You can set and change the resources using X11 tools like xrdb. Many distribution do also load settings from the ~/.Xresources file when X starts. urxvt will consult the following files/resources in order, with later settings overwriting earlier ones:

  1. system-wide app-defaults file, either locale-dependent OR global
  2. app-defaults file in $XAPPLRESDIR
  3. RESOURCE_MANAGER property on root-window OR $HOME/.Xdefaults
  4. SCREEN_RESOURCES for the current screen
  5. $XENVIRONMENT file OR $HOME/.Xdefaults-<nodename>

Note that when reading X resources, urxvt recognizes two class names: Rxvt and URxvt. The class name Rxvt allows resources common to both urxvt and the original rxvt to be easily configured, while the class name URxvt allows resources unique to urxvt, to be shared between different urxvt configurations. If no resources are specified, suitable defaults will be used. Command-line arguments can be used to override resource settings. The following resources are supported (you might want to check the urxvtperl(3) manpage for additional settings by perl extensions not documented here):

depth: bitdepth

Compile xft: Attempt to find a visual with the given bit depth; option -depth.

geometry: geom

Create the window with the specified X window geometry [default 80x24]; option -geometry.

background: colour

Use the specified colour as the window's background colour [default White]; option -bg.

foreground: colour

Use the specified colour as the window's foreground colour [default Black]; option -fg.

colorn: colour

Use the specified colour for the colour value n, where 0-7 corresponds to low-intensity (normal) colours and 8-15 corresponds to high-intensity (bold = bright foreground, blink = bright background) colours. The canonical names are as follows: 0=black, 1=red, 2=green, 3=yellow, 4=blue, 5=magenta, 6=cyan, 7=white, but the actual colour names used are listed in the COLORS AND GRAPHICS section.

Colours higher than 15 cannot be set using resources (yet), but can be changed using an escape command (see urxvt(7)).

Colours 16-79 form a standard 4x4x4 colour cube (the same as xterm with 88 colour support). Colours 80-87 are evenly spaces grey steps.

colorBD: colour

colorIT: colour

Use the specified colour to display bold or italic characters when the foreground colour is the default. If font styles are not available (Compile styles) and this option is unset, reverse video is used instead.

colorUL: colour

Use the specified colour to display underlined characters when the foreground colour is the default.

colorRV: colour

Use the specified colour as the background for reverse video characters.

underlineColor: colour

If set, use the specified colour as the colour for the underline itself. If unset, use the foreground colour.

cursorColor: colour

Use the specified colour for the cursor. The default is to use the foreground colour; option -cr.

cursorColor2: colour

Use the specified colour for the colour of the cursor text. For this to take effect, cursorColor must also be specified. The default is to use the background colour.

reverseVideo: boolean

True: simulate reverse video by foreground and background colours; option -rv. False: regular screen colours [default]; option +rv. See note in COLORS AND GRAPHICS section.

jumpScroll: boolean

True: specify that jump scrolling should be used. When scrolling quickly, fewer screen updates are performed [default]; option -j. False: specify that smooth scrolling should be used; option +j.

inheritPixmap: boolean

True: make the background inherit the parent windows' pixmap, giving artificial transparency. False: do not inherit the parent windows' pixmap.

Please note that transparency of any kind if completely unsupported by the author. Don't bug him with installation questions!

fading: number

Fade the text by the given percentage when focus is lost; option -fade.

fadeColor: colour

Fade to this colour, when fading is used (see fading:). The default colour is black; option -fadecolor.

tintColor: colour

Tint the transparent background pixmap with the given colour; option -tint.

shading: number

Darken (0 .. 100) or lighten (-1 .. -100) the transparent background image in addition to tinting it.

scrollColor: colour

Use the specified colour for the scrollbar [default #B2B2B2].

troughColor: colour

Use the specified colour for the scrollbar's trough area [default #969696]. Only relevant for rxvt (non XTerm/NeXT) scrollbar.

borderColor: colour

The colour of the border around the text area and between the scrollbar and the text.

backgroundPixmap: file[;geom]

Use the specified XPM file (note the `.xpm' extension is optional) for the background and also optionally specify its scaling with a geometry string WxH+X+Y, in which ``W'' / ``H'' specify the horizontal/vertical scale (percent) and ``X'' / ``Y'' locate the image centre (percent). A scale of 0 displays the image with tiling. A scale of 1 displays the image without any scaling. A scale of 2 to 9 specifies an integer number of images in that direction. No image will be magnified beyond 10 times its original size. The maximum permitted scale is 1000. [default 0x0+50+50]

path: path

Specify the colon-delimited search path for finding XPM files.

font: fontlist

Select the fonts to be used. This is a comma separated list of font names that are checked in order when trying to find glyphs for characters. The first font defines the cell size for characters; other fonts might be smaller, but not (in general) larger. A (hopefully) reasonable default font list is always appended to it; option -fn.

Each font can either be a standard X11 core font (XLFD) name, with optional prefix "x:" or a Xft font (Compile xft), prefixed with "xft:".

In addition, each font can be prefixed with additional hints and specifications enclosed in square brackets ("[]"). The only available hint currently is "codeset=codeset-name", and this is only used for Xft fonts.

For example, this font resource

   URxvt.font: 9x15bold,\
               -misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1,\
               -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1, \
               [codeset=JISX0208]xft:Kochi Gothic:antialias=false, \
               xft:Code2000:antialias=false

specifies five fonts to be used. The first one is "9x15bold" (actually the iso8859-1 version of the second font), which is the base font (because it is named first) and thus defines the character cell grid to be 9 pixels wide and 15 pixels high.

The second font is just used to add additional unicode characters not in the base font, likewise the third, which is unfortunately non-bold, but the bold version of the font does contain less characters, so this is a useful supplement.

The third font is an Xft font with aliasing turned off, and the characters are limited to the JIS 0208 codeset (i.e. japanese kanji). The font contains other characters, but we are not interested in them.

The last font is a useful catch-all font that supplies most of the remaining unicode characters.

boldFont: fontlist

italicFont: fontlist

boldItalicFont: fontlist

The font list to use for displaying bold, italic or bold italic characters, respectively.

If specified and non-empty, then the syntax is the same as for the font-resource, and the given font list will be used as is, which makes it possible to substitute completely different font styles for bold and italic.

If unset (the default), a suitable font list will be synthesized by ``morphing'' the normal text font list into the desired shape. If that is not possible, replacement fonts of the desired shape will be tried.

If set, but empty, then this specific style is disabled and the normal text font will being used for the given style.

intensityStyles: boolean

When font styles are not enabled, or this option is enabled (True, option -is, the default), bold and italic font styles imply high intensity foreground/background colours. Disabling this option (False, option +is) disables this behaviour, the high intensity colours are not reachable.

selectstyle: mode

Set mouse selection style to old which is 2.20, oldword which is xterm style with 2.20 old word selection, or anything else which gives xterm style selection.

scrollstyle: mode

Set scrollbar style to rxvt, plain, next or xterm. plain is the author's favourite.

title: string

title: string

Set window title string, the default title

Set window title string, the default title is the command-line specified after the -e option, if any, otherwise the application name; option -title. otherwise the application name; option -title.

iconName: string

Set the name used to label the window's icon or displayed in an icon manager window, it also sets the window's title unless it is explicitly set; option -n. window's title unless it is explicitly set; option -n.

mapAlert: boolean

True: de-iconify (map) on receipt of a bell character. False: no de-iconify (map) on receipt of a bell character [default].

visualBell: boolean

True: use visual bell on receipt of a bell character; option -vb. False: no visual bell [default]; option +vb.

loginShell: boolean

True: start as a login shell by prepending a `-' to argv[0] of the shell; option -ls. False: start as a normal sub-shell [default]; option +ls.

utmpInhibit: boolean

True: inhibit writing record into the system log file utmp; option -ut. False: write record into the system log file utmp [default]; option +ut.

print-pipe: string

Specify a command pipe for vt100 printer [default lpr(1)]. Use Print to initiate a screen dump to the printer and Ctrl-Print or Shift-Print to include the scrollback as well.

The string will be interpreted as if typed into the shell as-is.

Example:

   URxvt.print-pipe: cat > $(TMPDIR=$HOME mktemp urxvt.XXXXXX)

This creates a new file in your home directory with the screen contents every time you hit "Print".

scrollBar: boolean

True: enable the scrollbar [default]; option -sb. False: disable the scrollbar; option +sb.

scrollBar_right: boolean

True: place the scrollbar on the right of the window; option -sr. False: place the scrollbar on the left of the window; option +sr.

scrollBar_floating: boolean

True: display an rxvt scrollbar without a trough; option -st. False: display an rxvt scrollbar with a trough; option +st.

scrollBar_align: mode

Align the top, bottom or centre [default] of the scrollbar thumb with the pointer on middle button press/drag.

scrollTtyOutput: boolean

True: scroll to bottom when tty receives output; option -si. False: do not scroll to bottom when tty receives output; option +si.

scrollWithBuffer: boolean

True: scroll with scrollback buffer when tty receives new lines (and scrollTtyOutput is False); option -sw. False: do not scroll with scrollback buffer when tty receives new lines; option +sw.

scrollTtyKeypress: boolean

True: scroll to bottom when a non-special key is pressed. Special keys are those which are intercepted by rxvt-unicode for special handling and are not passed onto the shell; option -sk. False: do not scroll to bottom when a non-special key is pressed; option +sk.

saveLines: number

Save number lines in the scrollback buffer [default 64]. This resource is limited on most machines to 65535; option -sl.

internalBorder: number

Internal border of number pixels. This resource is limited to 100; option -b.

externalBorder: number

External border of number pixels. This resource is limited to 100; option -w, -bw, -borderwidth.

borderLess: boolean

Set MWM hints to request a borderless window, i.e. if honoured by the WM, the rxvt-unicode window will not have window decorations; option -bl.

skipBuiltinGlyphs: boolean

Compile frills: Disable the usage of the built-in block graphics/line drawing characters and just rely on what the specified fonts provide. Use this if you have a good font and want to use its block graphic glyphs; option -sbg.

termName: termname

Specifies the terminal type name to be set in the TERM environment variable; option -tn.

linespace: number

Specifies number of lines (pixel height) to insert between each row of the display [default 0]; option -lsp.

meta8: boolean

True: handle Meta (Alt) + keypress to set the 8th bit. False: handle Meta (Alt) + keypress as an escape prefix [default].

mouseWheelScrollPage: boolean

True: the mouse wheel scrolls a page full. False: the mouse wheel scrolls five lines [default].

pastableTabs: boolean

True: store tabs as wide characters. False: interpret tabs as cursor movement only; option "-ptab".

cursorBlink: boolean

True: blink the cursor. False: do not blink the cursor [default]; option -bc.

pointerBlank: boolean

True: blank the pointer when a key is pressed or after a set number of seconds of inactivity. False: the pointer is always visible [default].

pointerColor: colour

Mouse pointer foreground colour.

pointerColor2: colour

Mouse pointer background colour.

pointerBlankDelay: number

Specifies number of seconds before blanking the pointer [default 2]. Use a large number (e.g. 987654321) to effectively disable the timeout.

backspacekey: string

The string to send when the backspace key is pressed. If set to DEC or unset it will send Delete (code 127) or, if shifted, Backspace (code 8) - which can be reversed with the appropriate DEC private mode escape sequence.

deletekey: string

The string to send when the delete key (not the keypad delete key) is pressed. If unset it will send the sequence traditionally associated with the Execute key.

cutchars: string

The characters used as delimiters for double-click word selection (whitespace delimiting is added automatically if resource is given).

When the selection extension is in use (the default if compiled in, see the urxvtperl(3) manpage), a suitable regex using these characters will be created (if the resource exists, otherwise, no regex will be created). In this mode, characters outside ISO-8859-1 can be used.

When the selection extension is not used, only ISO-8859-1 characters can be used. If not specified, the built-in default is used:

BACKSLASH `"'&()*,;<=>?@[]{|}

preeditType: style

OverTheSpot, OffTheSpot, Root; option -pt.

inputMethod: name

name of inputMethod to use; option -im.

imLocale: name

The locale to use for opening the IM. You can use an "LC_CTYPE" of e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8" for normal text processing but "ja_JP.EUC-JP" for the input extension to be able to input japanese characters while staying in another locale; option -imlocale.

imFont: fontset

Specify the font-set used for XIM styles "OverTheSpot" or "OffTheSpot". It must be a standard X font set (XLFD patterns separated by commas), i.e. it's not in the same format as the other font lists used in urxvt. The default will be set-up to chose *any* suitable found found, preferably one or two pixels differing in size to the base font. option -imfont.

tripleclickwords: boolean

Change the meaning of triple-click selection with the left mouse button. Instead of selecting a full line it will extend the selection to the end of the logical line only; option -tcw.

insecure: boolean

Enables ``insecure'' mode. Rxvt-unicode offers some escape sequences that echo arbitrary strings like the icon name or the locale. This could be abused if somebody gets 8-bit-clean access to your display, whether through a mail client displaying mail bodies unfiltered or through write(1) or any other means. Therefore, these sequences are disabled by default. (Note that many other terminals, including xterm, have these sequences enabled by default, which doesn't make it safer, though).

You can enable them by setting this boolean resource or specifying -insecure as an option. At the moment, this enables display-answer, locale, findfont, icon label and window title requests. title requests.

modifier: modifier

Set the key to be interpreted as the Meta key to: alt, meta, hyper, super, mod1, mod2, mod3, mod4, mod5; option -mod.

answerbackString: string

Specify the reply rxvt-unicode sends to the shell when an ENQ (control-E) character is passed through. It may contain escape values as described in the entry on keysym following.

secondaryScreen: boolean

Turn on/off secondary screen (default enabled).

secondaryScroll: boolean

Turn on/off secondary screen scroll (default enabled). If the this option is enabled, scrolls on the secondary screen will change the scrollback buffer and switching to/from the secondary screen will instead scroll the screen up.

hold: boolean

Turn on/off hold window after exit support. If enabled, urxvt will not immediately destroy its window when the program executed within it exits. Instead, it will wait till it is being killed or closed by the user.

keysym.sym: string

Compile frills: Associate string with keysym sym. The intervening resource name keysym. cannot be omitted.

The format of sym is "(modifiers-)key", where modifiers can be any combination of ISOLevel3, AppKeypad, Control, NumLock, Shift, Meta, Lock, Mod1, Mod2, Mod3, Mod4, Mod5, and the abbreviated I, K, C, N, S, M, A, L, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

The NumLock, Meta and ISOLevel3 modifiers are usually aliased to whatever modifier the NumLock key, Meta/Alt keys or ISO Level3 Shift/AltGr keys are being mapped. AppKeypad is a synthetic modifier mapped to the current application keymap mode state.

The spellings of key can be obtained by using xev(1) command or searching keysym macros from /usr/X11R6/include/X11/keysymdef.h and omitting the prefix XK_. Alternatively you can specify key by its hex keysym value (0x0000 - 0xFFFF). Note that the lookup of syms is not performed in an exact manner; however, the closest match is assured.

string may contain escape values ("\a": bell, "\b": backspace, "\e", "\E": escape, "\n": newline, "\r": carriage return, "\t": tab, "\000": octal number) or verbatim control characters ("^?": delete, "^@": null, "^A" ...) and may be enclosed with double quotes so that it can start or end with whitespace. This feature is deprecated and will be removed.

Please note that you need to double the "\" in resource files, as Xlib itself does its own de-escaping (you can use "\033" instead of "\e" (and so on), which will work with both Xt and urxvt's own processing).

You can define a range of keysyms in one shot by providing a string with pattern list/PREFIX/MIDDLE/SUFFIX, where the delimiter `/' should be a character not used by the strings.

Its usage can be demonstrated by an example:

  URxvt.keysym.M-C-0x61:    list|\033<M-C-|abc|>

The above line is equivalent to the following three lines:

  URxvt.keysym.Meta-Control-0x61:    \033<M-C-a>
  URxvt.keysym.Meta-Control-0x62:    \033<M-C-b>
  URxvt.keysym.Meta-Control-0x63:    \033<M-C-c>

If string takes the form of "command:STRING", the specified STRING is interpreted and executed as urxvt's control sequence. For example the following means "change the current locale to "zh_CN.GBK" when Control-Meta-c is being pressed":

  URxvt.keysym.M-C-c: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007

If string takes the form "perl:STRING", then the specified STRING is passed to the "on_keyboard_command" perl handler. See the urxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, the selection extension (activated via "urxvt -pe selection") listens for "selection:rot13" events:

  URxvt.keysym.M-C-c: perl:selection:rot13

Due the the large number of modifier combinations, a defined key mapping will match if at at least the specified identifiers are being set, and no other key mappings with those and more bits are being defined. That means that defining a key map for "a" will automatically provide definitions for "Meta-a", "Shift-a" and so on, unless some of those are defined mappings themselves.

Unfortunately, this will override built-in key mappings. For example if you overwrite the "Insert" key you will disable urxvt's "Shift-Insert" mapping. To re-enable that, you can poke ``holes'' into the user-defined keymap using the "builtin:" replacement:

  URxvt.keysym.Insert: <my insert key sequence>
  URxvt.keysym.S-Insert: builtin:

The first line defines a mapping for "Insert" and any combination of modifiers. The second line re-establishes the default mapping for "Shift-Insert".

The following example will map Control-Meta-1 and Control-Meta-2 to the fonts "suxuseuro" and "9x15bold", so you can have some limited font-switching at runtime:

  URxvt.keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]50;suxuseuro\007
  URxvt.keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]50;9x15bold\007

Other things are possible, e.g. resizing (see urxvt(7) for more info):

  URxvt.keysym.M-C-3: command:\033[8;25;80t
  URxvt.keysym.M-C-4: command:\033[8;48;110t

perl-ext-common: string

perl-ext: string

Comma-separated list(s) of perl extension scripts (default: "default") to use in this terminal instance; option -pe.

Extension names can be prefixed with a "-" sign to prohibit using them. This can be useful to selectively disable some extensions loaded by default, or specified via the "perl-ext-common" resource. For example, "default,-selection" will use all the default extension except "selection".

Extension names can also be followed by an argument in angle brackets (e.g. "searchable-scrollback<M-s>", which binds the hotkey for searchable scrollback to Alt/Meta-s). Mentioning the same extension multiple times with different arguments will pass multiple arguments to the extension.

Each extension is looked up in the library directories, loaded if necessary, and bound to the current terminal instance.

If both of these resources are the empty string, then the perl interpreter will not be initialized. The idea behind two options is that perl-ext-common will be used for extensions that should be available to all instances, while perl-ext is used for specific instances.

perl-eval: string

Perl code to be evaluated when all extensions have been registered. See the urxvtperl(3) manpage. Due to security reasons, this resource will be ignored when running setuid/setgid.

perl-lib: path

Colon-separated list of additional directories that hold extension scripts. When looking for extensions specified by the "perl" resource, urxvt will first look in these directories and then in /usr/lib/urxvt/perl/. Due to security reasons, this resource will be ignored when running setuid/setgid.

See the urxvtperl(3) manpage.

selection.pattern-idx: perl-regex

Additional selection patterns, see the urxvtperl(3) manpage for details.

selection-autotransform.idx: perl-transform

Selection auto-transform patterns, see the urxvtperl(3) manpage for details.

searchable-scrollback: keysym

Sets the hotkey that starts the incremental scrollback buffer search (default: "M-s").

urlLauncher: string

Specifies the program to be started with a URL argument. Used by the "selection-popup" and "matcher" perl extensions.

transient-for: windowid

Compile frills: Sets the WM_TRANSIENT_FOR property to the given window id.

override-redirect: boolean

Compile frills: Sets override-redirect for the terminal window, making it almost invisible to window managers; option -override-redirect.

Scroll down with Button1 (xterm-scrollbar) or Shift-Next. Scroll up with Button3 (xterm-scrollbar) or Shift-Prior. Continuous scroll with Button2.

If mouse reporting mode is active, the normal scrollbar actions are disabled --- on the assumption that we are using a fullscreen application. Instead, pressing Button1 and Button3 sends ESC [ 6 ~ (Next) and ESC [ 5 ~ (Prior), respectively. Similarly, clicking on the up and down arrows sends ESC [ A (Up) and ESC [ B (Down), respectively.

Selection:

Left click at the beginning of the region, drag to the end of the region and release; Right click to extend the marked region; Left double-click to select a word; Left triple-click to select the entire logical line (which can span multiple screen lines), unless modified by resource tripleclickwords.

Starting a selection while pressing the Meta key (or Meta+Ctrl keys) (Compile: frills) will create a rectangular selection instead of a normal one. In this mode, every selected row becomes its own line in the selection, and trailing whitespace is visually underlined and removed from the selection.

Insertion:

Pressing and releasing the Middle mouse button in an urxvt window causes the value of the PRIMARY selection (or CLIPBOARD with the Meta modifier) to be inserted as if it had been typed on the keyboard.

Pressing Shift-Insert causes the value of the PRIMARY selection to be inserted too.

You can, however, switch fonts at runtime using escape sequences, e.g.:

   printf '\e]710;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"

You can use keyboard shortcuts, too:

   URxvt.keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]710;suxuseuro\007\033]711;suxuseuro\007
   URxvt.keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]710;9x15bold\007\033]711;9x15bold\007

rxvt-unicode will automatically re-apply these fonts to the output so far.

* 5.1: Basic method

This allows you to enter unicode characters using their hexcode.

Start by pressing and holding both "Control" and "Shift", then enter hex-digits (between one and six). Releasing "Control" and "Shift" will commit the character as if it were typed directly. While holding down "Control" and "Shift" you can also enter multiple characters by pressing "Space", which will commit the current character and lets you start a new one.

As an example of use, imagine a business card with a japanese e-mail address, which you cannot type. Fortunately, the card has the e-mail address printed as hexcodes, e.g. "671d 65e5". You can enter this easily by pressing "Control" and "Shift", followed by "6-7-1-D-SPACE-6-5-E-5", followed by releasing the modifier keys.

* 5.2: Keyboard symbols entry method

This mode lets you input characters representing the keycap symbols of your keyboard, if representable in the current locale encoding.

Start by pressing "Control" and "Shift" together, then releasing them. The next special key (cursor keys, home etc.) you enter will not invoke its usual function but instead will insert the corresponding keycap symbol. The symbol will only be entered when the key has been released, otherwise pressing e.g. "Shift" would enter the symbol for "ISO Level 2 Switch", although your intention might have been to enter a reverse tab (Shift-Tab).

* 5.3: Screen-selection entry method

While this is implemented already (it's basically the selection mechanism), it could be extended by displaying a unicode character map.

* 5.4: Feedback method for identifying displayed characters for later input

This method lets you display the unicode character code associated with characters already displayed.

You enter this mode by holding down "Control" and "Shift" together, then pressing and holding the left mouse button and moving around. The unicode hex code(s) (it might be a combining character) of the character under the pointer is displayed until you release "Control" and "Shift".

In addition to the hex codes it will display the font used to draw this character - due to implementation reasons, characters combined with combining characters, line drawing characters and unknown characters will always be drawn using the built-in support font.

With respect to conformance, rxvt-unicode is supposed to be compliant to both scenario A and B of ISO 14755, including part 5.2.