Pressing Tab Key in Terminal Enters a Space Instead of Triggering Autocomplete

First time asking on this site, please let me know if I can improve the question :)

I'm helping a student configure her mac development environment.

We've got zsh setup, which I believe should come with the ability to autocomplete folder and file names.

For example, I'd like to be able to type cd tes and have it autocomplete cd test_folder.

This is the default behavior for me, however on her machine anytime you press Tab while in the mac terminal, it instead creates a space, the same as if you had pressed the SpaceBar. This seems to prevent autocompletion.

Based on some tutorials I've tried editing ~/.inputrc to add

set completion-ignore-case on
set show-all-if-ambiguous on
TAB: menu-complete

I've also tried using a bash shell, the environment doesn't seem to matter. Tab always creates a space. I've also considered changing the command to trigger autocomplete, but couldn't get that working. I even tried plugging in a separate keyboard and making sure CAPS_LOCK and NUM_LOCK are not part of the problem.

Help much appreciated if you have thoughts on what could be going wrong here!

1 Answer

Instead of manipulating the .inputrc manipulate the .zshrc with code below:-

bindkey ' ' autosuggest-accept

Here the space b/w the double quotes is the Tab key pressed.

Link to zsh documentation where you can get a better & detailed idea