tmux

tmux
is a "terminal multiplexer: it enables a number of terminals (or windows), each running a separate program, to be created, accessed, and controlled from a single screen. tmux may be detached from a screen and continue running in the background, then later reattached."
tmux is an ISC-licensed alternative to
GNU Screen
. Although similar, there are many differences between the programs, as noted on the
tmux FAQ page
.
Installation
Install
the
tmux
package.
Configuration
By default, tmux looks for user-specific configuration at
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tmux/tmux.conf
followed by
~/.config/tmux/tmux.conf
, as of
3.2
. A global configuration file may be provided at
/etc/tmux.conf
though by default Arch does not ship such a file.
Key bindings
By default, command key bindings are prefixed by
Ctrl+b
. For example, to vertically split a window type
Ctrl+b %
.
After splitting a window into multiple panes, a pane can be resized by hitting the prefix key (e.g.
Ctrl+b
) and, while continuing to hold
Ctrl
, press
Left
/
Right
/
Up
/
Down
. Swapping panes is achieved in the same manner, but by hitting
o
instead of a directional key.
Key bindings may be changed with the bind and unbind commands in
tmux.conf
. For example, the default prefix binding of
Ctrl+b
can be changed to
Ctrl+a
by adding the following commands in your configuration file:
unbind C-b
set -g prefix C-a
bind C-a send-prefix
Tip
Quote special characters to use them as prefix. You may also use
Alt
(called Meta) instead of
Ctrl
. For example:
set -g prefix m-'\'
To create a new window you can use
Ctrl+b c
and move forward one window with
Ctrl+b n
and backwards one window with
Ctrl+b p
.
Additional ways to move between windows include the following:
Ctrl+b l (Move to the previously selected window)
Ctrl+b w (List all windows / window numbers)
Ctrl+b <window number> (Move to the specified window number, the default bindings are from 0 – 9)
Ctrl+b q  (Show pane numbers, when the numbers show up type the key to go to that pane)
tmux has a find-window option & key binding to ease navigation of many windows:
Ctrl+b f <window name> (Search for window name)
Ctrl+b w (Select from interactive list of windows)
Copy Mode
A tmux window may be in one of several modes. The default permits direct access to the terminal attached to the window; the other is copy mode. Once in copy mode you can navigate the buffer including scrolling the history. Use
vi
or
emacs
-style key bindings in copy mode. The default is emacs, unless VISUAL or EDITOR contains ‘vi’
To enter copy mode do the following:
Ctrl+b [
You can navigate the buffer as you would in your default editor.
To quit copy mode, use one of the following keybindings:
vi mode:
q
emacs mode:
Esc
Browsing URLs
To browse URLs inside tmux you must have
urlview
AUR
installed and configured.
Inside a new terminal:
bind-key u capture-pane \; save-buffer /tmp/tmux-buffer \; run-shell "$TERMINAL -e urlview /tmp/tmux-buffer"
Or inside a new tmux window (no new terminal needed):
bind-key u capture-pane \; save-buffer /tmp/tmux-buffer \; new-window -n "urlview" '$SHELL -c "urlview < /tmp/tmux-buffer"'
Setting the correct term
256 colors
If you are using a 256 color terminal, you will need to set the correct term in tmux:
tmux
, or
tmux-256color
. This can set in the configuration file:
tmux.conf
set -g default-terminal "tmux-256color"
Also, if tmux messes up, you can force tmux to assume that the terminal support 256 colors, by adding the following alias to your
shell configuration file
:
alias tmux="tmux -2"
24-bit color
tmux supports 24-bit color. If your terminal supports this mode (see
[1]
), add it to the
terminal-features
setting.
For example, if you use the
Alacritty
terminal, you would add:
set -as terminal-features ",alacritty*:RGB"
For other terminals, replace
alacritty
above with the relevant terminal type as stored in
$TERM
.
See
tmux(1)
for details about the
RGB
terminfo flag.
xterm-keys
To enable xterm-keys, add the following line in the configuration file:
tmux.conf
set-option -g xterm-keys on
If you enable xterm-keys in your
tmux.conf
, then you need to build a custom terminfo to declare the new escape codes or applications will not know about them. Compile the following with
tic
and you can use "xterm-screen-256color" as your TERM:
# A screen- based TERMINFO that declares the escape sequences
# enabled by the tmux config "set-window-option -g xterm-keys".
#
# Prefix the name with xterm- since some applications inspect
# the TERM *name* in addition to the terminal capabilities advertised.
xterm-screen-256color|GNU Screen with 256 colors bce and tmux xterm-keys,

# As of Nov'11, the below keys are picked up by
# .../tmux/blob/master/trunk/xterm-keys.c:
	kDC=\E[3;2~, kEND=\E[1;2F, kHOM=\E[1;2H,
	kIC=\E[2;2~, kLFT=\E[1;2D, kNXT=\E[6;2~, kPRV=\E[5;2~,
	kRIT=\E[1;2C,

# Change this to screen-256color if the terminal you run tmux in
# doesn't support bce:
	use=screen-256color-bce,
To check if your terminal support bce, you can use
tic -c
:
$ tic -c xterm-screen-256color 
"xterm-screen-256color", line 16, terminal 'xterm-screen-256color': resolution of use=screen-256color-bce failed
To compile with tic:
$ tic xterm-screen-256color
The file will be compiled and saved in
$HOME/.terminfo
or in
/usr/share/terminfo/
if run as root (and so available system-wide).
Theming
Tmux can be themed however in order to do so, first one needs to know the color codes.  This can be achieved by executing the below command, which will print the color codes together with a sample of such color:
$ for i in {0..255}; do printf "\x1b[38;5;${i}mcolor${i} - ██████████\n"; done
The color codes printed using the above command can then be used to change the tmux color scheme.  The following is an example for how one can change the colors of the status bar:
# Status line colors
set -g status-bg "color4"         # blue background
set -g status-fg "color7"         # gray text color
set -g status-right "%l:%M %p"    # time format
set-window-option -g window-status-current-style "bg=color75,fg=color231 bold"    # current window background + foreground colors
The panes borders can also be themed as per below example:
# border colors
set -g pane-border-style        fg="colour255"
set -g pane-active-border-style fg="colour33"
Other Settings
To limit the scrollback buffer to 10000 lines:
set -g history-limit 10000
Mouse can be toggled with
bind-key m set-option -g mouse \; display "Mouse: #{?mouse,ON,OFF}"
Autostart with systemd
There are some notable advantages to starting a tmux server at startup.
Notably, when you start a new tmux session, having the service already running reduces any delays in the startup.
Furthermore, any customization attached to your tmux session will be retained and your tmux session can be made to persist even if you have never logged in, if you have some reason to do that (like a heavily scripted tmux configuration or shared user tmux sessions).
The service below starts
tmux
for the specified user (i.e. start/enable with
tmux@
username
.service
):
/etc/systemd/system/tmux@.service
[Unit]
Description=tmux session for user %I

[Service]
Type=forking
User=%I
# WARNING: use %I instead of %u here; %u=root in system services.
ExecStart=/usr/bin/tmux new-session -s %I -d
ExecStop=/usr/bin/tmux kill-session -t %I

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Tip
You may want to add
WorkingDirectory=
custom_path
to customize working directory. If set to
~
, the home directory of the user specified in
User=
is used.
Add
-v
tmux arg to generate tmux client and server logs in WorkingDirectory.
If you want to import environment variables related to graphical session, such as
DISPLAY
,
WAYLAND_DISPLAY
, or
SESSION_MANAGER
, change
WantedBy
option to
graphical-session.target
, and add
After=graphical-session.target
under
[Unit]
section.
Alternatively, you can create a script that runs automatically after the desktop environment, window manager, or Wayland compositor loads and imports related variables using the
tmux setenv -g name [value]
.
Alternatively, you can place this file within your
systemd/User
directory (without
User=%I
and by replacing
multi-user.target
with
default.target
in
WantedBy
), for example
~/.config/systemd/user/tmux.service
. This way the tmux service will start when you log in, unless you also enable
systemd/User#Automatic start-up of systemd user instances
. The user service will stay active on logout due to the default explained in
systemd/User#Kill user processes on logout
for this method.
Start with systemd user instance and socket activation
A different way to start tmux through systemd is this pair of units:
/etc/systemd/user/tmux@.socket
[Unit]
Description=Terminal Multiplexer Activation Socket (listen on: %i)
Documentation=man:tmux(1)

[Socket]
ListenStream=/tmp/tmux-%U/%i
SocketMode=0600
DirectoryMode=0700

[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target
/etc/systemd/user/tmux@.service
[Unit]
Description=Terminal Multiplexer (listen on: %i)
Documentation=man:tmux(1)
Requires=tmux@%i.socket

[Service]
Environment=TMUX_SERVER_ARGS=
ExecStart=tmux -D $TMUX_SERVER_ARGS
ExecStartPost=tmux -L%i start
Slice=app-tmux-%i.slice

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
Also=tmux@%i.socket
(Or plop them into
~/.config/systemd/user
.) This creates a tmux process per service instance, each with a separate socket.
tmux -D
starts a non-forking tmux server, which is correctly passed the activation FD; but this process will not execute the configuration file directives.
tmux start
runs a transient client which forces the server to execute the session, if any.
To enable just the activation, run
systemctl --user enable tmux@
NAME
.socket
; start the client normally, with
tmux -L
NAME
(just
tmux
when
NAME
is
default
). Socket activation alone simply ensures that the tmux server is moved into its own slice (
tmux.slice/tmux-
NAME
.slice
). This is equivalent to what systemd devs suggest (see
systemd-run(1) § EXAMPLES
, under
screen
), and prevents it from being killed by the
session-cleanup mechanism
. This also allows acting on the whole group, e.g.
systemctl --user freeze tmux-
NAME
.slice
.
To enable the server startup, run
systemctl --user enable tmux@
NAME
.service
. If your user systemd instance is
lingering
, this runs tmux on boot; otherwise, on login. To have the server initialise and run programs, define sessions in your tmux config file.
Note that tmux started this way inherits your systemd environment; unless spawning login shells for every pane, consult
Systemd/User#Environment variables
on how to populate it.
To change the configuration file for a single instance, use a
drop-in
:
/etc/systemd/user/tmux@topic.service.d/override.conf
[Service]
Environment="TMUX_SERVER_ARGS=-f %h/.tmux-topic.conf"
Session initialization
You can have tmux open a session with preloaded windows by including those details in your
~/.tmux.conf
:
new  -n WindowName Command
neww -n WindowName Command
neww -n WindowName Command
To start a session with split windows (multiple panes), include the splitw command below the neww you would like to split; thus:
new  -s SessionName -n WindowName Command
neww -n foo/bar foo
splitw -v -p 50 -t 0 bar
selectw -t 1 
selectp -t 0
would open 2 windows, the second of which would be named foo/bar and would be split vertically in half (50%) with foo running above bar. Focus would be in window 2 (foo/bar), top pane (foo).
Note
Numbering for sessions, windows and panes starts at zero, unless you have specified a base-index of 1 in your
.conf
To manage multiple sessions, source separate session files from your configuration file:
# initialize sessions
bind F source-file ~/.tmux/foo
bind B source-file ~/.tmux/bar
Clipboard integration
Tip
The tmux plugin
tmux-yank
provides similar functionality.
It is possible to copy a tmux selection to the display server clipboard (both primary/secondary selections), and paste from it into tmux. The following tmux configuration file snippets integrate X11 and Wayland clipboard/selection with the current tmux selection.
Note
It may be necessary to unbind the "previous window" shortcut with
unbind p
for the Vim style examples to work.
On Xorg
The first possibility is using
xsel
:
Emacs style:
bind-key -T copy-mode y send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel "xsel -i -p && xsel -o -p | xsel -i -b"
bind-key C-y run "xsel -o | tmux load-buffer - ; tmux paste-buffer"
Vim style:
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi y send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel "xsel -i -p && xsel -o -p | xsel -i -b"
bind-key p run "xsel -o | tmux load-buffer - ; tmux paste-buffer"
xclip
could also be used for this purpose. Unlike xsel, it works better when printing a raw bitstream that does not fit the current locale.  Nevertheless, it is neater to use xsel because xclip does not close
STDOUT
after it has read from the tmux buffer.  As such, tmux does not know that the copy task has completed, and continues to wait for xclip to terminate, thereby rendering tmux unresponsive.  A workaround is to redirect
STDOUT
to
/dev/null
:
Emacs style:
bind-key -T copy-mode y send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel "xclip -i -sel clip > /dev/null"
bind-key C-y run "xclip -o -sel clip | tmux load-buffer - ; tmux paste-buffer"
Vim style:
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi y send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel "xclip -i -sel clip > /dev/null"
bind-key p run "xclip -o -sel clip | tmux load-buffer - ; tmux paste-buffer"
On Wayland
Make sure to have
wl-clipboard
installed.
Emacs style:
bind-key -T copy-mode y send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel "wl-copy && wl-paste -n | wl-copy -p"
bind-key C-y run "wl-paste -n | tmux load-buffer - ; tmux paste-buffer"
Vim style:
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi y send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel "wl-copy && wl-paste -n | wl-copy -p"
bind-key p run "wl-paste -n | tmux load-buffer - ; tmux paste-buffer"
Urxvt middle click
Note
To use this, you need to enable mouse support
There is an unofficial perl extension (
mentioned
in the official
FAQ
) to enable copying/pasting in and out of urxvt with tmux via Middle Mouse Clicking.
First, you will need to download the perl script and place it into urxvts perl lib:
wget
http://anti.teamidiot.de/static/nei/*/Code/urxvt/osc-xterm-clipboard
mv osc-xterm-clipboard /usr/lib/urxvt/perl/
You will also need to enable that perl script in your .Xdefaults:
~/.Xdefaults
...
*URxvt.perl-ext-common:		osc-xterm-clipboard
...
Next, you want to tell tmux about the new function and enable mouse support (if you have not already):
~/.tmux.conf
...
set-option -ga terminal-override ',rxvt-uni*:XT:Ms=\E]52;%p1%s;%p2%s\007'
set -g mouse on
...
That's it. Be sure to end all instances of tmux before trying the new MiddleClick functionality.
While in tmux, Shift+MiddleMouseClick will paste the clipboard selection while just MiddleMouseClick will paste your tmux buffer.
Outside of tmux, just use MiddleMouseClick to paste your tmux buffer and your standard
Ctrl+c
to copy.
Tips and tricks
Start tmux with default session layout
Session managers like
tmuxinator
and
tmuxp
make it easy to manage common session configurations.
For
tmuxinator
, install
tmuxinator
AUR
. Test your installation with
$ tmuxinator doctor
Get the default layout values
Start tmux as usual and configure your windows and panes layout as you like. When finished, get the current layout values by executing (while you are still within the current tmux session)
tmux list-windows
The output may look like this (two windows with 3 panes and 2 panes layout)
0: default* (3 panes) [274x83] [layout 20a0,274x83,0,0{137x83,0,0,3,136x83,138,0[136x41,138,0,5,136x41,138,42,6]}] @2 (active)
1: remote- (2 panes) [274x83] [layout e3d3,274x83,0,0[274x41,0,0,4,274x41,0,42,7]] @3
The Interesting part you need to copy for later use begins after
[layout...
and excludes
... ] @2 (active)
. For the first window layout you need to copy e.g.
20a0,274x83,0,0{137x83,0,0,3,136x83,138,0[136x41,138,0,5,136x41,138,42,6]}
Define the default tmux layout
Knowing this, you can exit the current tmux session. Following this, you create your default tmux session layout by editing tmuxinator's configuration file (Do not copy the example, get your layout values as described above)
~/.tmuxinator/default.yml
name: default
root: ~/
windows:
  - default:
      layout: 20a0,274x83,0,0{137x83,0,0,3,136x83,138,0[136x41,138,0,5,136x41,138,42,6]}
      panes:
        - clear
        - vim
        - clear && emacs -nw
  - remote:
      layout: 24ab,274x83,0,0{137x83,0,0,3,136x83,138,0,4}
      panes:
        - 
        -
The example defines two windows named "default" and "remote". With your determined layout values. For each pane you have to use at least one
-
line. Within the first window panes you start the commandline "clear" in pane one, "vim" in pane two and "clear && emacs -nw" executes two commands in pane three on each tmux start. The second window layout has two panes without defining any start commmands.
Test the new default layout with:
$ tmuxinator default
Autostart tmux with default tmux layout
If you like to start your terminal session with your default tmux session layout edit your
shell configuration file
:
if [ -z "$TMUX" ]; then
  tmuxinator default          
fi
Alternate approach for default session
Instead of using the above method, one can just write a bash script that when run, will create the default session and attach to it.
Then you can execute it from a terminal to get the pre-designed configuration in that terminal
#!/bin/bash
tmux new-session -d -n WindowName Command
tmux new-window -n NewWindowName
tmux split-window -v
tmux selectp -t 1
tmux split-window -h
tmux selectw -t 1
tmux -2 attach-session -d
Start tmux in urxvt
Use this command to start urxvt with a started tmux session.  I use this with the exec command from my .ratpoisonrc file.
urxvt -e bash -c "tmux -q has-session && exec tmux attach-session -d || exec tmux new-session -n$USER -s$USER@$HOSTNAME"
Start tmux on every shell login
if [ -x "$(command -v tmux)" ] && [ -n "${DISPLAY}" ] && [ -z "${TMUX}" ]; then
    exec tmux new-session -A -s ${USER} >/dev/null 2>&1
fi
What the above snippet does is the following:
test if tmux is executable,
and if a graphical session is running (
remove this condition
if you want tmux to start in any login shell, but it might interfere with
autostarting X at login
),
and if we are not already inside a tmux session,
then try to attach, if the attachment fails, start a new session.
If you are using
systemd as a user to keep a session alive
, you can replace the command inside the if-block with the following commands to attach to that session and detach all the other connected clients:
if ! systemctl --user is-active --quiet tmux.service; then
    systemctl --user start tmux.service
fi
exec tmux attach-session -d -t "${USER}" >/dev/null 2>&1
Start a non-login shell
tmux starts a
login shell
by default
, which may result in multiple negative side effects:
Users of
fortune
may notice that quotes are printed when creating a new panel.
The configuration files for login shells such as
~/.profile
are interpreted each time a new panel is created, so commands intended to be run on session initialization (e.g. setting audio level) are executed.
To disable this behaviour, add to
~/.tmux.conf
:
set -g default-command "${SHELL}"
Use tmux windows like tabs
The following settings added to
~/.tmux.conf
allow to use tmux windows like tabs, such as those provided by the reference of these hotkeys —
urxvt's tabbing extensions
. An advantage thereof is that these virtual “tabs” are independent of the terminal emulator.
#urxvt tab like window switching (-n: no prior escape seq)
bind -n S-down new-window
bind -n S-left prev
bind -n S-right next
bind -n C-left swap-window -t -1
bind -n C-right swap-window -t +1
Of course, those should not overlap with other applications' hotkeys, such as the terminal's. Given that they substitute terminal tabbing that might as well be deactivated, though.
It can also come handy to supplement the EOT hotkey
Ctrl+d
with one for tmux's detach:
bind-key -n C-j detach
Clients simultaneously interacting with various windows of a session
In
Practical Tmux
, Brandur Leach writes:
Screen and tmux's behaviour for when multiple clients are attached to one session differs slightly. In Screen, each client can be connected to the session but view different windows within it, but in tmux, all clients connected to one session must view the same window.
This problem can be solved in tmux by spawning two separate sessions and synchronizing the second one to the windows of the first, then pointing a second new session to the first.
The
tmx
script below implements this — the version here is slightly modified to execute
tmux new-window
if
1
is its second parameter. Invoked as
tmx
base_session_name
[1]
, it launches the base session if necessary. Otherwise a new "client" session linked to the base, optionally add a new window and attach, setting it to kill itself once it turns "zombie". Do not forget to make it
executable
.
~/bin/tmx
#!/bin/bash
# Modified TMUX start script from:
#     http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-836006-start-0.html

# Works because bash automatically trims by assigning to variables and by passing arguments
trim() { echo $1; }

if [[ -z "$1" ]]; then
    echo "Specify session name as the first argument"
    exit
fi

# Only because I often issue `ls` to this script by accident
if [[ "$1" == "ls" ]]; then
    tmux ls
    exit
fi

base_session="$1"
# This actually works without the trim() on all systems except OSX
tmux_nb=$(trim `tmux ls | grep "^$base_session" | wc -l`)
if [[ "$tmux_nb" == "0" ]]; then
    echo "Launching tmux base session $base_session ..."
    tmux new-session -s $base_session
else
    # Make sure we are not already in a tmux session
    if [[ -z "$TMUX" ]]; then
        echo "Launching copy of base session $base_session ..."
        # Session id is date and time to prevent conflict
        session_id=`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`
        # Create a new session (without attaching it) and link to base session 
        # to share windows
        tmux new-session -d -t $base_session -s $session_id
        if [[ "$2" == "1" ]]; then
		# Create a new window in that session
		tmux new-window
	fi
        # Attach to the new session & kill it once orphaned
	tmux attach-session -t $session_id \; set-option destroy-unattached
    fi
fi
A useful setting for this is
setw -g aggressive-resize on
added to
~/.tmux.conf
. It causes tmux to resize a window based on the smallest client actually viewing it, not on the smallest one attached to the entire session.
An alternative is to put the following
~/.bashrc
:
~/.bashrc
function rsc() {
  CLIENTID=$1.`date +%S`
  tmux new-session -d -t $1 -s $CLIENTID \; set-option destroy-unattached \; attach-session -t $CLIENTID
}

function mksc() {
  tmux new-session -d -s $1
  rsc $1
}
Citing the author:
"mksc foo" creates a always detached permanent client named "foo". It also calls "rsc foo" to create a client to newly created session. "rsc foo" creates a new client grouped by "foo" name. It has destroy-unattached turned on so when I leave it, it kills client.
Therefore, when my computer looses network connectivity, all "foo.something" clients are killed while "foo" remains. I can then call "rsc foo" to continue work from where I stopped.
Correct the TERM variable according to terminal type
Instead of
setting a fixed TERM variable in tmux
, it is possible to set the proper TERM (either
screen
or
screen-256color
) according to the type of your terminal emulator:
~/.tmux.conf
## set the default TERM
set -g default-terminal screen

## update the TERM variable of terminal emulator when creating a new session or attaching a existing session
set -g update-environment 'DISPLAY SSH_ASKPASS SSH_AGENT_PID SSH_CONNECTION WINDOWID XAUTHORITY TERM'
## determine if we should enable 256-colour support
if "[[ ${TERM} =~ 256color || ${TERM} == fbterm ]]" 'set -g default-terminal screen-256color'
~/.zshrc
## workaround for handling TERM variable in multiple tmux sessions properly (by Nicholas Marriott)
if [[ -n ${TMUX} && -n ${commands[tmux]} ]];then
        case $(tmux showenv TERM 2>/dev/null) in
                *256color) ;&
                TERM=fbterm)
                        TERM=screen-256color ;;
                *)
                        TERM=screen
        esac
fi
Reload an updated configuration without restarting tmux
By default tmux reads
~/.tmux.conf
only if it was not already running. To have tmux load a configuration file afterwards, execute:
tmux source-file
path
This can be added to
~/.tmux.conf
as e.g.:
~/.tmux.conf
bind r source-file
path
You can also input
^
: and type:
source .tmux.conf
Template script to run program in new session or attach to existing one
This script checks for a program presumed to have been started by a previous run of itself. Unless found it creates a new tmux session and attaches to a window named after and running the program. If however the program was found it merely attaches to the session and selects the window.
#!/bin/bash

PID=$(pidof $1)

if [ -z "$PID" ]; then
    tmux new-session -d -s main ;
    tmux new-window -t main -n $1 "$*" ;
fi
    tmux attach-session -d -t main ;
    tmux select-window -t $1 ;
exit 0
A derived version to run
irssi
with the
nicklist
plugin can be found on
its ArchWiki page
.
Terminal emulator window titles
If you SSH into a host in a tmux window, you will notice the window title of your terminal emulator remains to be
user@localhost
rather than
user@server
. To allow the title bar to adapt to whatever host you connect to, set the following in
~/.tmux.conf
set -g set-titles on
set -g set-titles-string "#T"
For
set-titles-string
,
#T
will display
user@host:~
and change accordingly as you connect to different hosts.
Automatic layouting
When creating new splits or destroying older ones the currently selected layout is not applied. To fix that, add following binds which will apply the currently selected layout to new or remaining panes:
bind-key -n M-c kill-pane \; select-layout
bind-key -n M-n split-window \; select-layout
Tip
You may be interested in
tmux-xpanes
AUR
which makes managing window layouts and SSH connections easy.
Vim colorscheme not loading
See the following if your vim colorscheme is not loading in tmux:
[2]
[3]
Vim friendly configuration
See
[4]
for a configuration friendly to
vim
users.
Friendly pane splitting
The default key-binding for splitting a pane vertically is
Ctrl+b %
and for splitting a pane horizontally is
Ctrl+b "
. That can be difficult to type depending of your keyboard layout and it is also hard to remember.
A more friendly key-binding is to use
Ctrl+b h
for splitting horizontally and
Ctrl+b v
for splitting a pane vertically, it is also very convenient to remember.
To make this change, add these lines in
~/.tmux.conf
:
# More friendly split pane
bind-key h split-window -h
bind-key v split-window -v
Inhibit system suspension
If tmux hangs when connected from another device because the host goes to sleep, run session's shell command with an inhibition lock:
tmux new-session -A "systemd-inhibit --what=idle $SHELL"
Troubleshooting
Scrolling issues
In case of trouble scrolling in the terminal with Shift-Page Up/Down, the following will disable the
smcup
and
rmcup
capabilities for any term that reports itself as anything beginning with
xterm
:
set -ga terminal-overrides ',xterm*:smcup@:rmcup@'
This tricks the terminal emulator into thinking tmux is a full screen application like pico or mutt
[5]
, which will make the scrollback be recorded properly. Beware however, it will get a bit messed up when switching between windows/panes. Consider using tmux's native scrollback instead.
Mouse scrolling
Note
This interferes with selection buffer copying and pasting. To copy/paste to/from the selection buffer hold the shift key.
If you want to scroll with your mouse wheel, ensure mode-mouse is on in .tmux.conf
set -g mouse on
You can set scroll History with:
set -g history-limit 30000
For mouse wheel scrolling as from tmux 2.1 try adding one or both of these to ~/.tmux.conf
bind -T root WheelUpPane   if-shell -F -t = "#{alternate_on}" "send-keys -M" "select-pane -t =; copy-mode -e; send-keys -M"
bind -T root WheelDownPane if-shell -F -t = "#{alternate_on}" "send-keys -M" "select-pane -t =; send-keys -M"
Though the above will only scroll one line at a time, add this solution to scroll an entire page instead
bind -t vi-copy    WheelUpPane   page-up
bind -t vi-copy    WheelDownPane page-down
bind -t emacs-copy WheelUpPane   page-up
bind -t emacs-copy WheelDownPane page-down
Terminal emulator does not support UTF-8 mouse events
When the terminal emulator does not support the UTF-8 mouse events and the
mouse on
tmux option is set, left-clicking inside the terminal window might paste strings like
[M#
or
[Ma
into the promt.
To solve this issue set:
set -g mouse-utf8 off
Shift+F6 not working in Midnight Commander
See
Midnight Commander#Broken shortcuts
.
See also
BBS topic
Screen and tmux feature comparison
powerline
, a dynamic statusbar for tmux
Plugins for tmux
Oh My Tmux!
tmux Wiki
Tutorials
Practical Tmux
manual page
tmux(1)
Tmux tutorial Part 1
and
Part 2
The Tao of tmux
, an ebook by Tony Narlock, author of
tmuxp
and
libtmux