Maximizing terminal height and toggling visibility (Ctrl + ~) breaks layout, forces sidebars open, and loses persistence

Support Bug Reports
, , ,
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

There is a critical UI layout bug in Cursor that occurs when the integrated terminal is expanded vertically to the maximum height (aligned with the file tab bar/editor top bar) and then toggled.

When the terminal is maximized and hidden using the Ctrl + ~ shortcut, reopening it with the same combination breaks the entire window layout. Instead of just restoring the terminal, Cursor forcefully opens the primary left sidebar and the Cursor Agent Chat panel on the right (even if both were previously closed). Additionally, the custom terminal height is completely lost, failing to persist across toggles.

This behavior is completely non-standard and broken. In VS Code, toggling a maximized terminal works perfectly, preserving its size and leaving all other side panels in their original state. This issue has persisted in Cursor for over two years, severely degrading the layout state management and user experience.

Steps to Reproduce

Open Cursor and close both the primary left sidebar and the Cursor Agent Chat panel on the right to start with a clean editor layout.
Open the integrated terminal by pressing Ctrl + ~.
Click and drag the top border of the terminal pane to resize/expand it vertically all the way to the top bar of the IDE (where the open file tabs are located).
Hide/minimize the terminal by pressing Ctrl + ~.
Reopen the terminal by pressing Ctrl + ~ again.
Observe the layout breakage:
The left sidebar is forcefully opened.
The Cursor Agent Chat panel is forcefully opened.
The terminal’s maximized vertical sizing is lost and resets back to a default height, failing to remain persistent.

Expected Behavior

Toggling the terminal’s visibility with Ctrl + ~ should purely hide and show the terminal panel.
The customized vertical sizing (height) of the terminal should be perfectly preserved and persistent when reopened.
Toggling the terminal should have zero side effects on the states of other UI elements; the primary left sidebar and the Cursor Agent Chat panel should remain closed (or open) exactly as they were prior to the toggle, mirroring the stable and predictable panel behavior found in standard VS Code

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

term_bug

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

Version: 3.5.33 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: aac81804b986d739acab348ed96b8bea6e83cc50
Date: 2026-05-22T06:47:48.039Z
Layout: editor
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.8.1
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.1
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.22631

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

5

Hey, thanks for the detailed report with the GIF and steps. This is a known bug with the panel toggle when the terminal is stretched to the full height of the editor. The maximized state is incorrectly applied to the chat pane, which makes the sidebars pop out and the terminal loses its height.

We’re already tracking this internally, and it was also reported in March: Closing maximized panel broken. I’ll link your report to the same tracker. No ETA for a fix yet.

As a temporary workaround, don’t stretch the terminal all the way up to the editor bar. If you leave it a bit below the file tabs, toggling with Ctrl+~ works correctly and the height is preserved. Not ideal, but it helps for now.

If there’s an update on the fix, I’ll post it here.