ArcanaTerm Desktop
SSH that checks every paste
Only for Mac
Free · In‑App Purchases
Mac
Paste a runbook and see what would break it before it runs: curly quotes, stray prompts and code fences are pointed out. Japanese, Chinese and Korean input stays intact.
ArcanaTerm is a Mac terminal for SSH servers and serial devices that never sends a paste before you have seen it. A paste goes into a field below the terminal, where you check and edit it, then send it all at once or one command at a time.
WHY
A runbook copied from a web page or a chat carries things that look right and fail: curly quotes, a dash where an option needed "--", a Markdown code fence, a "$ " prompt copied with the command. In most terminals the paste reaches the shell as it is.
HOW
Below the terminal is the staging panel, an ordinary text field. You type and paste there, review and edit, then send with the Send button or ⌘↩. There are no modes to switch.
FOR RUNBOOKS
• Paste inspection: typographic quotes and dashes, code fences, "$ " prompts, full-width spaces and symbols, and invisible no-break spaces and zero-width characters are pointed out, never silently rewritten
• Step execution: one command at a time, stopping at the first failure, never splitting a heredoc or a quoted string
• Copy just the previous command's output (OSC 133 shell integration)
• An exit-code gutter: a thin mark beside each command's output and a green or red dot for success or failure; hover for the exit code, click to copy the output. It takes no column
JAPANESE, CHINESE AND KOREAN
Text an input method is converting keeps changing length, and characters such as ①, ※ and box-drawing lines are one cell wide on some systems and two on others. Text converted in the staging panel never passes through the terminal's grid, so neither can break the display, and a runbook with Japanese, Chinese or Korean comments runs exactly as written. Programs that read Japanese themselves, such as vim, can take it typed into the terminal too.
FEATURES
• SSH with password, public key or keyboard-interactive, host key verification, port forwarding, jump hosts and HTTP/SOCKS proxies
• SSH keys: ed25519 keys made and exported, or a key made in the Secure Enclave of a Mac that has one, which never leaves it; either installed on the server from a session
• App lock with Touch ID or your password
• SFTP file browser: drag and drop, edit in your own editor, whole folders, a resumable transfer queue (ArcanaTerm Plus)
• Sync hosts and snippets with your other computers through a folder you already sync (ArcanaTerm Plus)
• Serial connections, with a HEX view of what arrives and HEX send
• Lost connections reconnect by themselves, and last time's tabs reopen
• Shift_JIS, EUC-JP, GBK, Big5 and EUC-KR, per host
• Snippets with variables, sent history, session logs, and a work record of each command's exit code and output
• Scrollback search, output highlighting, sending to several sessions at once, and a Dock bounce when a long command finishes
• A keyboard copy mode (⇧⌘M): select and copy from the screen and scrollback with the arrow keys, sending nothing to the remote; for hosts with no shell integration, or while vim or tmux has the mouse
• Hosts imported from ~/.ssh/config; themes, fonts and key bindings
• English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Korean, German, French and Spanish
FREE, AND ARCANATERM PLUS
Every terminal feature is free, and the free version is not a trial. It saves up to 5 hosts and 10 snippets. ArcanaTerm Plus, a one-time in-app purchase, removes both limits and adds the SFTP file browser and sync, on every Mac with the same Apple ID. No subscription, no ads, no account.
PRIVACY
There is no server of ours: nothing you type, no host and no credential reaches us. Private keys and passwords stay in this Mac's Keychain and are never synced. Touch ID is checked by macOS; ArcanaTerm only learns whether it passed.
REQUIREMENTS
An SSH server or a serial device to connect to.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
New in 1.5.1
• An exit-code gutter: with OSC 133 shell integration, a thin mark beside each command's output, and a dot, green for success and red for failure. Hover for the exit code; click to copy that output
• A keyboard copy mode (⇧⌘M): the arrows move a cursor over the screen and scrollback, Shift selects and Return copies, with nothing sent to the remote
Fixed in 1.5.1
• A mouse drag can select more than one screen
• Copying a command's output keeps its last line when the output did not end with a line break, and no longer picks up later output after clear
• Select all, from the terminal's menu or the Edit menu, takes each line's last character after a block selection too
• The SFTP file browser works after a reconnect without being opened again (ArcanaTerm Plus)
• A narrow window no longer cuts off the staging panel's buttons
The developer, Arcana Code Inc., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Arcana Code Inc.
- Size
- 18.2 MB
- Category
- Utilities
- Compatibility
Requires macOS 12.0 or later.
- Mac
Requires macOS 12.0 or later.
- Mac
- Languages
English and 7 more
- English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- ArcanaTerm Plus $5.99
- Copyright
- © 2026 Arcana Code Inc.
