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Ghostty 1.4.0 adds support for animated Kitty graphics and relative image placements, alongside performance and memory improvements. The release also addresses multiple security vulnerabilities, including issues triggered by malicious terminal output, and includes seven months of work across 2,889 commits.
Ghostty 1.4.0 is now available with support for animated Kitty graphics and relative image placements, along with memory and performance improvements and fixes for multiple security vulnerabilities. The terminal emulator’s maintainers say the release completes its implementation of the published Kitty graphics specification and includes work from 172 contributors across 2,889 commits.
The graphics additions cover two features Ghostty previously lacked: animation and relative placements. Programs that send animated images using the Kitty protocol, including the Kitty utility kitten icat, can now play those animations in Ghostty rather than displaying only a still frame. Ghostty also supports frame transmission, composition and playback controls; animations pause when the terminal is not visible. Relative placements let a program position one image in relation to another so that it moves with its parent image.
Ghostty says a conformance pass against the Kitty specification and Kitty itself corrected dozens of behavioral differences. Its examples include images scrolling with text in scroll regions, replacing an existing image when a program retransmits its image ID, and returning an error for invalid image data rather than remaining silent. The project reports that its implementation covers 100% of the published specification, describing Ghostty and its library, libghostty, as the first terminal outside Kitty itself to reach that level of coverage.
The release also changes how Ghostty handles graphics and scrollback. According to the maintainers, image payloads are parsed in bulk using SIMD; in their benchmark, parsing 64 MiB of image data on x86_64 Linux was about 16 times faster. Separately, Ghostty compresses scrollback pages that are not visible. The release notes say this reduces physical memory use for those pages by 70% to 90% for typical text-heavy history; compression runs while the terminal is idle, and pages are decompressed when needed for scrolling.
Security changes address several advisories described in the release notes. They include paste protection that did not treat carriage returns as line endings, flaws involving malicious Kitty graphics or tmux control-mode output, and issues in shell integrations and macOS link handling. Some problems required user action, such as pasting or clicking a link; others could be triggered by displaying malicious terminal output. Ghostty says unsafe macOS link targets are now blocked and custom URL schemes require confirmation. The notes also list fixes for drag-and-drop bypassing paste protection and crafted file names that could misrepresent a command in a confirmation dialog.
Graphics and Memory Changes
For people using terminal applications that display images, the release expands what Ghostty can render: animated images now play, and image placements can be linked together. That may make the terminal work more consistently with software built around Kitty graphics, though the release notes do not claim that every such program has been independently tested.
The reported gains also address two practical constraints of long-running terminal sessions. Faster image parsing may reduce delays when applications send large image payloads, while compressed, out-of-view scrollback may reduce memory use for text-heavy sessions. The figures are project-reported results, not a guarantee that every workload will see the same change. The security fixes matter for users who receive untrusted terminal output or work with untrusted repositories, where crafted content can interact with terminal features.
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Seven Months of Development
Ghostty’s release notes describe 1.4.0 as the result of seven months of work, with 172 contributors making changes over 2,889 commits. The project says the release includes hundreds of additional improvements and fixes across platforms, beyond the graphics and security items highlighted here.
On macOS, Ghostty 1.4 adds compatibility with macOS 27, known as Golden Gate, while remaining compatible with macOS 13 Ventura and later. The listed changes include fixes to title-bar tabs, theme blending in the native tab bar, title-bar behavior when Reduce Transparency is enabled, the app icon and the Shortcuts action for opening a new window. The maintainers say Ghostty 1.3.1 also runs on macOS 27, but has some of the visual issues addressed in 1.4.
“Our Kitty graphics implementation now covers 100% of the published specification.”
— Ghostty maintainers, in the 1.4.0 release notes
Limits of the Release Claims
The performance and memory figures come from Ghostty’s own release notes; the available source material does not provide independent benchmarks or results across other hardware and workloads. The reported 70% to 90% memory reduction is specifically for compressed, out-of-view pages in typical text-heavy history, not a claim about total application memory in every session.
The release notes list security advisories and describe affected scenarios, but they do not provide CVE numbers. Ghostty says it had requested CVE assignments and that GitHub had not assigned them at the time of writing. The notes also say the default scrollback limit is not known to be affected by one memory-corruption issue, which was associated with a small limit such as zero. The source does not establish how widely any of the listed vulnerabilities were encountered or exploited.
Install and Review the Changelog
Users can consult Ghostty’s 1.4.0 release notes for the full changelog, platform details and security advisory descriptions, then follow the project’s installation guidance to update. The maintainers say they will update the advisories if CVE identifiers are assigned. The release notes do not specify a separate follow-up date or a schedule for another version.
Key Questions
What is new in Ghostty 1.4?
Ghostty 1.4.0 adds animated Kitty graphics and relative image placements, improves image parsing and scrollback memory use, and includes security fixes and other platform changes.
What does full Kitty graphics support mean?
Ghostty says it now implements 100% of the published Kitty graphics specification. New support includes animation and relative placements, with additional conformance fixes. The project describes Ghostty and libghostty as the first terminal outside Kitty itself to reach full coverage.
How much memory does the scrollback change save?
The release notes report a 70% to 90% reduction in physical memory for compressed, out-of-view pages in typical text-heavy history. That figure is not a reduction in total memory use for every Ghostty session.
Does Ghostty 1.4 fix security issues?
Yes. The release notes describe fixes for multiple vulnerabilities involving paste protection, terminal output, Kitty graphics, tmux control mode, shell integrations and macOS link handling. Some required user interaction; others could be triggered by displaying malicious output.
Which macOS versions does Ghostty 1.4 support?
Ghostty says version 1.4 supports macOS 27 and remains compatible with macOS 13 Ventura and later.
Source: hn
