How to make Terminal windows persistent

How can I make it so Terminal will remember the currently open windows on Quit, and reopen those windows, with all the existing text intact?

I have two machines:

• Both on El Cap

• Both with identical Terminal preferences, including:

  • Profiles > Window > Restore text when reopening windows [checked]
  • Profiles > Shell > When the shell exits [Don't close the window]
    
    

• Both with identical .bash_profiles (just for LSCOLORS)

On the first machine, Terminal reopens windows exactly as I left them before Quit.

On the second machine, Terminal always starts with an empty bash window. I can still press up to get previous commands. (And the scrollbar is different on the second machine, FWIW).

I can't figure out what's responsible for the (desired) behavior on the first machine, so I haven't been able to port it to the second machine. Any suggestions?

Solution 1:

You have "Close windows when quitting an app" checked on the machine that does not restore the terminal windows (your second machine).

This setting is in System Preferences -> General not in your Terminal preferences.

Uncheck this box to get the desired behavior. Understand however that this behavior can extend to other applications as well - it is not restricted to Terminal.app

As for the scroll bars, I suspect you will find that the Show Scroll Bars radio button in System Preferences -> General is not set the same on your two machines.