Any simple way to add PuTTY settings to kitty?

Question

I'd like to use Kitty, but I have a lot of settings for Putty already set up. I read that there is no way to "export settings" with Putty since they are made with registry entries, and there is probably no way to "import" these settings into Kitty either. Does anyone know of a utility that allows you to do this somehow?

Answer 1

To copy PuTTY reg to KiTTY reg, start any KiTTY session, then press CTRL+F8 and enter

/copytokitty

To copy KiTTY settings from registry mode, to portable mode use the command-line and run

kitty.exe -convert-dir

Cyd

Answer 2

Cyd's answer seems to apply to Kitty Classic (not Portable).

I have been unable to get PuTTY settings directly into KittyPortable. The problem is that, being portable, KittyPortable does not even LOOK at the C drive, so it can't read the PuTTY keys in the Windows registry.

I was able to accomplish it indirectly by installing Kitty Classic, which automagically picked up PuTTY's registry keys, and then running

KittyPortable.exe -convert-dir

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If you do NOT have administrative rights on your PC, continue reading. Otherwise, skip down.

This approach will not work if you don't have sufficient privileges to install Kitty Classic. Many people do not have admin rights on their PC at work, but this is where you might want to use KittyPortable.

So you need to convert your PuTTY settings to Kitty on a machine you have admin rights on, such as your home machine. But maybe your home machine doesn't have the PuTTY config settings that you use at work.

So you would need to export your PuTTY registry keys at work and import them on your home PC.

Run regedit, select

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\Sessions

and do File/Export (make sure the radio button for "selected branch" is selected). Then go to a PC on which you have admin rights (your home PC, maybe), install PuTTY, double-click the exported registry file that you exported earlier (this imports all the PuTTY sessions), and then...

=========================================================================

resuming...

• Create a folder somewhere called kitty_portable (preferably not on the C drive).
• Download both the Windows Classic and Windows Portable versions of Kitty from http://www.downloadbestsoft.com/KiTTY.html and put them in your kitty_portable folder.
• Launch kitty.exe. It will pull in all of your PuTTY config settings. Close kitty.exe.
• Go to a DOS shell, cd to the kitty_portable directory, and type:
  KittyPortable.exe -convert-dir
• Delete kitty.exe (you won't ever need it again)

Running KittyPortable.exe with the -convert-dir param will create several folders in your kitty_portable folder, including all of your PuTTY settings (which are now stored in plain textfiles instead of using the registry, like PuTTY does. This folder is 100% portable and does not even access the C drive.

Whew.

Answer 3

2021 test on Windows 10 and 11

export reg from

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\Sessions\

Import to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\9bis.com\KiTTY\Sessions\

Answer 4

You can export Putty's registry settings using the Windows registry editor. This produces a text file which you can edit with your favourite text editor (Notpad, Notepad++, gVim, etc).

As Kitty is a fork of Putty, I expect that Kitty's settings are in an almost identical structure but perhaps just need one part of the registry path changing. You can probably find this quite easily using the registry editor.

After editing the text file to suit Kitty, importing the registry file (normally a matter of double-clicking the .reg filename in Windows explorer) ought to work.

Answer 5

I also found that some versions of kitty don't show sessions stored in registry if kitty.exe is copied to putty's program foder.