Simply navigate to Preferences > Profile > Keys and select the Natural Text Editing option.

Typing v puts me in a vim-like editor ( :q to get back to the command prompt. The smart developers from iTerm2 quickly realized that the community wanted to use the natural keyboard functionality without much of a configuration and therefore added the Natural option by default. But I seem to be in some weird vim-like shortcut mode as hitting b moves me back and w moves me forward.

In playing around with the keys, after option+ left arrow the one time, I can still move around normally with the left and right cursor arrows. I have tried the same in the default Terminal app and get the same results. And at the next prompt I'm allowed to cursor over one word and then it stops again. If I hit enter, the command works as expected. This enables all sorts of cool features: you can easily navigate to previous shell prompts with and. I can jump back exactly one word, and then I just get a bell any time I try moving left or right with option. Go to iTerm Preferences Profiles select your profile then the Keys tab with its sub-tab Key Mappings Click Load Preset. iTerm2 can integrate with your shell so it knows where your shell prompt is, what commands you're entering, which host you are on, and what your current directory is. Then you can use the normal option+left/right to move between words. For nearly 50 years, ITC has and continues to provide top-notch customer care while prioritizing. ITC provides logistical services for customers who operate within the global petrochemical and petroleum products market. With this configuration, now you can use ZSH on iTerm2 and Bash on default Terminal. Intercontinental Terminals Company (ITC) is a premier terminal services company, strategically positioned in key market hubs. I've seen dozens of articles that talk about making terminal life better by switching to iTerm2 and then turning on 'Natural Text Editing' under Profile > Keys. Open default terminal and run this command in order to use an updated version: Open terminal and change Terminal > Preferences > General on Shell open with: select Command (complete path) and set /bin/bash value.

Iterm natural text editing