Switching to Zsh in macOS Catalina not working

2

I decided to take the plunge and switch to zsh. So, I followed the Terminal window instructions and entered:

chsh -s /bin/zsh

I then entered echo $0to see the switch - and it returned -bash!

Then, I went to the support page, and followed the instructions there to make the change through System Preferences. However, the "Login shell" dropdown already showed zsh:

Login shell dropdown showing <code>zsh</code>

So, I thought maybe I need to reboot... Nope, the System Preferences still show zsh, Terminal returns -bash, and when I try to re-run chsh -s /bin/zsh, Terminal returns chsh: no changes made.

Running echo $SHELL in Terminal returns /bin/zsh.

What am I missing???

leanne

Posted 2019-11-19T19:50:02.253

Reputation: 391

Close your terminal windows and open another. – lx07 – 2019-11-19T19:57:22.507

Maybe your terminal emulator can be configured separately which shell to use... – mpy – 2019-11-19T19:57:57.927

Have closed and re-opened Terminal completely, opened a new tab, and opened a new window, @lx07, and rebooted - still the Terminal is using bash. – leanne – 2019-11-19T19:59:55.750

I checked Terminal's Preferences, also, to ensure no startup run command is present, @mpy. The line is blank. – leanne – 2019-11-19T20:01:07.933

Answers

2

Okay - one more place to check:

In Terminal's Preferences, under the General pane, there's an option to use the default login shell or set another. For some reason, mine is set to use another (probably set this in a far away time and place for some long done learning opportunity, lol).

Preferences, General Pane, shows I have <code>bash</code> entered, rather than Default login shell selected...

Selected "Default login shell", opened a new Terminal window, and voilà, all is working as expected! Sheesh...

Found to look there in the same support article, under "How to use a different shell without changing the default".

leanne

Posted 2019-11-19T19:50:02.253

Reputation: 391

Nice self-solved question! – JakeGould – 2019-11-19T20:46:59.430

Asked: 2019-11-19T19:50:02.253

Viewed: 304 times

Active: 2019-11-19T20:38:14.827