sixel doesn't work on windows

[VPraharsha03]

Hi, recently sixel support landed to windows terminal, i tried to display logo with fastfetch but it doesn't work, i've used --logo-type sixel but it reverts to default logo and even tried using chafa to convert logo to sixels but it displays a very pixelated image and ruins the rendering

I've a couple questions:

• Does the release of fastfetch come with imagemagick pre-compiled ?
• Do i've to install a sixel backend on windows ? if so can you point me to a guide ?

[CarterLi]

Does the release of fastfetch come with imagemagick pre-compiled ?

No.

I compiled fastfetch locally with imagemagick support. Sixel image does work for OpenConsole (A newer Conhost bundled in Windows Terminal). However it still doesn't work for Windows Terminal due to microsoft/terminal#8581

[VPraharsha03]

Neofetch could display logo under WSL (tested both on OpenConsole & Windows Terminal) using sixel backend when I tested yesterday.

Sorry I've not gone through the above issue fully that you mentioned as it's too long, but it seems to prevent fastfetch from displaying logos, right ?

Would it be a good idea that releases come with imagemagick support ?

[CarterLi]

Okey. It turns out that microsoft/terminal#8581 is supported, but has bugs. Did some trick and now sixel image protocol works for me in Windows Terminal

[VPraharsha03]

I tried compiling the latest as well as a fairly old version of fastfetch with imagemagick support but i'm unable to display logos on both WT & OpenConsole, here's my build log

build_log.txt

I see a ?? or it reverts to the default logo

[kimusan]

What did you do to get it to work? I am not getting anything rendered in WSL2 in windows terminal 1.23.

[VPraharsha03]

@CarterLi would it be nice to include ootb support for imagemagick in every windows release ? what do you think ?

[Zeroes1]

@CarterLi
Windows Terminal work fine with Sixel technology since latest Preview version : Microsoft.WindowsTerminalPreview_1.22.2362.0_x64.zip
or latest canary build.

[CarterLi]

So what?

[CarterLi]

You can convert your image to sixel format by any online converter. Then use fastfetch --raw /path/to/image.sixel --logo-width <width> --logo-height <height> to display the image without needing imagemagick support of fastfetch

[Kalclavia]

@CarterLi I'm also looking for support for this. I am able to display native sixel images fine, but this is extremely annoying and finicky as I have to manually resize the image, text, and resize over any over.

I successfully compiled fastfetch locally to include imagemagick7 and chafa. I now get the error Logo: getCharacterPixelDimensions() failed when trying to display an .png as sixel, and this is due to the bug you linked above.

How were you able to patch this to get sixel working? If this is a relatively simple fix please let me know and I will do it myself locally.

[CarterLi]

I now get the error Logo: getCharacterPixelDimensions() failed when trying to display an .png as sixel, and this is due to the bug you linked above.

It has been fixed in the dev branch

[Hi-ImKyle]

I checked the features on my fastfetch install and imagemagick is available, so I assumed --sixel would work. Does it need more than that? fastfetch --sixel ~/V.png --logo-width 30 just sits there doing nothing. Should I create a Issue?

fastfetch --raw ~/V.sixel --logo-width 30 works fine but it clears the terminal for some reason.. I assume since its raw?

[CarterLi]

I checked the features on my fastfetch install and imagemagick is available

It was built with imagemagick features but imagemagick dlls are not bundled in the zip archives.

but it clears the terminal for some reason..

You also need to set --logo-height

[Hi-ImKyle]

So what needs doing to get --sixel to work, is it just having the libs next to the fastfetch binary?

And the height ok, my bad.

[VPraharsha03]

So what needs doing to get --sixel to work, is it just having the libs next to the fastfetch binary?

@CarterLi i've added image magick dir (having libs) to PATH and set MAGICK_HOME but still i get image magick library not found

[CarterLi]

You may install fastfetch in MSYS2 if you want sixel support. For example: pacman -S mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-fastfetch mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-imagemagick

[VPraharsha03]

i'm giving up on sixel on windows

i'm unable to find the right logo height & width with --raw, the image either just cuts through the text or text gets pushed far away from image; it's surprising to see that changing height & width doesn't impact logo but rather changes the alignment of text (bug?)

tried clear before fastfetch, tried padding but that didn't work as well

[Kalclavia]

I got this working briefly. I think the canary version of windows terminal supports sixel, or one of the other formats used by fast fetch. I also had to explicitly tell fast fetch to use that format. It wasn’t perfect but it did work, I think the width and height constraints didn’t work right.

…

------- Very Respectfully, Abhi Bhattacharyya

On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 17:41 Kim Schulz ***@***.***> wrote: What did you do to get it to work? I am not getting anything rendered in WSL2 in windows terminal 1.23. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1243 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADEHVLMCTEHFSXPZQWSA2ZL3PIWQJAVCNFSM6AAAAACEWDGH2GVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTIMRQGQ2DIMY> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.*** com>