Raise/lower
Raise and Lower are XTerm window manipulation sequences that change the terminal window's position in the window stacking order.
Syntax
CSI 5 t Raise window to front of stack
CSI 6 t Lower window to back of stack
raise_window = 0x1b, "[", "5", "t" ; lower_window = 0x1b, "[", "6", "t" ;
Description
These sequences control the stacking order (z-order) of the terminal window relative to other windows on the desktop. They are part of the XTerm CSI Ps ; Ps ; Ps t window manipulation family.
CSI 5 t— Raises the terminal window to the front of the window stack. The window becomes the topmost window, appearing above all other windows. This does not change the keyboard focus.CSI 6 t— Lowers the terminal window to the back of the window stack. The window is sent behind all other windows on the desktop.
Unlike Iconify, these sequences do not minimize or restore the window. They only change the stacking order while keeping the window at its current size and position.
On systems with tiling window managers or compositing environments, the behavior of these sequences may differ from traditional stacking window managers.
Some terminal emulators disable these sequences by default for security reasons, as a malicious application could obscure the user's terminal or bring it into focus unexpectedly. Check your terminal's configuration for options to enable or disable window manipulation sequences.
Examples
# Raise window to front
printf '\e[5t'
# Lower window to back
printf '\e[6t'
Specifications
| Specification | Section |
|---|---|
| XTerm ctlseqs | — |
Terminal support
| Terminal | Support | Version | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terminal Emulators | |||
| Alacritty | ✗ | No | Rejected per escape_support.md:81-82 |
| Bobcat | ✓ | 0.9.0 | Handled via WhenWindowGeometryChange callback; requires WindowActions enabled in profile |
| contour | ✗ | No | Not implemented in WINDOWMANIP handler |
| foot | ✗ | No | CSI 5/6 t logs unimplemented warning |
| Ghostty | ✗ | No | CSI 5/6 t not implemented |
| iTerm2 | ✓ | v20260216-nightly | CSI 5 t and CSI 6 t |
| Kitty | ✗ | No | CSI 5/6 t not supported |
| Konsole | ✗ | No | CSI 5 t / 6 t not implemented |
| mintty | ✓ | Yes | CSI 5/6 t implemented |
| mlterm | ✗ | No | CSI 5/6 t not implemented |
| PuTTY | ✓ | 0.75 | CSI 5/6 t supported (raise/lower) at terminal.c:4883-4894 |
| Rio | ✗ | No | |
| rxvt-unicode | ✓ | 1.2 | |
| st | ✗ | No | No CSI t window manipulation sequences implemented |
| terminology | ✗ | No | |
| VT100 | ✗ | No | |
| VTE | ~ | Yes | Parsed but implementation is stub - breaks without action |
| WezTerm | ✗ | No | Parsed but handled as unimplemented |
| Windows Terminal | ✗ | No | CSI 5/6 t not in WindowManipulationType enum |
| xterm | ✓ | xterm-93 | |
| xterm.js | ✓ | 4.4.0 | CSI 5/6 t. Requires windowOptions.raiseWin/lowerWin enabled. |
| Multiplexers | |||
| cy | ✗ | No | Explicitly ignored |
| GNU Screen | ✗ | No | CSI 5/6 t not implemented |
| tmux | ✗ | No | Sequence parsed but ignored (case 5/6 in winops) |
| tuios | ✗ | No | CSI 5/6 t not handled |
| Zellij | ✗ | No | |
See also
- Iconify — Minimize or restore the window
- Window State Report — Query whether the window is iconified