Settings Documentation

Irssi settings notes. Updated for 1.4.0

This is not an attempt to document Irssi completely. It should be used along with the documents at Documentation for more complete understanding of how Irssi works. For example, the startup HOWTO and tips/tricks show sample uses for these settings, including some very useful stuff.

See the appendix for credits and license information of this document.

[completion]

completion_auto OFF

Tell Irssi to detect incomplete nicknames in your input and look up their completions automatically. Incomplete nicknames are detected when you input text that matches /^(\S+)${completion_character}/. For example:

vis: hello

will be expanded to

visitors: hello

when you press enter. So will:

vis:hello
Vis::Hello(12);

This will eventually bite you.

completion_char :

The text that Irssi puts after a tab-completed nickname, or that it uses to detect nicknames when you have completion_auto turned on. Some people alter this to colorize the completion character, creating the oft-dreaded bold colon.

completion_empty_line ON

When this setting is OFF, tab completion will be disabled when the input line is empty. Disabling it is useful when pasting text that starts with a tab character, since that normally results in a /msg to a recent target.

Added in Irssi 1.0.0

completion_keep_word ON

Whether to keep the original word that was completed, in the list of completions. This way, you can “undo” accidential completions more easily with Shift-Tab.

Added in Irssi 1.2.0

completion_keep_privates 10

Irssi keeps a list of nicknames from private messages (sent and received) to search during nick completion. This setting determines how many nicknames are held.

completion_keep_publics 50

Irssi keeps a list of nicknames from public messages (sent and received) to search during nick completion. This setting determines how many nicknames are held.

completion_nicks_lowercase OFF

When enabled, Irssi forces completed nicknames to lowercase. Manually typed nicknames retain their case.

completion_strict OFF

When on, nicknames are matched strictly. That is, the partial nickname you enter must be at the beginning of a nickname in one of Irssi’s lists.

When off, Irssi will first try a strict match. If a strict match can’t be found, Irssi will look for nicknames that match when their leading non-alphanumeric characters are removed. For example:

vis: hello

With strict completion on, it will only match nicknames beginning with vis. With strict completion off, it may match visitors or visitors or [visitors], and so on.

completion_nicks_match_case auto

Whether to enforce the case of the letters you typed while completing nicks. Accepted values:

never

ignore the case of nicks when completing.

always

nicks are only completed when the case matches.

auto (default)

as soon as you type an uppercase letter, the nick case has to match.

Added in Irssi 1.0.0

[dcc]

dcc_autoaccept_lowports OFF

When this setting is OFF, Irssi will not auto-accept DCC requests from privileged ports (those below 1024) even when auto-accept is otherwise on.

dcc_autochat_masks

Set dcc_autochat_masks with user masks to auto-accept chat requests from. When unset, Irssi’s auto-accept settings work for everyone who tries to DCC chat you. The drawbacks can range from annoying through downright dangerous. Use auto-accept with care.

dcc_autoget OFF

Turn DCC auto-get on or off. When on, Irssi will attempt to auto-get files sent to you.

This feature can be abused, so it is usually off by default. If you enable it, consider also setting dcc_autoget_masks and dcc_autoget_max_size to make this feature more secure.

dcc_autoget_masks

Set dcc_autoget_masks with user masks to automatically accept files sent to you via DCC. When unset, Irssi’s auto-get settings will work for everyone who attempts to send you files.

This setting is only significant if dcc_autoget is ON.

dcc_autoget_max_size 0k

Set to nonzero to limit the size of files that Irssi will auto-get.

Note: Because of the way DCC works, someone may advertise a file at once size but try to send you something larger. According to src/irc/dcc/dcc-autoget.c, this only filters the request based on the advertised size.

This setting is only significant if dcc_autoget is ON.

dcc_autorename OFF

Turn on this setting to automatically rename received files so they don’t overwrite existing files.

I think this setting may thwart dcc_autoresume, since the auto-resume feature looks for existing filenames when resuming. Auto-renaming downloads makes sure that filenames never conflict, so resuming is not possible.

dcc_autoresume OFF

When on, dcc_autoresume will cause Irssi to look for existing files with the same name as a new DCC transfer. If a file already exists by that name, Irssi will try to resume the transfer by appending any new data to the existing file.

I think this option clashes with dcc_autorename. See dcc_autorename for more information.

Dcc_autoresume is ignored if dcc_autoget is off.

dcc_download_path ~

The path to a directory where Irssi will store DCC downloads.

dcc_file_create_mode 644

The mode in which new files are created.

644 is read/write by you, and readable by everybody else.

600 is read/write by you, nobody else can read or write.

dcc_mirc_ctcp OFF

Tells Irssi to send CTCP messages that are compatible with mIRC clients. This lets you use /me actions in DCC chats with mIRC users, among other things.

dcc_own_ip

Set dcc_own_ip to force Irssi to always send DCC requests from a particular virtual host (vhost). Irssi will always bind sockets to this address when answering DCC requests. Otherwise Irssi will determine your IP address on its own.

dcc_port 0

The smallest port number that Irssi will use when initiating DCC requests. Irssi picks a port at random when this is set to zero.

dcc_port can be two ports, separated by a space. In that case, Irssi will pick a port between the two numbers, inclusively. For example:

/set dcc_port 10000 20000
dcc_send_replace_space_with_underscore OFF

When enabled, Irssi will replace spaces with underscores in the names of files you send. It should only be necessary when sending files to clients that don’t support quoted filenames, or if you hate spaces in filenames.

dcc_timeout 5min

How long to keep track of pending DCC requests. Requests that do not receive responses within this time will be automatically canceled.

dcc_upload_path ~

The path where you keep public files available to send via DCC.

[flood]

autoignore_time 5min

Irssi can auto-ignore people who are flooding. autoignore_time sets the amount of time to keep someone ignored. Irssi will automatically unignore them after this period of time has elapsed.

autoignore_level

The type or types of messages that will trigger auto-ignore.

flood_max_msgs 4

flood_timecheck 8

Irssi will treat text as flooding if more than flood_max_msgs messages are received during flood_timecheck seconds. In the case above, five or more messages matching autoignore_level over the course of eight seconds will trigger flood protection. See autoignore_time to set the amount of time someone will remain ignored if it’s determined that they’re flooding.

cmds_max_at_once 5

How many commands you can send immediately before server-side flood protection starts.

IRC servers also perform flood checking, and they will gleefully disconnect you if you are abusing them. The cmds_max_at_once setting lets Irssi know how many rapid messages it can get away with while remaining under the IRC server’s radar.

cmd_queue_speed 2200msec

The time to wait between sending commands to an IRC server. Used to prevent Irssi from flooding you off if you must auto-kick/ban lots of people at once.

max_ctcp_queue 5

The maximum number of pending CTCP requests to keep. Requests beyond max_ctcp_queue will be discarded.

[history]

max_command_history 100

The number of lines of your own input to keep for recall.

rawlog_lines 200

Irssi’s raw log is a buffer of raw IRC messages. It’s used for debugging Irssi and maybe some other things. This setting tells Irssi how many raw messages to keep around.

scroll_page_count /2

How many pages to scroll the scrollback buffer when pressing page-up or page-down. Expressed as a number of lines, or as a fraction of the screen:

/2

Scroll half a page.

.33

Scroll about a third of a page.

4

Scroll four lines.

scrollback_burst_remove 10

This is a speed optimization: Don’t bother removing messages from the scrollback buffer until the line limit has been exceeded by scrollback_burst_remove lines. This lets Irssi do its memory management in chunks rather than one line at a time.

scrollback_lines 500

The maximum number of messages to keep in your scrollback history. Set to 0 if you don’t want to limit scrollback by a line count. The scrollback_time setting will be used even if scrollback_lines is zero.

Setting scrollback_lines to zero also seems to thwart the scrollback_burst_remove optimization.

scrollback_time 1day

Keep at least scrollback_time worth of messages in the scrollback buffer, even if it means having more than scrollback_lines lines in the buffer. Valid formats for the setting are:

day/hour/minute/min/second/sec/millisecond/millisec/msecond/msec

and the plural forms of the above: days, hours etc

The maximum value is 24 days

scrollback_max_age 0

Delete messages older than the given time in each scrollback buffer. The given time has the same format as the scrollback_time setting. Note: messages can only be deleted when there is activity in a buffer. Thus, “day changed” messages will trigger deletion in inactive buffers.

Currently, the oldest time you can set is 24days.

Added in Irssi 1.3

window_history OFF

When turned ON, command history will be kept per-window. When off, Irssi uses a single command history for all windows.

[log]

autolog OFF

Automatically log everything, or at least the types of messages defined by autolog_level.

autolog_colors OFF

Whether to save colors in autologs. Colors make logs harder to parse and grep, but they may be vital for channels that deal heavily in ANSI art, or something.

autolog_ignore_targets

A space separated list of targets to exclude from autologging

See activity_hide_targets for additional ways to specify targets in Irssi 1.0.0+.

Added in Irssi 0.8.13

autolog_level all -crap -clientcrap -ctcps

The types of messages to auto-log. See the autolog setting.

autolog_path ~/irclogs/$tag/$0.log

The path where autolog saves logs.

$0 is the target (channel or query name usually)
$1 is the server tag (same as $tag)

See Appendix B for Irssi’s special variables. Irssi’s special variables can be used to do fancy things like daily log rotations.

autolog_only_saved_channels OFF

Only autolog channels that are added in /channel list

Added in Irssi 1.2.0

awaylog_colors ON

Whether to store color information in /away logs.

awaylog_file ~/.irssi/away.log

Where to log messages while you’re away.

I assume Irssi’s special variables also work here. See Appendix B for more information about them.

awaylog_level msgs hilight

The types of messages to log to awaylog_file while you’re away.

log_close_string --- Log closed %a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y

The message to log when logs are closed.

See Appendix C for the meanings of Irssi’s time format codes.

log_create_mode 600

The permissions to use when creating log files.

600 is read/write by you, but nobody else can see them. A sensible default mode. It can also be set to 644 if you want the rest of the world to read your logs.

log_day_changed --- Day changed %a %b %d %Y

The message to log when a new day begins.

See Appendix C for the meanings of Irssi’s time format codes.

log_open_string --- Log opened %a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y

The message to log when a log is opened.

See Appendix C for the meanings of Irssi’s time format codes.

log_theme

Logs can have a different theme than what you see on the screen. This can be used to create machine-parseable versions of logs, for example.

log_timestamp %H:%M

The time format for log timestamps.

See Appendix C for the meanings of Irssi’s time format codes.

log_server_time auto

Whether to log the timestamp as sent by the server, or the time when this message was received by Irssi. Also see /SET show_server_time

off

log timestamp when received

on

log timestamp as provided by server

auto (default)

follow show_server_time setting

Added in Irssi 1.3

[lookandfeel]

active_window_ignore_refnum ON

When set ON, the active_window key (meta-a by default) switches to the window with the highest activity level that was last activated.

When set OFF, the pre-0.8.15 behavior is used: it switches to the window with the highest activity level with the lowest refnum.

Added in Irssi 0.8.15

activity_hide_level

Message levels that don’t count towards channel activity. That is, channels won’t be marked as active if messages of these types appear.

activity_hide_targets

Sometimes you don’t care at all about a window’s activity. This can be set to a space separated list of windows that will never appear to be active.

Syntax

Version added

Description

exactname

0.8.0

Ignore activity in window ‘exactname’

tag/exactname

0.8.6

Ignore activity on network ‘tag’ and window ‘exactname’

*

1.0.0

Ignore activity in all windows

tag/*

1.0.0

Ignore all activity on network ‘tag’

::all

1.1.0

Ignore activity in all windows

::channels

1.1.0

Ignore activity in all channels

::queries

1.1.0

Ignore activity in all queries

::dccqueries

1.1.0

Ignore activity in all dcc chats

#chan|[=]nick

1.1.0

Ignore activity in named target(channel, query, dcc chat)

tag/::all

1.1.0

Ignore all activity on network ‘tag’

tag/::channels

1.1.0

Ignore activity in all channels on network ‘tag’

tag/::queries

1.1.0

Ignore activity in all queries on network ‘tag’

tag/::dccqueries

1.1.0

Ignore activity in all dcc chats on network ‘tag’

tag/#chan|[=]nick

1.1.0

Ignore activity in named channel/query/dcc chat on network ‘tag’
activity_hilight_level MSGS DCCMSGS

There are times when you want to highlight channel activity in a window. Like when someone sends you a private message, or a DCC message. activity_hilight_level sets the kind of messages you think are extra important.

activity_msg_level PUBLIC NOTICES

Flag a channel as active when messages of this type are displayed there.

activity_hide_window_hidelevel ON

Do not flag a window as active if the message is hidden with /window hidelevel

Added in Irssi 1.2.0

activity_hide_visible ON

Whether to hide the active flag when the window is visible.

Added in Irssi 1.2.0

actlist_names OFF

Turn on to add active items names in ‘act’ statusbar item.

actlist_prefer_window_name OFF

Whether to show the window name instead of the item name when actlist_names is enabled.

Added in Irssi 1.3

actlist_sort refnum

Specifies the sorting type used for the activity bar. Accepted values:

refnum (default)

windows are listed in numeric order

recent

windows with more recent activity appear first

level

sort by window level (hilight, msg, etc), same ordering used by active_window command. Windows with the same level are sorted by refnum.

level,recent

same as level, but windows with the same level are sorted by recent.

Added in Irssi 0.8.12. Before Irssi 0.8.12, a boolean actlist_moves setting existed, which was equivalent to setting actlist_sort to refnum.

actlist_separator ,

Which separator to use between windows in the Act: list.

Added in Irssi 1.4

autoclose_query 0

Automatically close query windows after autoclose_query seconds of inactivity. Setting autoclose_query to zero will keep them open until you decide to close them yourself.

autoclose_windows ON

Automatically close windows when nobody is in them. This keeps your window list tidy, but it means that query windows may rearrange as people log off then privately message you later.

autocreate_own_query ON

Turn on to automatically create query windows when you /msg someone.

autocreate_query_level MSGS DCCMSGS NOTICES

Automatically create query windows when receiving these types of messages.

autocreate_windows ON

When on, create new windows for certain operations, such as /join. When off, everything is just dumped into one window.

autocreate_split_windows OFF

Automatically created windows will be created as split windows with this setting on.

Split windows are the kind where multiple windows are on one screen.

autofocus_new_items ON

Switch the focus to a new item when it’s created. This may be disturbing at first when combined with query window auto-creation, and it may be downright dangerous if it causes you to accidentally misdirect messages.

autostick_split_windows OFF

Whether creating split windows (or showing windows) will automatically stick them to the split window (/window stick on)

The default was changed to OFF in Irssi 1.2.0

autounstick_windows ON

Whether windows should automatically unstick when you try to /window show or /window hide them

Added in Irssi 1.2.0

beep_msg_level

Beep when messages match this level mask.

beep_when_away ON

Should beeps be noisy when you’re /away? Great for people who sleep near their terminals or keep Irssi running at work. :)

beep_when_window_active ON

Should beeps be noisy in a window you’re watching? Perhaps not, since you are theoretically watching that window. You ARE watching it, aren’t you?

bell_beeps OFF

Removed in Irssi 1.0.0.

Tell Irssi whether bell characters (chr 7, ^G) included inside IRC messages should actually cause beeps. This doesn’t mean that highlights will make a beep sound, this means that anyone in any irc channel can cause unexplained beeps.

Since its only purpose is to be annoying, we decided to remove this. See this issue for details.

Any guide that recommended enabling this to make beeps work is wrong. This setting is not needed for that.

break_wide OFF

When on, wide characters (fullwidth / CJK / east asian) are always considered line breaking points then wrapping lines for display, instead of only wrapping on space characters.

Example:

         ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
    OFF: ║10:31 -!- 火火火火火火火火火火ab                           ║
         ║          cd火火火火火火火火火火胡火火火火火后ab           ║
         ║          cd火火火火火火火火火火火                         ║
         ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

         ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
    ON:  ║10:31 -!- 火火火火火火火火火火ab cd火火火火火火火火火火胡火║
         ║          火火火火后ab cd火火火火火火火火火                ║
         ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

Added in Irssi 1.1.0

chanmode_expando_strip OFF

When on, $M will not return mode parameters.

This means for example that the channel limit and channel key won’t be shown in your statusbar (a common place where $M is used) (but also not in all other places that refer to $M for whatever reason).

colors ON

Enable or disable colors.

emphasis ON

Enable or disable real underlining and bolding when someone says *bold* or _underlined_.

emphasis_italics OFF

Enable or disable applying real italics when someone says /italics/.

Note: not all terminals support this. Most notably, if the TERM environment variable is set to screen, it won’t work.

Added in Irssi 0.8.17

emphasis_multiword OFF

Turn on to allow *more than one word bold* and _multiple underlined words_. Used in conjunction with the emphasis setting.

emphasis_replace OFF

If emphasis is turned on, the * or _ characters indicating emphasis will be removed when the word is made bold or underlined. Some people find this looks cleaner.

See the emphasis setting for more information.

expand_escapes OFF

Detect escapes in input, and expand them to the characters they describe. For example

\t

Is literally ‘' and ‘t’ when expand_escapes is off, but it’s the tab character (chr 9) when expand_escapes is on.

hide_colors OFF

Hide mIRC and ANSI colors when turned on. This can be used to eliminate angry fruit salad syndrome in some channels.

hide_server_tags OFF

Server tags are prefixes to some messages (server messages?) that let you know which server the message came from. They’re often considered noisy, so this option lets you hide them.

hide_text_style OFF

Hide bold, blink, underline, and reverse attributes.

hilight_act_color %M

The color to use to highlight window activity in the status bar. That’s the section that shows [Act: …].

See Appendix D for Irssi’s color codes.

hilight_color %Y

The default color for /hilight.

See Appendix D for Irssi’s color codes.

hilight_level PUBLIC DCCMSGS

The types of messages that can be highlighted.

hilight_nick_matches ON

Tell Irssi whether it should automatically highlight text that starts with your nickname.

hilight_nick_matches_everywhere OFF

Turn on to extend hilight_nick_matches to match your nickname everywhere in messages, not just at the beginning.

Added in Irssi 0.8.18

indent 10

How many columns to indent subsequent lines of a wrapped message.

Attention: This can be overwritten by themes.

indent_always OFF

Should we indent the long words that are forcibly wrapped to the next line? This can break long words such as URLs by inserting spaces in the middle of them.

Turn off if you would like to copy/paste or otherwise use URLs from your terminal.

colors_ansi_24bit OFF

Enable the use of 24-bit color codes.

Note: not all terminals support this. If yours does not, it may result in horrible screen distortion.

Irssi up to 1.4 need to be compiled with -Denable-true-color=yes.

Added in Irssi 0.8.17

names_max_columns 6

Maximum number of columns to use for /names listing. Also shown on channel join. Set to 0 for as many as fit in your terminal.

names_max_width 0

Maximum number of columns to consume with a /names listing. Overrides names_max_columns if non-zero. Set to 0 for as many as fit in your terminal.

query_track_nick_changes ON

Query windows will track nick changes when this is on. That is, when receiving a message from an unknown nick, it looks for a query with a matching user@host before creating a new one, and if it finds one, it gets renamed to use the new nick.

reuse_unused_windows OFF

When set on, Irssi will reuse unused windows when looking for a new window to put something in. Otherwise unused windows are ignored, and new ones are always created.

scroll ON

Set scroll ON to have Irssi scroll your screen when it fills up. Set it OFF to require manual scrolling.

Warning: If set to OFF, this will stop scrolling in all windows and not reenable scrolling even if you set it back to ON. (You need to manually scroll to the bottom in each window first.)

show_away_once ON

When on, only show /away messages in the window that’s currently open. Otherwise the message will appear in every window you share with the away person.

away_notify_public OFF

Whether to show /away changes of other users in the channel. Only affects servers that actively inform about away changes.

Added in Irssi 1.3

show_names_on_join ON

Display the list of names in a channel when you join that channel. It’s generally recommended, but you can disable it for pathologically huge channels or in case you just don’t care. Also see show_names_on_join_limit, which overrules this setting.

show_names_on_join_limit 18

Do not show the NAMES list on join if there are more than show_names_on_join_limit users in the channel.

Set to -1 to disable.

Added in Irssi 1.3

show_extended_join OFF

Whether to show extended join information (real name and services account) when others users join the channel. Only affects servers that send extended joins information.

Added in Irssi 1.3

show_nickmode ON

Prefix nicknames with their channel status:

voiced

+

half-op

%

op

@

show_nickmode_empty ON

If a person has no channel modes, prefix their nickname with a blank space. This keeps nicknames of normal people aligned with those of voiced, half-opped, and opped people.

show_account_notify OFF

Whether to show account changes of other users in the channel. Only affects servers that actively inform about account changes.

Added in Irssi 1.3

show_own_nickchange_once OFF

Squash your own nick-change messages so they appear only once, not once in every window you have on that network.

show_quit_once OFF

When turned on, a quit message will only be shown once. Otherwise it will be displayed in every window you share with the quitter.

show_server_time OFF

Whether to show the server-provided time on messages when available, or only the local time of reception.

Added in Irssi 1.3

term_appkey_mode ON

If this is ON, the application keys mode is used, which is needed for some terminals.

Turn this off if your terminal doesn’t need this mode and you need to bind meta-O (that’s an uppercase O)

Added in Irssi 0.8.19

term_charset UTF-8

Sets your native terminal character set. Irssi will take this into consideration when it needs to delete multibyte characters, for example.

A common value is utf-8 for Unicode/UTF-8 enabled terminals.

TODO - Does this still support Chinese terminal emulators? (Used to be term_type big5 in old Irssi.)

term_force_colors OFF

Always display colors, even when the terminal type says colors aren’t supported. Useful for working around really dumb terminals.

theme default

Irssi supports themes that can change most of the client’s look and feel. This setting lets you name the theme you wish to use.

timestamp_format %H:%M

How to format the time used in timestamps.

See Appendix C for the meanings of Irssi’s time format codes.

timestamp_format_alt %a %e %b %H:%M

How to format messages with an old timestamp, for example messages from the past emitted by the server.

Added in Irssi 1.3

timestamp_level ALL

Types of messages to prefix a timestamp to. Useful for explicit or automatic timestamps.

Once timestamping is temporarily turned on, it may stay on for timestamp_timeout seconds.

timestamp_timeout 0

The amount of time to leave timestamps on after a timestamp_level message triggered timestamping. Useful for people who think timestamps are noisy but would like timestamps for important conversations.

timestamps ON

Turn timestamps on or off. When off, not even timestamp_level will trigger them.

tls_verbose_connect ON

When this setting is ON, Irssi displays TLS connection information on connect, which includes the certificate chain, protocol version, cipher suite and fingerprints. Example:

-!- Irssi: Connecting to irc.example.net [198.51.100.1] port 6697
-!- Irssi: Certificate Chain:
-!- Irssi:   Subject: CN: irc.example.net
-!- Irssi:   Issuer:  C: US, O: Let's Encrypt, CN: Let's Encrypt Authority X3
-!- Irssi:   Subject: C: US, O: Let's Encrypt, CN: Let's Encrypt Authority X3
-!- Irssi:   Issuer:  O: Digital Signature Trust Co., CN: DST Root CA X3
-!- Irssi: Protocol: TLSv1.2 (256 bit, DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384)
-!- Irssi: EDH Key: 2048 bit DH
-!- Irssi: Public Key: 4096 bit RSA, valid from Mar 20 05:16:00 2017 GMT to Jun 18 05:16:00 2017 GMT
-!- Irssi: Public Key Fingerprint:  DE:AD:BE:EF:DE:AD:BE:EF:DE:AD:BE:EF:DE:AD:BE:EF:DE:AD:BE:EF:DE:AD:BE:EF:DE:AD:BE:EF:DE:AD:BE:EF (SHA256)
-!- Irssi: Certificate Fingerprint: CA:FE:BA:BE:CA:FE:BA:BE:CA:FE:BA:BE:CA:FE:BA:BE:CA:FE:BA:BE:CA:FE:BA:BE:CA:FE:BA:BE:CA:FE:BA:BE (SHA256)

Added in Irssi 1.0.0

use_msgs_window OFF

Use a single window for all private messages. This setting only makes sense if automatic query windows is turned off.

use_status_window ON

Create a separate window for all server status messages, so they don’t clutter up your channels.

whois_hide_safe_channel_id ON

Hides the unique id of !channels in /whois output (IRCNet/irc2 networks only).

E.g. shows !channel instead of !12345channel

Added in Irssi 0.8.10

window_auto_change OFF

Turn this on to automatically switch to newly-created windows. This may cause you to misdirect messages, so be careful.

window_check_level_first OFF

window_default_level NONE

From Irssi’s ChangeLog:

Added /SET window_check_level_first and /SET window_default_level. This allows you to keep all messages with specific level in it’s own window, even if it was supposed to be printed in channel window. patch by mike@po.cs.msu.su

Try to choose better the window where we print when matching by level and multiple windows have a match. Should fix problems with query windows with a default msgs window + /SET window_check_level_first ON.

Wouter Coekaerts has made a nice explanation about this, see <http://wouter.coekaerts.be/irssi/wclf>

window_default_hidelevel HIDDEN

The default /window hidelevel for newly created windows. You can add other levels here to hide joins/parts/quits by default.

Added in Irssi 1.2.0

windows_auto_renumber ON

Closing windows can create gaps in the window list. When windows_auto_renumber is turned on, however, windows are shifted to lower numbers in the list to fill those gaps.

scrollback_format ON

Whether to store the format and arguments for printed text in the scrollback, or the final rendered text instead. Turning it off restores pre-1.3 behaviour. Some features may not work depending on this setting.

Added in Irssi 1.3

empty_kill_clears_cutbuffer OFF

Whether using erase_line on an empty line should be ignored (default) or instead clear the cutbuffer.

Added in Irssi 1.4

glib_log_domains all

Irssi will only show GLib log messages of this domain, or all for all log messages. This setting can be used to ignore GLib log messages based on the “log domain”. Such log messages may be emitted by third party GLib-based libraries.

Added in Irssi 1.4

[misc]

auto_whowas ON

Automatically try /whowas if you /whois someone who isn’t online.

ban_type normal

The default ban type to use: normal, user, host, domain, custom? See /help ban for a description of ban types.

capsicum OFF

FreeBSD/Capsicum builds only: Capsicum is a lightweight OS capability and sandbox framework provided by FreeBSD.

This setting is only read when starting Irssi. See docs/capsicum.txt for usage details and limitations.

Added in Irssi 1.1.0

capsicum_irclogs_path ~/irclogs

FreeBSD/Capsicum builds only: Path that Irssi is allowed to write irc logs to.

Added in Irssi 1.1.0

capsicum_port_min 6667

capsicum_port_max 9999

FreeBSD/Capsicum builds only: Range of ports that Irssi is allowed to connect to.

Added in Irssi 1.1.0

channel_max_who_sync 1000

The maximum number of users that may be in a channel for Irssi to issue a

/who #channel

in order to obtain the hostmasks of every participant.

If this is set too high, IRC servers might kick you for Sendq exceeded.

Added in Irssi 0.8.10

channel_sync ON

Set whether Irssi should synchronize a channel on join. When enabled, Irssi will gather extra information about a channel: modes, who list, ban list, ban exceptions, and invite list.

account_max_chase 10

Maximum number of JOINs where Irssi will try to query the ACCOUNT using WHOX.

Added in Irssi 1.3

cmdchars /

Prefix characters that tell Irssi that your input is a command rather than chat text.

ctcp_userinfo_reply $Y

The reply to send when someone queries your user information. By default, it’s $Y, which is defined by the real_name setting.

See Appendix B: Special Variables and Expandos for more special variables you can use.

ctcp_version_reply irssi v$J - running on $sysname $sysarch

What to tell someone when they query your client’s version.

Some people consider announcing your client and operating system type and version to be a security hole. Those people change this setting.

group_multi_mode ON

Consolidate multiple consecutive channel modes into a single message. This will delay the display of channel modes for a short period of time while it waits to see if multiple modes are occurring.

help_path /usr/local/share/irssi/help

One or more paths where Irssi will look for its help database. Multiple paths are separated by :. It’s very important that this is correct.

hide_netsplit_quits ON

Don’t display quit messages if they’re the product of a netsplit. Some people find this helpful, while others find it creepy.

ignore_signals

Operating system signals to ignore. May be zero or more of: int, quit, term, alrm, usr1, and usr2.

join_auto_chans_on_invite ON

Automatically join a channel when invited to it, if that channel was previously added to the autojoin list (/channel add -auto).

key_timeout 0

Time in msecs to wait until a key combo is flushed. If it’s set to 0 (the default), there’s no timeout, and key combos will wait until the next keystroke before processing.

This is useful if you have key combos that extend others. For example, if you have meta-a and meta-a-meta-b this setting allows you to use meta-a after waiting some time.

Setting it to very low values may result in issues such as partial key combos getting processed accidentally. 1000 or 500 might be good starting points

Restart Irssi to enable the new timeout.

Added in Irssi 1.1.0

kick_first_on_kickban OFF

Kickban will normally ban first, then kick. Turn this option on to reverse the situation, which can create a race condition if the user rejoins between your kick and the subsequent ban.

knockout_time 5min

Knockouts are temporary kickbans. Knockout_time is the default amount of time before each temporary ban is lifted.

See /help knockout

lag_check_time 1min

How long to wait between active lag checks. Irssi will passively check for lag when you’re active, but sometimes it’s necessary to actively check. This is the minimum amount of time between active checks.

lag_max_before_disconnect 5min

Irssi detects your lag and will reconnect you automatically if your lag exceeds this value.

lag_min_show 1sec

Lag is a part of life on IRC. Don’t bother displaying lag that’s below this threshold, presumably because you consider it to be insignificant.

massjoin_max_joins 3

If nonzero, detect mass joins. A mass join is when someone joins more than massjoin_max_joins per massjoin_max_wait seconds.

TODO - Or is this when more than massjoin_max_joins people join per massjoin_max_wait seconds, regardless of the user mask?

massjoin_max_wait 5000

The amount of time to watch for mass-joins, in seconds.

5000 is probably a bit too much.

max_wildcard_modes 6

When set nonzero, don’t mass op/deop/kick more than this many people. Commands that let you do things to other nicks can take wildcards. For example

/kick floodbot* flooding

would kick everybody whose nickname began with floodbot. Unless there were more than max_wildcard_modes of them.

This setting prevents you from embarassment like:

/kick *

You can specify -yes if you really want to do it:

/kick -yes *
netjoin_max_nicks 10

When non-zero, limits the number of nicknames to display during netjoins.

netsplit_max_nicks 10

When non-zero, limits the number of nicknames to display during netsplits.

netsplit_nicks_hide_threshold 15

Limit the number of nicks to display during netsplits to this many. Or don’t limit them at all, if this is set to 0.

notify_check_time 1min

How often to check for someone online when /notify is on.

notify_whois_time 5min

How often to check /whois on a user who’s online, to see if their /away or idle status changes.

opermode

When set, Irssi will set your modes to match opermode when you /oper up. For example, you might

/set opermode +s 1048575
override_coredump_limit OFF

Allow really really big coredumps if this is set on.

part_message

Default message to send when parting a channel.

paste_detect_time 5msecs

Irssi will detect pastes when your input has less than this much time between lines.

paste_join_multiline ON

Irssi will try to concatenate multiple lines into a single lined message when these lines have the same indentation level and look like they were copied out of Irssi.

It’s useful for quoting e-mail or other large-text messages, but it will probably bite you if you try to pasted indented text, such as code listings. Irssi will join multiple lines of code, destroying any structure you wanted to preserve.

Added in Irssi 0.8.10

paste_use_bracketed_mode OFF

Enables bracketed paste mode, which is an alternative to the time-based paste detection.

If supported by the terminal, it’s much more reliable since Irssi knows exactly where and when a paste starts and ends, because the terminal sends special control sequences (the “brackets”) indicating those positions.

To take full advantage of this feature, time-based paste detection should be disabled by setting paste_detect_time to 0.

See https://cirw.in/blog/bracketed-paste for more details on how this works.

Added in Irssi 0.8.18

paste_verify_line_count 5

Ask you whether you meant to paste something if it’s longer than this many lines.

paste_ignore_first_nl OFF

Pasting a single line ending with a line break will remove the line break and insert the line into your input prompt instead of sending it.

Added in Irssi 1.4

quit_message leaving

Default message to send when /quit’ting.

recode ON

This setting allows you to disable Irssi’s recode functionality, if you prefer your messages not being messed with.

Added in Irssi 0.8.10

recode_autodetect_utf8 ON

Irssi’s recode system is broken. This tries to cover up for it by leaving messages intact that seem to decode fine as Unicode UTF-8.

Added in Irssi 0.8.10

recode_fallback CP1252

If you have Irssi compiled with recode support and Irssi believes that a message you received did not recode properly in your terminal default character set (or the specified one), it will recode the message using this character set.

(CP1252, the Irssi default, is the Microsoft(R) Windows default character set for Western Europe.)

Also see /help recode for more details about recoding.

Added in Irssi 0.8.10

recode_out_default_charset

The outgoing character set you want your messags to be recoded into, if different from your term_charset.

Added in Irssi 0.8.10

recode_transliterate ON

If enabled, Irssi tells iconv to try and replace characters that don’t recode well with similar looking ones that exist in the target character set.

If disabled, Irssi replaces the character it could not recode with a ? instead.

Added in Irssi 0.8.10

settings_autosave ON

Automatically save your settings when you quit Irssi, or once per hour, rather than waiting for you to /save them yourself.

split_line_end

When automatically splitting long lines, this is added to the end of line fragments.

Added in Irssi 0.8.17

split_line_on_space ON

When this is ON, Irssi tries to split long lines on spaces, instead of splitting in the middle of words.

Added in Irssi 0.8.18

split_line_start

When automatically splitting long lines, this is added to the beginning of line fragments. :

Added in Irssi 0.8.17

STATUS_OPER *

Determines what’s shown in the $O expando when the user is an oper. :

TODO - why

usermode +i

Default modes to set yourself once you’ve connected to a server.

notice_channel_context ON

Whether Irssi should recognise the channel context in /notices and show the notice in the appropriate channel window.

Added in Irssi 1.2.0

wall_format [Wall/$0] $1-

Format for wall messages.

write_buffer_size 0

Amount of text (logs, etc) to buffer in memory before writing to disk. Useful for minimizing disk access.

write_buffer_timeout 0

Amount of time to keep text in memory. A buffer is flushed to disk if the text in it is this old, even if the buffer isn’t full.

Useful in conjunction with really large write_buffer_size values, to prevent a lot of text from being lost if Irssi crashes or is killed.

window_number_commands ON

Whether /<number> can be used to change windows.

Added in Irssi 1.2.0

wcwidth_implementation system

The implementation Irssi should use to calculate and match the width of characters (like emoji) to the width that the terminal emulator assumes. If these widths don’t add up, lines may not line up. Accepted values:

old

the old built-in calculation (may be preferable on old systems)

system (default)

use the calculation of your operating system

julia

use the calculation of the utf8proc library (only when compiled with utf8proc)

Added in Irssi 1.2.0

quit_on_hup OFF

Whether Irssi should /quit itself on receiving the HUP signal or reload its config instead. This setting may be desirable if you want to /quit Irssi with the [x] button on your terminal emulator window.

Added in Irssi 1.3

autoload_modules irc dcc flood notifylist perl otr

Which modules should be loaded on Irssi start. Irssi will silently try to /load all these modules in the order given.

Added in Irssi 1.3

[perl]

perl_use_lib /usr/local/perl-582/i386-freebsd

Which perl library to use, in case you have many to choose from.

[proxy]

proxy_address

The address of your IRC proxy.

proxy_password

The password to use if the proxy requires authentication.

proxy_port 6667

The port of your IRC proxy.

proxy_string CONNECT %s %d

How to tell your proxy to initiate a connection.

I haven’t found documentation for the codes used in proxy_string.

TODO - How do you tell Irssi to connect through a proxy that requires authentication?

proxy_string_after

Text to send after setting NICK and USER through a proxy.

use_proxy OFF

Tell Irssi whether it should connect through a proxy server.

[server]

alternate_nick

An alternate nickname to use if your preferred one is already taken.

hostname

Your source hostname. Useful when you’re on a multi-host system, and you want to look like you’re connecting from a particular host.

This setting tells Irssi which IP to bind to.

nick $IRCNICK

Your main, preferred nick.

real_name $IRCNAME

Your real name.

resolve_prefer_ipv6 OFF

Turn this option on to prefer using an ipv6 address when a host has both ipv4 and ipv6 addresses.

resolve_reverse_lookup OFF

Removed in Irssi 1.3. See resolve_reverse_lookup issues for more information.

sasl_disconnect_on_failure ON

Turn this option off to continue connecting to servers even when sasl authentication errors happen.

Added in Irssi 1.0.0

server_connect_timeout 5min

How long to wait for a connection to be established.

Be careful using very short timeouts. Servers may recognize the activity as abuse.

server_reconnect_time 5min

How long to wait between reconnects to the same server. Some servers will k-line you if you reconnect too quickly, so be careful setting this value lower.

Setting the value to -1 will disable reconnects

skip_motd OFF

Turn this on to avoid displaying the server’s message of the day. Messages of the day are often noisy, and few people actually read them, but they contain important information amongst the ASCII art and song lyrics. :)

user_name $IRCUSER

Set your system user name. This is used in times when you don’t have working ident.

[servers]

channels_rejoin_unavailable ON

Attempt to rejoin a channel if it’s temporarily unavailable. Channels may be unavailable during netsplits.

rejoin_channels_on_reconnect ON

Determines whether channels are rejoined on reconnect. Possible values are OFF, ON and AUTO:

off

no channels are rejoined.

on (default)

all channels are rejoined.

auto

only channels configured with autojoins are rejoined.

Added in Irssi 0.8.18. auto was added in Irssi 1.0.0

starttls_sts ON

Whether to automatically add a starttls flag to a server once STARTTLS has succeeded.

Added in Irssi 1.3

[irssiproxy]

Also see proxy.txt for more information about the irssiproxy module.

irssiproxy_ports

A space-separated list of networktag=port that the irssiproxy should listen on. If you connect to the port, you will share the connection of the specified network in your Irssi.

The special network name ?=port can be used to select the network through your connect password.

? was added in Irssi 1.0.0

irssiproxy_password

The password required to connect to the irssiproxy.

irssiproxy_bind

The interface that the irssiproxy should listen on.

irssiproxy ON

Here you can enable and disable the proxy.

Added in Irssi 0.8.18

Appendix A: Levels

Levels are categories of messages that can be ignored or otherwise matched. Categories may be combined. For example, you may want to ignore only private messages (MSG) from someone, or you might really hate them and ignore MSGS and PUBLIC. Or even ALL.

See /help levels for a better, probably more current explanation of the different kinds of levels Irssi supports. Meanwhile:

Level

Description

CRAP

?

MSGS

Match messages privately sent to you.

PUBLIC

Match messages sent to public channels.

NOTICES

Match NOTICE messages.

SNOTES

Match server notices.

CTCPS

Match CTCP messages.

ACTIONS

Match CTCP actions.

JOINS

Match join messages.

PARTS

Match part messages.

QUITS

Match quit messages.

KICKS

Match kick messages.

MODES

Match mode changes.

TOPICS

Match topic changes.

WALLOPS

Match wallops.

INVITES

Match invite requests.

NICKS

Match nickname changes.

DCC

DCC related messages.

DCCMSGS

Match DCC chat messages.

CLIENTNOTICE

Irssi’s notices.

CLIENTCRAP

Miscellaneous Irssi messages.

CLIENTERROR

Irssi’s error messages.

ALL

All previous message levels combined.

HILIGHT

Match highlighted messages.

NOHILIGHT

Don’t check a message’s highlighting.

NO_ACT

Don’t trigger channel activity.

NEVER

Never ignore, never log.

LASTLOG

Never ignore, never log.

Appendix B: Special Variables and Expandos

Several settings allow special variables. These variables will be replaced by the text they represent at the time they’re used. Not at the time you set the setting!

They are mostly used for formatting text in themes.

From https://github.com/irssi/irssi/blob/master/docs/special_vars.txt:

NOTE: This is just a slightly modified file taken from EPIC’s help.

Special Variables and Expandos

Irssi supports a number of reserved, dynamic variables, sometimes referred to as expandos. They are special in that the client is constantly updating their values automatically. There are also numerous variable modifiers available.

Modifier

Description

$variable

A normal variable, expanding to the first match of:
1) an internal SET variable
2) an environment variable

$[num]variable

Expands to the variables value, with ‘num’ width.
If the number is negative, the value is right-aligned.
The value is padded to meet the width with the character given after number (default is space).
The value is truncated to specified width unless ‘!’ character precedes the number.
If ‘.’ character precedes the number the value isn’t padded, just truncated.

$#variable

Expands to the number of words in $variable. If $variable is omitted, it assumes $*

$@variable

Expands to the number of characters in $variable. if $variable is omitted, it assumes $*

$($subvariable)

This is somewhat similar to a pointer, in that the value of $subvar is taken as the name of the variable to expand to. Nesting is allowed.

${expression}

Permits the value to be embedded in another string unambiguously.

$!history!

Expands to a matching entry in the client’s command history, wildcards allowed.

Whenever an alias is called, these expandos are set to the arguments passed to it. If none of these expandos are used in the alias, or the $() form shown above, any arguments passed will automatically be appended to the last command in the alias.

Expando

Description

$*

expands to all arguments passed to an alias

$n

expands to argument ‘n’ passed to an alias (counting from zero)

$n-m

expands to arguments ‘n’ through ‘m’ passed to an alias

$n-

expands to all arguments from ‘n’ on passed to an alias

$-m

expands to all arguments up to ‘m’ passed to an alias

$~

expands to the last argument passed to an alias

These variables are set and updated dynamically by the client. The case of $A .. $Z is important.

Variable

Description

$,

last person who sent you a MSG

$.

last person to whom you sent a MSG

$:

last person to join a channel you are on

$;

last person to send a public message to a channel you are on

$A

text of your AWAY message, if any

$B

body of last MSG you sent

$C

current channel

$D

last person that NOTIFY detected a signon for

$E

idle time

$F

time client was started, $time() format

$H

current server numeric being processed

$I

channel you were last INVITEd to

$J

client version text string

$K

current value of CMDCHARS

$k

first character in CMDCHARS

$L

current contents of the input line

$M

modes of current channel, if any

$N

current nickname

$O

value of STATUS_OPER if you are an irc operator

$P

if you are a channel operator in $C, expands to a ‘@’

$Q

nickname of whomever you are QUERYing

$R

version of current server

$S

current server name

$T

target of current input (channel or nick of query)

$U

value of cutbuffer

$V

client release date (format YYYYMMDD)

$W

current working directory

$X

your /userhost $N address (user@host)

$Y

value of REALNAME

$Z

time of day (hh:mm, can be changed with /SET timestamp_format)

$$

a literal ‘$’

$versiontime

prints time of the Irssi version in HHMM format

$sysname

system name (eg. Linux)

$sysrelease

system release (eg. 2.2.18)

$sysarch

system architecture (eg. i686)

$topic

channel topic

$usermode

user mode

$cumode

own channel user mode

$cumode_space

like $cumode, but gives space if there’s no mode.

$tag

server tag

$chatnet

chat network of server

$winref

window reference number

$winname

window name

$itemname

like $T, but use item’s visible_name which may be different
(eg. $T = !12345chan, $itemname = !chan)

For example, assume you have the following alias:

/alias blah msg $D Hi there!

If /blah is passed any arguments, they will automatically be appended to the MSG text. For example:

/blah oops                    /* command as entered */
Hi there! oops                /* text sent to $D */

Another useful form is ${}. In general, variables can be embedded inside strings without problems, assuming the surrounding text could not be misinterpreted as part of the variable name. This form guarantees that surrounding text will not affect the expression’s return value.

/eval echo foo$Nfoo             /* breaks, looks for $nfoo */
/eval echo foo${N}foo           /* ${N} returns current nickname */
fooYourNickfoo                  /* returned by above command */

Appendix C: Time Formats

Messages that describe times are formatted according to the strftime() function in C. According to FreeBSD’s strftime() man page, parts of the format represented with % and a letter code are expanded in the following ways.

Format

Description

%A

is replaced by national representation of the full weekday name.

%a

is replaced by national representation of the abbreviated weekday name.

%B

is replaced by national representation of the full month name.

%b

is replaced by national representation of the abbreviated month name.

%C

is replaced by (year / 100) as decimal number; single digits are preceded by a zero.

%c

is replaced by national representation of time and date.

%D

is equivalent to ``%m/%d/%y’’.

%d

is replaced by the day of the month as a decimal number (01-31).

%E* %O*

POSIX locale extensions. The sequences %Ec %EC %Ex %EX %Ey %EY %Od %Oe %OH %OI %Om %OM %OS %Ou %OU %OV %Ow %OW %Oy are supposed to provide alternate representations.
Additionly %OB implemented to represent alternative months names (used standalone, without day mentioned).

%e

is replaced by the day of month as a decimal number (1-31); single digits are preceded by a blank.

%F

is equivalent to ``%Y-%m-%d’’.

%G

is replaced by a year as a decimal number with century. This year is the one that contains the greater part of the week (Monday as the first day of the week).

%g

is replaced by the same year as in ``%G’’, but as a decimal number without century (00-99).

%H

is replaced by the hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number (00-23).

%h

the same as %b.

%I

is replaced by the hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number (01-12).

%j

is replaced by the day of the year as a decimal number (001-366).

%k

is replaced by the hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number (0-23); single digits are preceded by a blank.

%l

is replaced by the hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number (1-12); single digits are preceded by a blank.

%M

is replaced by the minute as a decimal number (00-59).

%m

is replaced by the month as a decimal number (01-12).

%n

is replaced by a newline.

%O*

the same as %E*.

%p

is replaced by national representation of either ante meridiem or post meridiem as appropriate.

%R

is equivalent to ``%H:%M’’.

%r

is equivalent to ``%I:%M:%S %p’’.

%S

is replaced by the second as a decimal number (00-60).

%s

is replaced by the number of seconds since the Epoch, UTC (see mktime(3)).

%T

is equivalent to ``%H:%M:%S’’.

%t

is replaced by a tab.

%U

is replaced by the week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number (00-53).

%u

is replaced by the weekday (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number (1-7).

%V

is replaced by the week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number (01-53). If the week containing January 1 has four or more days in the new year, then it is week 1; otherwise it is the last week of the previous year, and the next week is week 1.

%v

is equivalent to ``%e-%b-%Y’’.

%W

is replaced by the week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number (00-53).

%w

is replaced by the weekday (Sunday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number (0-6).

%X

is replaced by national representation of the time.

%x

is replaced by national representation of the date.

%Y

is replaced by the year with century as a decimal number.

%y

is replaced by the year without century as a decimal number (00-99).

%Z

is replaced by the time zone name.

%z

is replaced by the time zone offset from UTC; a leading plus sign stands for east of UTC, a minus sign for west of UTC, hours and minutes follow with two digits each and no delimiter between them (common form for RFC 822 date headers).

%+

is replaced by national representation of the date and time (the format is similar to that produced by date(1)).

%%

is replaced by `%’.

Appendix D: Color Codes

Irssi defines codes to represent colors. They work like the strftime() codes in Appendix C.

From https://irssi.org/documentation/formats:

Irssi’s colors that you can use in text formats, hilights, etc. :

text

text

background

%k

%K

%0

black

dark grey

black

%r

%R

%1

red

bold red

red

%g

%G

%2

green

bold green

green

%y

%Y

%3

yellow

bold yellow

yellow

%b

%B

%4

blue

bold blue

blue

%m

%M

%5

magenta

bold magenta

magenta

%p

%P

magenta

(think: purple)

%c

%C

%6

cyan

bold cyan

cyan

%w

%W

%7

white

bold white

white

%n

%N

Changes the color to default color, removing all other coloring and formatting. %N is always the terminal’s default color. %n is usually too, except in themes it changes to previous color, ie. hello = %Rhello%n and %G{hello} world would print hello in red, and %n would turn back into %G making world green.

%F

Blinking on/off (think: flash)

%U

Underline on/off

%8

Reverse on/off

%9

%_

Bold on/off

%I

Italic on/off

%:

Insert newline

%|

Marks the indentation position

%#

Monospace font on/off (useful with lists and GUI)

%%

A single %

%XAB

%xAB

Color from extended plane (A=1-7, B=0-Z)

%ZAABBCC

%zAABBCC

HTML color (in hex notation)

In .theme files %n works a bit differently. See default.theme for more information.