Scrollback Buffer
Thousands of lines of history. Regex search. Because build output waits for no one.
Questions this answers
- Terminal scrollback buffer lost on restart
- How to search scrollback history in terminal emulator
- Terminal scrollback buffer size limit too small
- VS Code terminal scrollback lost when switching tabs
- How to increase terminal scrollback buffer on macOS
How it works
When terminal output scrolls past the visible area, Chau7 moves the off-screen lines into a scrollback buffer. The buffer stores lines in a compressed ring format: contiguous runs of cells with identical attributes are collapsed into a single attributed span, reducing memory usage by 3-5x compared to storing every cell individually. The default scrollback limit is 10,000 lines per tab, configurable up to unlimited.
Scrollback search supports both literal string matching and full regular expressions. The search runs on a background thread and highlights matches progressively as they are found, so you can start navigating results immediately even in very large scrollback histories. Search wraps around and supports case-sensitive and case-insensitive modes.
Scrollback content persists across terminal clears (Cmd+K clears the visible screen but preserves scrollback) and survives tab suspension. When a tab is restored, its full scrollback history is available immediately. This means you never lose the output of a long-running build or test suite just because you scrolled past it or switched to another tab.
Why it matters
Developers frequently need to scroll back through build output, test results, or log streams to find specific errors or timestamps. A small scrollback buffer means lost context. Chau7 provides a configurable scrollback with efficient memory usage and built-in regex search, so that error from five minutes ago is still findable.
Frequently asked questions
How much memory does the scrollback buffer use?
With attribute compression, 10,000 lines of typical terminal output (80 columns, mixed colors) consumes roughly 2-4 MB. Scrollback for a 200-column window with heavy color usage may reach 8-10 MB for the same line count. Memory usage scales linearly with the configured limit.
Can I save scrollback to a file?
Yes. Chau7 supports exporting the current scrollback buffer to a plain text or ANSI-colored text file via the Edit menu or a keyboard shortcut.
Does scrollback persist after quitting and reopening Chau7?
Scrollback is preserved across app restarts when session restoration is enabled. Chau7 serializes scrollback content to disk as part of its session state, so reopening the app restores your full terminal history.