continuum\\anaconda3\\Menu\\anaconda-navigator.ico"
Save the changes to the settings.json file
Open Windows Terminal
Click the down arrow and select Anaconda
BOOM! Anaconda in Windows Terminal.
Listen to Sir-Mix-A-Lot and rejoice in your awesomeness

Top comments (27)

Nikita Lukianets • May 20 '20 • Edited

In the newest version of Windows Terminal, the changes are done in the settings.json file. Just change USERNAME to yours for the "commandline" setting.

{ // Make changes here to the cmd.exe profile. "guid": "{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceee452369}", "name": "Anaconda", "icon": "%USERPROFILE%\Anaconda3\Menu\anaconda-navigator.ico", "commandline": "cmd.exe /K C:\Users\USERNAME\Anaconda3\Scripts\activate.bat", "hidden": false },

Cassie Breviu • May 20 '20

I updated to settings.json! Thanks!

benjamin-sandham • Jun 23 '20

My username is bsand, so my commandline setting is

"cmd.exe /K C:\Users\bsand\anaconda3\Scripts\activate.bat"

However, the \b is highlighted, I think it is acting as an escape character. Do you have any suggestions?

Nikita Lukianets • Jun 23 '20

Try instead
"commandline": "cmd.exe /K C:\\Users\bsand\\anaconda3\\Scripts\\activate.bat"

emmatovar27 • May 19 '20

If you want to have the Anaconda Icon can use this path.

"icon":"%USERPROFILE%\\Anaconda3\\Menu\\anaconda-navigator.ico"

Cassie Breviu • May 19 '20 • Edited

AWESOME! I am going to add this to my setup. Do you mind if I add it into the blog post as well? Thank you :D

emmatovar27 • May 20 '20

No problem! :) Go ahead! Actually thanks for the blog post! :)

Ivan • Jan 14 '21 • Edited

If you have trouble being creative on step 3 you can just use PowerShell

PS C:\Users\you> New-Guid

Guid
----
ea5220b1-590e-4aa3-8c83-3494f8fe9a6b

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershel...

Asgaut Eng • Jan 6 '21

If anyone want to add a Miniconda Powershell prompt add this to the settings.json file:

        {
            // Miniconda Powershell prompt for local user install (non-admin install)
            "guid": "{1caa0dad-35be-5f56-a812-afceeeaa1234}",
            "name": "Miniconda",
            "commandline": "%windir%\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -NoExit -Command \"& '%USERPROFILE%\\Miniconda3\\shell\\condabin\\conda-hook.ps1' ; conda activate '%USERPROFILE%\\Miniconda3' \"",
            "icon": "%USERPROFILE%\\Miniconda3\\Menu\\Iconleak-Atrous-PSConsole.ico",
            "hidden": false,
            "startingDirectory": "%HOMEPATH%"
        }

Naveen Kumar • Jul 21 '20

(base) C:\Users\navee> this is my actual anaconda prompt
(base) C:\WINDOWS\System32> this is anaconda prompt in windows terminal
in the windows terminal, I'm running anaconda prompt as administrator mode
help me change into the user mode with windows terminal

Cassie Breviu • Jul 21 '20

Can you post the JSON here? For the startingDirectory change the JSON to the location you want the directory to open for startingDirectory.

Naveen Kumar • Jul 21 '20

{
"guid": "{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6106}",
"hidden": false,
"icon":"C:\Users\navee\anaconda3\Menu\anaconda-navigator.ico",
"name": "AnacondaPrompt",
"commandline": "cmd.exe /K
C:\Users\navee\anaconda3\Scripts\activate.bat"
},

Cassie Breviu • Jul 21 '20 • Edited

Not sure if I completely understand. Are you trying to run as admin in win term?

Naveen Kumar • Jul 22 '20 • Edited

No, I'm not trying to run as admin.... while running in a Windows Terminal by default it's running in admin mode
I tried to change the path also, but every time in windows terminal, the anaconda prompt opening as administrator mode.
Anyways it won't make any difference if I run as administrator mode, so no probs
Thank You Cassie, thanks for ur time n support :)

PY-Peter • Nov 6 '20

Add "startingDirectory": "C:\Users\navee" to settings.json file.
Does that solve the problem?

Karan Shah • Oct 13 '20

I am facing the same problem is it resolved?

Mohamed Zeid • Feb 1 '21 • Edited

My miniconda installation was a bit different, and this what ended up working for me.
It is installed at this path "C:\ProgramData\Miniconda3"

{
              // Miniconda 
                "guid": "{1caa0dad-35be-5f56-a812-afceeeaa1234}",
                "name": "Miniconda",
                "commandline": "cmd.exe /K %ProgramData%/Miniconda3/Scripts/activate.bat %ProgramData%/Miniconda3",
                "icon": "%ProgramData%\\Miniconda3\\Menu\\Iconleak-Atrous-PSConsole.ico",
                "hidden": false,
                "startingDirectory": "%HOMEPATH%"
            }'

Comment deleted

jfreeman2 • Jul 20 '21 • Edited

@vpraharsha03 I'm experiencing the same issue. @cassieview any idea as to what could be causing this? Thanks for the post! It was very helpful

PRAHAR~1 • Jul 23 '21

@jfreeman2 it turned out that i used unnecessary capitalization in the property name. I used commandLine instead of commandline
cmd.exe opens up because it is the default value when commandline property isn't specified or improperly specified.

Soumyadip Sarkar • Mar 27 '21 • Edited

the key is changing the guide variable,
my cmd guide is 0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6101
I changed the guide by adding one with the last digit of cmd's guide and the rest of the things will be similar.
My anaconda guide is 0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6102

oneextrafact • Mar 12 '20

As my last task in the regular Anaconda prompt, I ran

import uuid
uuid.uuid4()

Thanks so much for a helpful post!

Dominik Schneider • May 23 '20

is there anyway to add a command to run in the conda environment? I'd like to set up a profile for radian github.com/randy3k/radian which is installed in a conda environment.

Cassie Breviu • Jun 18 '20 • Edited

Update the command line to the following:
"commandline": "cmd.exe /K %USERPROFILE%\\AppData\\Local\\Continuum\\anaconda3\\Scripts\\activate.bat & radian"

Dominik Schneider • Jun 18 '20

Thanks! I ended up with this actually - specifying the miniconda3 folder specifies the root environment which is not totally necessary in this case but useful if radian isn't in root.

 "commandline": "cmd.exe /K %USERPROFILE%/Miniconda3/Scripts/activate.bat %USERPROFILE%/Miniconda3 && radian.exe",

Jitvimol • Feb 6 '21

Thanks for the sharing. This is great!
Note for new comer, use double backslash in value of command line.

D V Bhuvan • Feb 5

This was really helpful, Thank you!

View full discussion (28 comments)

DEV Community

Easily add Anaconda Prompt to Windows Terminal to make life better

Prerequisites

Add Anaconda Prompt

Top comments (27)

Read next

How to Write a PHP Extension with Zig?

Big Numbers, No Worries: JavaScript Format Number With Commas

Change Colours in a Bitmap Image using Browser CSS Filters

How my open source tool got 100 stars in 4 days!