I find the default cygwin color palette to be a bit ugly, so here’s one that has softer colors. Add the following lines to your .minttyrc and restart cygwin in order to apply changes. ForegroundColour = 131, 148, 150 BackgroundColour = 0, 0, 0 CursorColour = 220, 50, 47 Black = 7, 54, 66 BoldBlack = 0, 43, 54 Red = 220, 50, 47 BoldRed = 203, 75, 22 Green = 0, 200, 132 BoldGreen = 0, 200, 132 Yello