It also provides emulation for ANSI escape codes for color, bypassing the capabilities of the standard Windows Console Host to provide 256 and 24-bit color[discuss] in Windows.

The program has a large range of customization, including custom color palettes for the standard 16 colors, hotkeys, transparency, an auto-hideable mode (similar to the way Quake originally displayed its developer console).

Initially, the program was created as a companion to Far Manager,[4] bringing some features common for graphical file managers to this console application (thumbnails and tiles, drag and drop with other windows,[5] true color interface, and others).

As of 2012, ConEmu could be used with any other Win32 console application or simple GUI tool (such as Notepad, PuTTY or DOSBox).

[4] It does provide a limited macro language,[8] to control the hosted applications startup.