diff --git a/src/Command.zig b/src/Command.zig
index 2801def36..6e30eae13 100644
--- a/src/Command.zig
+++ b/src/Command.zig
@@ -176,13 +176,13 @@ fn startPosix(self: *Command, arena: Allocator) !void {
         // We don't log because that'll show up in the output.
     };
 
+    // Restore any rlimits that were set by Ghostty. This might fail but
+    // any failures are ignored (its best effort).
+    global_state.rlimits.restore();
+
     // If the user requested a pre exec callback, call it now.
     if (self.pre_exec) |f| f(self);
 
-    if (global_state.rlimits.nofile) |lim| {
-        internal_os.restoreMaxFiles(lim);
-    }
-
     // Finally, replace our process.
     _ = posix.execveZ(pathZ, argsZ, envp) catch null;
 
diff --git a/src/global.zig b/src/global.zig
index b3f35fde5..c00ce27a4 100644
--- a/src/global.zig
+++ b/src/global.zig
@@ -27,12 +27,7 @@ pub const GlobalState = struct {
     alloc: std.mem.Allocator,
     action: ?cli.Action,
     logging: Logging,
-    /// If we change any resource limits for our own purposes, we save the
-    /// old limits so that they can be restored before we execute any child
-    /// processes.
-    rlimits: struct {
-        nofile: ?internal_os.rlimit = null,
-    } = .{},
+    rlimits: ResourceLimits = .{},
 
     /// The app resources directory, equivalent to zig-out/share when we build
     /// from source. This is null if we can't detect it.
@@ -130,8 +125,8 @@ pub const GlobalState = struct {
         std.log.info("renderer={}", .{renderer.Renderer});
         std.log.info("libxev backend={}", .{xev.backend});
 
-        // First things first, we fix our file descriptors
-        self.rlimits.nofile = internal_os.fixMaxFiles();
+        // As early as possible, initialize our resource limits.
+        self.rlimits = ResourceLimits.init();
 
         // Initialize our crash reporting.
         crash.init(self.alloc) catch |err| {
@@ -181,3 +176,21 @@ pub const GlobalState = struct {
         }
     }
 };
+
+/// Maintains the Unix resource limits that we set for our process. This
+/// can be used to restore the limits to their original values.
+pub const ResourceLimits = struct {
+    nofile: ?internal_os.rlimit = null,
+
+    pub fn init() ResourceLimits {
+        return .{
+            // Maximize the number of file descriptors we can have open
+            // because we can consume a lot of them if we make many terminals.
+            .nofile = internal_os.fixMaxFiles(),
+        };
+    }
+
+    pub fn restore(self: *const ResourceLimits) void {
+        if (self.nofile) |lim| internal_os.restoreMaxFiles(lim);
+    }
+};
diff --git a/src/os/file.zig b/src/os/file.zig
index d89c05e3e..875dd2c25 100644
--- a/src/os/file.zig
+++ b/src/os/file.zig
@@ -23,9 +23,8 @@ pub fn fixMaxFiles() ?rlimit {
         return old;
     }
 
-    var lim = old;
-
     // Do a binary search for the limit.
+    var lim = old;
     var min: posix.rlim_t = lim.cur;
     var max: posix.rlim_t = 1 << 20;
     // But if there's a defined upper bound, don't search, just set it.