How I Made My Terminal Fast and Consistent Across Mac and Windows

I used to have two totally different terminal setups: iTerm2 with Oh My Zsh on my Mac, and Windows Terminal with Oh My Posh on my PC. They were slow to load, heavy, and looked nothing alike.

So I ripped them out and rebuilt everything using Ghostty, Starship, and eza.

Here is why it’s a massive upgrade, and how you can do it too.

Why the Switch?

• Speed: Oh My Zsh and Oh My Posh add a lot of startup bloat. Starship is written in Rust and is a single compiled binary. It renders instantly.
• Consistency: Because Starship is cross-platform, I use the exact same starship.toml file on both Mac and PC. Same prompt, same Git integration, same colors.
• Better Terminals: Ghostty on Mac uses GPU rendering for a buttery smooth experience. On Windows, Windows Terminal + PowerShell 7 is the perfect combo.
• Better ls: Replacing the standard ls command with eza gives you instant, colorful file listings with icons.

Let’s set it up. We’ll use the Tokyo Night theme on both platforms so they look identical.

🍎 Part 1: macOS (Ghostty + Starship)

1. Install the tools via Homebrew:

brew install --cask ghostty
brew install starship eza zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting
brew install --cask font-meslo-lg-nerd-font

2. Clean up your .zshrc:
Remove Oh My Zsh entirely. We’ll load the standalone plugins instead. Add this to your ~/.zshrc:

# Load completions and plugins
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit
source /opt/homebrew/share/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh
source /opt/homebrew/share/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh

# Add eza aliases
alias ls='eza --icons'
alias ll='eza -la --icons'
alias la='eza -la --icons'
alias lt='eza --tree --level=2 --icons'

# Initialize Starship (MUST be last)
eval "$(starship init zsh)"

3. Configure Ghostty:
Run ghostty +edit-config and add these lines:

font-family = MesloLGS Nerd Font
shell-integration-features = sudo,ssh-terminfo,ssh-env

4. Apply the Tokyo Night Theme:

starship preset tokyo-night -o ~/.config/starship.toml

🪟 Part 2: Windows (Windows Terminal + PowerShell)

1. Install the tools via Winget:

winget install Starship.Starship
winget install eza-community.eza

(Make sure to download the Meslo Nerd Font and “Install for all users”).

2. Create an ultra-fast PowerShell Profile:
Open your profile (notepad $PROFILE) and paste this. We use a caching trick for Starship to make it load instantly:

### Ultra-Fast PowerShell Profile

# Eza aliases (Remove default PowerShell alias first)
Remove-Item Alias:ls -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
function ls { eza --icons $args }
function ll { eza -la --icons $args }
function la { eza -la --icons $args }
function lt { eza --tree --level=2 --icons $args }

# FAST STARSHIP (Cached for speed)
if ($Host.Name -eq 'ConsoleHost' -and -not [Console]::IsInputRedirected -and -not [Console]::IsOutputRedirected) {
    $starshipCache = Join-Path $env:TEMP 'starship-init.ps1'
    if (-not (Test-Path $starshipCache) -or ((Get-Date) - (Get-Item $starshipCache).LastWriteTime).TotalDays -gt 7) {
        starship init powershell > $starshipCache
    }
    if (Test-Path $starshipCache) { . $starshipCache }
}

3. Update Terminal Settings:
Open Windows Terminal Settings (Ctrl + ,), go to your PowerShell profile -> Appearance, and set the Font face to MesloLGS Nerd Font.

4. Apply the Tokyo Night Theme:
Run this in PowerShell to generate the same theme locally:

starship preset tokyo-night -o $HOME\.config\starship.toml --force

(Or just copy your starship.toml file from your Mac to C:\Users\YourName\.config\)

The Result

By ditching the heavy frameworks and using modern, compiled tools, I cut my shell startup time by over 400%. My Mac and PC now have the exact same lightning-fast, beautiful Tokyo Night setup.