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If you have to set some configuration options in MobaXterm, you would probably go to the MobaXterm configuration window.

MobaXterm global settings

However, in order to keep a clean and simple graphical interface, some advanced settings are not displayed in the main configuration window:

We previously discussed about MobaXterm command-line parameters and MobaXterm Customization capabilities in another post, so we will now introduce some ways to modify MobaXterm settings directly into its “MobaXterm.ini” configuration file.



How to locate my MobaXterm configuration file?

Well, it depends… Your MobaXterm.ini configuration file should be located:

  • in the same folder as MobaXterm executable if you are using MobaXterm Portable Edition
  • in %MyDocuments%\MobaXterm folder if you are using MobaXterm Installer Edition
  • in %MyDocuments%\MobaXterm folder if you are using MobaXterm Portable Edition and if you only have read access to the folder where the executable is

Moreover, you can use the -i commandline setting in order to determine the configuration file path for MobaXterm. For instance, you can specify the configuration file path manually at MobaXterm startup using the following command: C:\Some\place\MobaXterm.exe -i “D:\Data\MobaXterm.ini”

or you can use a network shared folder: C:\Some\place\MobaXterm.exe -i “\MySharedFolder\MobaXterm.ini”

or you can even use a web (HTTP) address in order to retrieve the configuration file: C:\Some\place\MobaXterm.exe -i https://MyIntranetServer/MobaXterm.ini In this case, the configuration file will be read from your intranet and any modification made by the user will be saved in a new MobaXterm.ini file created under %MyDocuments%\MobaXterm folder.



Which settings can be put in this INI file?

There are many settings which could be put in this MobaXterm.ini configuration file. We will just list the settings which cannot be set using the graphical interface. All these settings should be put under the [Misc] section of the configuration file. These options should be used by advanced users only:

SettingDefault valueComment
MobaTempDir%TEMP%Path to MobaXterm temp folder
XWinSwitches-hostintitle +bsAdditional X11 commandline parameters
Scrollbar1Toggle scrollbar visibility in terminal
SeparationLine1Toggle separation line visibility in terminal
BoldAsFontnoRender bold text using bold font
BoldAsColouryesRender bold text using different colour
BellSoundnoPlay a "beep" sound when terminal bell is triggered
BellFlashnoFlash terminal when terminal bell is triggered
AllowBlinkingnoAllow font blinking in terminal
CtrlAltIsAltGrnoUse Ctrl+Alt keys to simulate AltGr key press
NbPenguins4Number of penguins for the "consolesaver"
TimerConst600Time (in seconds) before starting the "consolesaver"
TimerInt100Time (in ms) between each penguin move in the "consolesaver"
PgUpDnScroll0Use PageUp/PageDown without "Shift" modifier for terminal scrolling
ScrollModshiftChange scroll modifier to ctrl/alt/shift
ScrollbackLines360000Specify scrollback buffer size



Fine tuning of SFTP browser transfer settings

SSH SFTP browser

Concerning SFTP in MobaXterm, some settings can be tuned by editing them directly within MobaXterm configuration file (under the [SFTP] section):

SettingDefault valueComment
AutoAdjustTransferBlock0Automatically adjust SFTP pipeline and packetsizes
PipelineLength32Number of download requests sent simultaneously
UploadPipelineLength32Number of upload requests sent simultaneously
DownloadBlockSize32Size of the single download request
UploadBlockSize64Size of the single upload request
SftpBufferSize256Size of the internal SFTP buffers
DefaultWindowSize2048Default SSH window size
MinWindowSize2Min SSH window size
MaxSSHPacketSize256Max SSH packet length


We hope that this post will be helpful for you. Of course, if you decide to tune these expert settings and if you report a bug to our support team, please do not forget to specify that you modified some advanced configuration settings!