Erase screen (ED 2)

Category: erase · Tags: ECMA-48 Standard, VT100 · Specification ↗

ED 2 erases the entire visible screen. The sequence is ESC [ 2 J. The cursor position is not changed. Does not affect the scrollback buffer — use ED 3 to clear scrollback.

Supported by 5 of 6 backends (83%)

Support Matrix

Backend	Version	Support	Notes
Ghostty	1.3.1	✓ yes
Kitty	0.40.0	✓ yes
vt100	0.1.0	✓ yes
WezTerm	0.1.0-fork.5	✓ yes
xterm.js	5.5.0	✓ yes
Alacritty	0.26.0	✗ no	Alacritty's ED 2 doesn't clear scrollback content from buffer

← Back to matrix · erase features