I discovered once zsh-autosuggestions will bring up the first match you can scroll through history:

  • scroll-up using
  • after first scrolling-up you can scroll-down using
  • accept the suggestion with
Answer from RaZ on Stack Exchange
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GitHub
github.com › zsh-users › zsh-autosuggestions
GitHub - zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions: Fish-like autosuggestions for zsh · GitHub
Fish-like fast/unobtrusive autosuggestions for zsh.
Starred by 35.8K users
Forked by 1.9K users
Languages   Shell 63.1% | Ruby 35.6%
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/zsh › zsh-autocomplete vs zsh-autosuggestions (vs fig)
r/zsh on Reddit: zsh-autocomplete VS zsh-autosuggestions (VS fig)
May 29, 2022 -

Hi,I'm wondering which I should use between those two completion addons. I'm using zsh with ohmyzsh on macOs, in iterm2

zsh-autosuggestions is older and has way more stars, but seems to be less active these days

zsh-autocomplete is recent, and seems clearer in its README. Is it its successor?

Also if you know about fig... But fig asks to disable macOs secure terminal entry, which is a bummer

Thank you for your insights

Top answer
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I use this two plugin at the same time. For me, zsh-autosuggestions and zsh-autocomplete do the different things. I use the former to get history suggestions, while the latter to get complete candidates without press tab. I don't like how fig implement but I acknowledge that it may offer more easily configurable and expandable completions.
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I think I cannot get used to autocompletion. I find it a bit annoying. First, these candidates that pop up under the current position on the screen and create the distraction. Next, the logic itself. I have, say, "keyboard.json" and "keymaps" directory in my current dir. I type "vim key" and it automatically selects "keymaps" instead of forcing me to make a choice. And in order to complete with "keyboard.json" I need to press 3 more keys - DOWN, DOWN and Enter (or TAB again) to select the file. Without autocompletion plugin, it would key "vim key" - and I would see two candidates. At this point, I would be forced to make my choice, and I would do it by adding one more letter that makes the difference ("b"), then TAB again - and I have my command. Even fzf-completion feels more natural, because there by typing "**" I actually express the desire to select the item(s) from the list. Even worse, I type "vim ~/.zs" and I end up with "vim ~/.fzf.zsh". No idea why. I find that most of the time autocompletion plug-in forces the value that I am not interested in. Traditional autocompletion seems to work better for me. Maybe I am missing something about configuring autosuggestion plug-in.
Discussions

ZSH autosuggestions: How to customize?
I want to customize the green text which appears below. I’ve read online that i need to edit the configuration of zsh-autosuggestions but I’m unable to find any configuration file which contains ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE. Can someone point me towards the right direction? More on forum.manjaro.org
🌐 forum.manjaro.org
1
0
July 15, 2022
macos - How may I toggle the autosuggestion feature on/off in zsh? - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange
I'm using zsh on macOS. I currently use zsh with this autosuggestions plugin enabled. I do this by sourcing a script from my ~/.zshrc file: source ~/.zsh/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zs... More on unix.stackexchange.com
🌐 unix.stackexchange.com
October 24, 2022
linux - How to change zsh-autosuggestions color - Stack Overflow
I am new at zsh. I've installed the plugin zsh-autosuggestions in oh-my-zsh using instruction mentioned here. I am using Linux (Fedora 26). What my problem is I want to change the color of the text More on stackoverflow.com
🌐 stackoverflow.com
zsh autosuggestions
It would also be nice if autocomplete suggested "semantically close" options from history instead of exact prefix matches, what way swapping or mispelling arguments could still successfully autocomplete. I had this back when I was using ZSH: ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_STRATEGY=(match_prev_cmd completion history) _zsh_autosuggest_strategy_atuin () { suggestion=$(atuin search --cmd-only --limit 1 --search-mode prefix --cwd $PWD -- "$1") } I think there's a ton of other plugins expanding zsh-autosuggestions. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/commandline
1
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May 14, 2025
🌐
Homebrew
formulae.brew.sh › formula › zsh-autosuggestions
Homebrew Formulae: zsh-autosuggestions
brew install zsh-autosuggestions · Fish-like fast/unobtrusive autosuggestions for zsh · https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions · License: MIT · Development: Pull requests · Formula JSON API: /api/formula/zsh-autosuggestions.json · Formula code: zsh-autosuggestions.rb on GitHub ·
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DEV Community
dev.to › dinhkhai0201 › how-to-install-oh-my-zsh-and-zsh-autosuggestions-for-macbook-3f07
How to install oh-my-zsh and zsh-autosuggestions for macbook - DEV Community
July 18, 2024 - # Terminal autocomplete fix autoload -Uz compinit && compinit plugins=( git docker asdf zsh-autosuggestions zsh-completions zsh-history-substring-search zsh-syntax-highlighting ) source /PATH/TO/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh source /PATH/TO/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh
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GitHub
gist.github.com › n1snt › 454b879b8f0b7995740ae04c5fb5b7df
Oh my ZSH with zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting zsh-fast-syntax-highlighting and zsh-autocomplete.md · GitHub
#!/bin/bash # install ZSH and related packages echo "Installing ZSH and related packages..." sudo apt install zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting zsh -y # Install Oh My ZSH echo "Installing Oh My ZSH..." sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)" "" --unattended # Install plugins echo "Installing ZSH plugins..."
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Manjaro Linux
forum.manjaro.org › support › software & applications
ZSH autosuggestions: How to customize? - Software & Applications - Manjaro Linux Forum
July 15, 2022 - I want to customize the green text which appears below. I’ve read online that i need to edit the configuration of zsh-autosuggestions but I’m unable to find any configuration file which contains ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT…
Find elsewhere
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Arch Linux
archlinux.org › packages › extra › any › zsh-autosuggestions
Arch Linux - zsh-autosuggestions 0.7.1-1 (any)
View the file list for zsh-autosuggestions · View the soname list for zsh-autosuggestions · Copyright © 2002-2026 Judd Vinet, Aaron Griffin and Levente Polyák. The Arch Linux name and logo are recognized trademarks. Some rights reserved.
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Laravel News
laravel-news.com › home › laravel tutorials › zsh auto suggestions
ZSH Auto Suggestions - Laravel News
August 27, 2018 - ZSH autosuggestions plugin shows possible suggestions as you type based on your command history.
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Kali Linux
kali.org › tools › zsh-autosuggestions
zsh-autosuggestions | Kali Linux Tools
December 9, 2025 - If you press the right-arrow key or End with the cursor at the end of the buffer, it will accept the suggestion, replacing the contents of the command line buffer with the suggestion.
🌐
Tericcabrel
blog.tericcabrel.com › setup-zsh-autosuggestion-and-syntax-highlight-on-ubuntu-server
Set up ZSH, autosuggestion, and syntax highlight on a Ubuntu Server
March 15, 2023 - Now update our plugins list inside the file .zshrc to add these to plugins. ... Save and exit the file; log out from the server and log in again. We can see autosuggestion and syntax highlight in action.
🌐
SourceForge
sourceforge.net › projects › zsh-autosuggestions.mirror
zsh-autosuggestions download | SourceForge.net
September 21, 2025 - It’s highly configurable: you can change the suggestion strategy, tweak widget bindings, ignore certain patterns, and control when suggestions appear or are cleared. The plugin plays well with other Zsh staples like syntax highlighting and prompt frameworks, and it provides guidance for avoiding conflicts with custom keymaps. Proposes autosuggestions from history (recent commands) as you type into the shell buffer
🌐
Linux Handbook
linuxhandbook.com › zsh-auto-suggestion
Enabling Auto Suggestion in Zsh
February 19, 2024 - With zsh-autosuggestions plugin, you get command completion suggestions based on your command history.
🌐
DEV Community
dev.to › zeromeroz › setting-up-zsh-and-oh-my-zhs-with-autocomplete-plugins-1nml
Setting up ZSH and Oh-my-ZHS with autocomplete plugins - DEV Community
February 14, 2023 - plugins=( git zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting fast-syntax-highlighting zsh-autocomplete )
🌐
Tim James
timjames.dev › blog › overhaul-your-terminal-with-zsh-plugins-more-3oag
Overhaul your Terminal with Zsh + AutoComplete + More | Tim James
zsh-autosuggestions: Suggests commands as you type based on history and completions, which can then be selected with →.
Top answer
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If you also have zsh-syntax-highlighting enabled, there's a known conflict with older versions of zsh-autosuggestions. The GitHub issue reports versions:

zsh-autosuggestions: v0.6.4
zsh-syntax-highlighting: 0.8.0-alpha2-dev

The workaround is:

[...] was able to fix the issue by updating both autosuggestions and syntax-highlighting to their latest versions from GitHub [...]

To clone,

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

Alternately, you could git fetch then git pull, assuming no merge conflicts.

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Refer to the official documentation available on GitHub:

Set ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE to configure the style that the suggestion is shown with. The default is fg=8, which will set the foreground color to color 8 from the 256-color palette. If your terminal only supports 8 colors, you will need to use a number between 0 and 7.

Background color can also be set, and the suggestion can be styled bold, underlined, or standout. For example, this would show suggestions with bold, underlined, pink text on a cyan background:

ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE="fg=#ff00ff,bg=cyan,bold,underline"

For more info, read the Character Highlighting section of the zsh manual: man zshzle or online.

Note: Some iTerm2 users have reported not being able to see the suggestions. If this affects you, the problem is likely caused by incorrect color settings. In order to correct this, go into iTerm2's setting, navigate to profile > colors and make sure that the colors for Basic Colors > Background and ANSI Colors > Bright Black are different.

So, you can change the colour of the suggestions and make them bold (maybe even underlined).

Modify the ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE to:

ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE='fg=#d787ff,bold'

It'll make it appear much brighter than before.

You might want to change it to some other colour, for example, Cyan:

ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE='fg=#00ffff,bold'

You might like underlining the suggestion:

ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE='fg=#00ffff,bold,underline'

For the colour chat refer to the colour palette.