VS Code:disable terminal popup windown of predictive words - chunhualiao/public-docs GitHub Wiki

The "predictive text" pop-up you're seeing in the VS Code integrated terminal is a built-in feature called Terminal IntelliSense (or terminal suggestions/completions). It provides command, path, and argument predictions as you type, similar to modern shell features (e.g., fish, zsh autosuggestions, or PowerShell Predictive IntelliSense).

This is not the same as editor IntelliSense — it's specific to the terminal and powered by VS Code's terminal-suggest extension and shell integration.

Quickest Way to Disable It Completely

  1. Open Settings (Ctrl + , or Cmd + , on macOS).
  2. Search for terminal suggest enabled.
  3. Uncheck Terminal › Integrated: Suggest: Enabled (or set "terminal.integrated.suggest.enabled": false in settings.json).

This turns off the entire terminal suggestion widget and pop-ups globally.

If You Want Finer Control (Keep It Manual but Stop Auto-Popups)

Keep terminal.integrated.suggest.enabled true, but add these to prevent automatic pop-ups:

"terminal.integrated.suggest.quickSuggestions": false,
"terminal.integrated.suggest.suggestOnTriggerCharacters": false

Now suggestions won't appear as you type, but you can still trigger them manually with Ctrl + Space when you want them.

Shell-Specific Cases (Extra Predictive "Ghost Text")

Some shells have their own built-in predictive features that show gray/ghost text (independent of VS Code's widget):

  • PowerShell (common on Windows)
    Run once (or add to your PowerShell profile):

    Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionSource None

    To make it permanent in VS Code's terminal, add the line above to your PowerShell profile ($PROFILE file).

  • zsh with plugins (e.g., zsh-autosuggestions)
    Remove or disable the plugin in ~/.zshrc.

  • fish
    Run set -U fish_features remove qmark-noglob or disable its autosuggestion feature.

Verify It's Gone

Restart VS Code (or just open a new terminal) and type a command like git st or cd Do — no pop-up or ghost text should appear.

That's it — the main VS Code setting (terminal.integrated.suggest.enabled: false) fixes it for most people.