NAME
tmux
—
terminal multiplexer
SYNOPSIS
tmux |
[-2CDlNuVv ]
[-c shell-command]
[-f file]
[-L socket-name]
[-S socket-path]
[-T features]
[command [flags]] |
DESCRIPTION
tmux
is a terminal multiplexer: it enables
a number of terminals 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.
When tmux
is started, it creates a new
session with a single window and
displays it on screen. A status line at the bottom of the screen shows
information on the current session and is used to enter interactive
commands.
A session is a single collection of
pseudo terminals
under the management of tmux
. Each session has one
or more windows linked to it. A window occupies the entire screen and may be
split into rectangular panes, each of which is a separate pseudo terminal
(the pty(4)
manual page documents the technical details of pseudo terminals). Any number
of tmux
instances may connect to the same session,
and any number of windows may be present in the same session. Once all
sessions are killed, tmux
exits.
Each session is persistent and will survive accidental
disconnection (such as ssh(1) connection timeout) or intentional detaching (with the
‘C-b d
’ key strokes).
tmux
may be reattached using:
$ tmux attach
In tmux
, a session is
displayed on screen by a
client and all
sessions are managed by a single server. The server and
each client are separate processes which communicate through a socket in
/tmp.
The options are as follows:
-2
- Force
tmux
to assume the terminal supports 256 colours. This is equivalent to-T
256. -C
- Start in control mode (see the CONTROL
MODE section). Given twice (
-CC
) disables echo. -c
shell-command- Execute shell-command using the default shell. If
necessary, the
tmux
server will be started to retrieve thedefault-shell
option. This option is for compatibility with sh(1) whentmux
is used as a login shell. -D
- Do not start the
tmux
server as a daemon. This also turns theexit-empty
option off. With-D
, command may not be specified. -f
file- Specify an alternative configuration file. By default,
tmux
loads the system configuration file from /etc/tmux.conf, if present, then looks for a user configuration file at ~/.tmux.conf.The configuration file is a set of
tmux
commands which are executed in sequence when the server is first started.tmux
loads configuration files once when the server process has started. Thesource-file
command may be used to load a file later.tmux
shows any error messages from commands in configuration files in the first session created, and continues to process the rest of the configuration file. -L
socket-nametmux
stores the server socket in a directory underTMUX_TMPDIR
or /tmp if it is unset. The default socket is named default. This option allows a different socket name to be specified, allowing several independenttmux
servers to be run. Unlike-S
a full path is not necessary: the sockets are all created in a directory tmux-UID under the directory given byTMUX_TMPDIR
or in /tmp. The tmux-UID directory is created bytmux
and must not be world readable, writable or executable.If the socket is accidentally removed, the
SIGUSR1
signal may be sent to thetmux
server process to recreate it (note that this will fail if any parent directories are missing).-l
- Behave as a login shell. This flag currently has no effect and is for compatibility with other shells when using tmux as a login shell.
-N
- Do not start the server even if the command would normally do so (for
example
new-session
orstart-server
). -S
socket-path- Specify a full alternative path to the server socket. If
-S
is specified, the default socket directory is not used and any-L
flag is ignored. -T
features- Set terminal features for the client. This is a comma-separated list of
features. See the
terminal-features
option. -u
- Write UTF-8 output to the terminal even if the first environment variable
of
LC_ALL
,LC_CTYPE
, orLANG
that is set does not contain "UTF-8" or "UTF8". -V
- Report the
tmux
version. -v
- Request verbose logging. Log messages will be saved into
tmux-client-PID.log and
tmux-server-PID.log files in the current
directory, where
PID is the
PID of the server or client process. If
-v
is specified twice, an additional tmux-out-PID.log file is generated with a copy of everythingtmux
writes to the terminal.The
SIGUSR2
signal may be sent to thetmux
server process to toggle logging between on (as if-v
was given) and off. - command [flags]
- This specifies one of a set of commands used to control
tmux
, as described in the following sections. If no commands are specified, thenew-session
command is assumed.
DEFAULT KEY BINDINGS
tmux
may be controlled from an attached
client by using a key combination of a prefix key,
‘C-b
’ (Ctrl-b) by default, followed by
a command key.
The default command key bindings are:
- C-b
- Send the prefix key (C-b) through to the application.
- C-o
- Rotate the panes in the current window forwards.
- C-z
- Suspend the
tmux
client. - !
- Break the current pane out of the window.
- "
- Split the current pane into two, top and bottom.
- #
- List all paste buffers.
- $
- Rename the current session.
- %
- Split the current pane into two, left and right.
- &
- Kill the current window.
- '
- Prompt for a window index to select.
- (
- Switch the attached client to the previous session.
- )
- Switch the attached client to the next session.
- ,
- Rename the current window.
- -
- Delete the most recently copied buffer of text.
- .
- Prompt for an index to move the current window.
- 0 to 9
- Select windows 0 to 9.
- :
- Enter the
tmux
command prompt. - ;
- Move to the previously active pane.
- =
- Choose which buffer to paste interactively from a list.
- ?
- List all key bindings.
- D
- Choose a client to detach.
- L
- Switch the attached client back to the last session.
- [
- Enter copy mode to copy text or view the history.
- ]
- Paste the most recently copied buffer of text.
- c
- Create a new window.
- d
- Detach the current client.
- f
- Prompt to search for text in open windows.
- i
- Display some information about the current window.
- l
- Move to the previously selected window.
- m
- Mark the current pane (see
select-pane
-m
). - M
- Clear the marked pane.
- n
- Change to the next window.
- o
- Select the next pane in the current window.
- p
- Change to the previous window.
- q
- Briefly display pane indexes.
- r
- Force redraw of the attached client.
- s
- Select a new session for the attached client interactively.
- t
- Show the time.
- w
- Choose the current window interactively.
- x
- Kill the current pane.
- z
- Toggle zoom state of the current pane.
- {
- Swap the current pane with the previous pane.
- }
- Swap the current pane with the next pane.
- ~
- Show previous messages from
tmux
, if any. - Page Up
- Enter copy mode and scroll one page up.
- Up, Down
- Left, Right
- Change to the pane above, below, to the left, or to the right of the current pane.
- M-1 to M-7
- Arrange panes in one of the seven preset layouts: even-horizontal, even-vertical, main-horizontal, main-horizontal-mirrored, main-vertical, main-vertical, or tiled.
- Space
- Arrange the current window in the next preset layout.
- M-n
- Move to the next window with a bell or activity marker.
- M-o
- Rotate the panes in the current window backwards.
- M-p
- Move to the previous window with a bell or activity marker.
- C-Up, C-Down
- C-Left, C-Right
- Resize the current pane in steps of one cell.
- M-Up, M-Down
- M-Left, M-Right
- Resize the current pane in steps of five cells.
Key bindings may be changed with the
bind-key
and unbind-key
commands.
COMMAND PARSING AND EXECUTION
tmux
supports a large number of commands
which can be used to control its behaviour. Each command is named and can
accept zero or more flags and arguments. They may be bound to a key with the
bind-key
command or run from the shell prompt, a
shell script, a configuration file or the command prompt. For example, the
same set-option
command run from the shell prompt,
from ~/.tmux.conf and bound to a key may look
like:
$ tmux set-option -g status-style bg=cyan set-option -g status-style bg=cyan bind-key C set-option -g status-style bg=cyan
Here, the command name is
‘set-option
’,
‘
’ is a flag
and ‘-g
status-style
’ and
‘bg=cyan
’ are arguments.
tmux
distinguishes between command parsing
and execution. In order to execute a command, tmux
needs it to be split up into its name and arguments. This is command
parsing. If a command is run from the shell, the shell parses it; from
inside tmux
or from a configuration file,
tmux
does. Examples of when
tmux
parses commands are:
- in a configuration file;
- typed at the command prompt (see
command-prompt
); - given to
bind-key
; - passed as arguments to
if-shell
orconfirm-before
.
To execute commands, each client has a
‘command queue
’. A global command
queue not attached to any client is used on startup for configuration files
like ~/.tmux.conf. Parsed commands added to the
queue are executed in order. Some commands, like
if-shell
and confirm-before
,
parse their argument to create a new command which is inserted immediately
after themselves. This means that arguments can be parsed twice or more -
once when the parent command (such as if-shell
) is
parsed and again when it parses and executes its command. Commands like
if-shell
, run-shell
and
display-panes
stop execution of subsequent commands
on the queue until something happens - if-shell
and
run-shell
until a shell command finishes and
display-panes
until a key is pressed. For example,
the following commands:
new-session; new-window if-shell "true" "split-window" kill-session
Will execute new-session
,
new-window
, if-shell
, the
shell command true(1), split-window
and
kill-session
in that order.
The COMMANDS section lists the
tmux
commands and their arguments.
PARSING SYNTAX
This section describes the syntax of commands parsed by
tmux
, for example in a configuration file or at the
command prompt. Note that when commands are entered into the shell, they are
parsed by the shell - see for example
ksh(1) or
csh(1).
Each command is terminated by a newline or a semicolon (;).
Commands separated by semicolons together form a
‘command sequence
’ - if a command in
the sequence encounters an error, no subsequent commands are executed.
It is recommended that a semicolon used as a command separator should be written as an individual token, for example from sh(1):
$ tmux neww \; splitw
Or:
$ tmux neww ';' splitw
Or from the tmux command prompt:
neww ; splitw
However, a trailing semicolon is also interpreted as a command separator, for example in these sh(1) commands:
$ tmux neww\; splitw
Or:
$ tmux 'neww;' splitw
As in these examples, when running tmux from the shell extra care must be taken to properly quote semicolons:
- Semicolons that should be interpreted as a command separator should be
escaped according to the shell conventions. For
sh(1) this
typically means quoted (such as ‘
neww ';' splitw
’) or escaped (such as ‘neww \\\\; splitw
’). - Individual semicolons or trailing semicolons that should be interpreted as
arguments should be escaped twice: once according to the shell conventions
and a second time for
tmux
; for example:$ tmux neww 'foo\\;' bar $ tmux neww foo\\\\; bar
- Semicolons that are not individual tokens or trailing another token should
only be escaped once according to shell conventions; for example:
$ tmux neww 'foo-;-bar' $ tmux neww foo-\\;-bar
Comments are marked by the unquoted # character - any remaining text after a comment is ignored until the end of the line.
If the last character of a line is \, the line is joined with the following line (the \ and the newline are completely removed). This is called line continuation and applies both inside and outside quoted strings and in comments, but not inside braces.
Command arguments may be specified as strings surrounded by single (') quotes, double quotes (") or braces ({}). This is required when the argument contains any special character. Single and double quoted strings cannot span multiple lines except with line continuation. Braces can span multiple lines.
Outside of quotes and inside double quotes, these replacements are performed:
- Environment variables preceded by $ are replaced with their value from the global environment (see the GLOBAL AND SESSION ENVIRONMENT section).
- A leading ~ or ~user is expanded to the home directory of the current or specified user.
- \uXXXX or \uXXXXXXXX is replaced by the Unicode codepoint corresponding to the given four or eight digit hexadecimal number.
- When preceded (escaped) by a \, the following characters are replaced: \e by the escape character; \r by a carriage return; \n by a newline; and \t by a tab.
- \ooo is replaced by a character of the octal value ooo. Three octal digits are required, for example \001. The largest valid character is \377.
- Any other characters preceded by \ are replaced by themselves (that is, the \ is removed) and are not treated as having any special meaning - so for example \; will not mark a command sequence and \$ will not expand an environment variable.
Braces are parsed as a configuration file (so conditions such as
‘%if
’ are processed) and then
converted into a string. They are designed to avoid the need for additional
escaping when passing a group of tmux
commands as an
argument (for example to if-shell
). These two
examples produce an identical command - note that no escaping is needed when
using {}:
if-shell true { display -p 'brace-dollar-foo: }$foo' } if-shell true "display -p 'brace-dollar-foo: }\$foo'"
Braces may be enclosed inside braces, for example:
bind x if-shell "true" { if-shell "true" { display "true!" } }
Environment variables may be set by using the syntax
‘name=value
’, for example
‘HOME=/home/user
’. Variables set
during parsing are added to the global environment. A hidden variable may be
set with ‘%hidden
’, for example:
%hidden MYVAR=42
Hidden variables are not passed to the environment of processes created by tmux. See the GLOBAL AND SESSION ENVIRONMENT section.
Commands may be parsed conditionally by surrounding them with
‘%if
’,
‘%elif
’,
‘%else
’ and
‘%endif
’. The argument to
‘%if
’ and
‘%elif
’ is expanded as a format (see
FORMATS) and if it evaluates to false
(zero or empty), subsequent text is ignored until the closing
‘%elif
’,
‘%else
’ or
‘%endif
’. For example:
%if "#{==:#{host},myhost}" set -g status-style bg=red %elif "#{==:#{host},myotherhost}" set -g status-style bg=green %else set -g status-style bg=blue %endif
Will change the status line to red if running on
‘myhost
’, green if running on
‘myotherhost
’, or blue if running on
another host. Conditionals may be given on one line, for example:
%if #{==:#{host},myhost} set -g status-style bg=red %endif
COMMANDS
This section describes the commands supported by
tmux
. Most commands accept the optional
-t
(and sometimes -s
)
argument with one of target-client,
target-session, target-window,
or target-pane. These specify the client, session,
window or pane which a command should affect.
target-client should be the name of the
client, typically the pty(4) file to which the client is connected, for example either of
/dev/ttyp1 or ttyp1 for the
client attached to /dev/ttyp1. If no client is
specified, tmux
attempts to work out the client
currently in use; if that fails, an error is reported. Clients may be listed
with the list-clients
command.
target-session is tried as, in order:
- A session ID prefixed with a $.
- An exact name of a session (as listed by the
list-sessions
command). - The start of a session name, for example
‘
mysess
’ would match a session named ‘mysession
’. - A glob(7) pattern which is matched against the session name.
If the session name is prefixed with an
‘=
’, only an exact match is accepted
(so ‘=mysess
’ will only match exactly
‘mysess
’, not
‘mysession
’).
If a single session is found, it is used as the target session; multiple matches produce an error. If a session is omitted, the current session is used if available; if no current session is available, the most recently used is chosen.
target-window (or src-window or dst-window) specifies a window in the form session:window. session follows the same rules as for target-session, and window is looked for in order as:
- A special token, listed below.
- A window index, for example
‘
mysession:1
’ is window 1 in session ‘mysession
’. - A window ID, such as @1.
- An exact window name, such as
‘
mysession:mywindow
’. - The start of a window name, such as
‘
mysession:mywin
’. - As a glob(7) pattern matched against the window name.
Like sessions, a ‘=
’ prefix
will do an exact match only. An empty window name specifies the next unused
index if appropriate (for example the new-window
and
link-window
commands) otherwise the current window
in session is chosen.
The following special tokens are available to indicate particular windows. Each has a single-character alternative form.
Token | Meaning | |
{start} |
^ | The lowest-numbered window |
{end} |
$ | The highest-numbered window |
{last} |
! | The last (previously current) window |
{next} |
+ | The next window by number |
{previous} |
- | The previous window by number |
target-pane (or
src-pane or dst-pane) may be a
pane ID or takes a similar form to target-window but
with the optional addition of a period followed by a pane index or pane ID,
for example: ‘mysession:mywindow.1
’.
If the pane index is omitted, the currently active pane in the specified
window is used. The following special tokens are available for the pane
index:
Token | Meaning | |
{last} |
! | The last (previously active) pane |
{next} |
+ | The next pane by number |
{previous} |
- | The previous pane by number |
{top} |
The top pane | |
{bottom} |
The bottom pane | |
{left} |
The leftmost pane | |
{right} |
The rightmost pane | |
{top-left} |
The top-left pane | |
{top-right} |
The top-right pane | |
{bottom-left} |
The bottom-left pane | |
{bottom-right} |
The bottom-right pane | |
{up-of} |
The pane above the active pane | |
{down-of} |
The pane below the active pane | |
{left-of} |
The pane to the left of the active pane | |
{right-of} |
The pane to the right of the active pane |
The tokens ‘+
’ and
‘-
’ may be followed by an offset, for
example:
select-window -t:+2
In addition,
target-session,
target-window
or
target-pane
may consist entirely of the token
‘{mouse}
’ (alternative form
‘=
’) to specify the session, window or
pane where the most recent mouse event occurred (see the
MOUSE SUPPORT section) or
‘{marked}
’ (alternative form
‘~
’) to specify the marked pane (see
select-pane
-m
).
Sessions, window and panes are each numbered with a unique ID;
session IDs are prefixed with a ‘$
’,
windows with a ‘@
’, and panes with a
‘%
’. These are unique and are
unchanged for the life of the session, window or pane in the
tmux
server. The pane ID is passed to the child
process of the pane in the TMUX_PANE
environment
variable. IDs may be displayed using the
‘session_id
’,
‘window_id
’, or
‘pane_id
’ formats (see the
FORMATS section) and the
display-message
,
list-sessions
, list-windows
or list-panes
commands.
shell-command arguments are sh(1) commands. This may be a single argument passed to the shell, for example:
new-window 'vi ~/.tmux.conf'
Will run:
/bin/sh -c 'vi ~/.tmux.conf'
Additionally, the new-window
,
new-session
, split-window
,
respawn-window
and
respawn-pane
commands allow
shell-command to be given as multiple arguments and
executed directly (without ‘sh -c
’).
This can avoid issues with shell quoting. For example:
$ tmux new-window vi ~/.tmux.conf
Will run vi(1) directly without invoking the shell.
command [argument ...]
refers to a tmux
command, either passed with the
command and arguments separately, for example:
bind-key F1 set-option status off
Or passed as a single string argument in .tmux.conf, for example:
bind-key F1 { set-option status off }
Example tmux
commands include:
refresh-client -t/dev/ttyp2 rename-session -tfirst newname set-option -wt:0 monitor-activity on new-window ; split-window -d bind-key R source-file ~/.tmux.conf \; \ display-message "source-file done"
Or from sh(1):
$ tmux kill-window -t :1 $ tmux new-window \; split-window -d $ tmux new-session -d 'vi ~/.tmux.conf' \; split-window -d \; attach
CLIENTS AND SESSIONS
The tmux
server manages clients, sessions,
windows and panes. Clients are attached to sessions to interact with them,
either when they are created with the new-session
command, or later with the attach-session
command.
Each session has one or more windows
linked
into it. Windows may be linked to multiple sessions and are made up of one
or more panes, each of which contains a pseudo terminal. Commands for
creating, linking and otherwise manipulating windows are covered in the
WINDOWS AND PANES section.
The following commands are available to manage clients and sessions:
attach-session
[-dErx
] [-c
working-directory] [-f
flags] [-t
target-session]-
(alias:If run from outside
attach
)tmux
, attach to target-session in the current terminal. target-session must already exist - to create a new session, see thenew-session
command (with-A
to create or attach). If used from inside, switch the currently attached session to target-session. If-d
is specified, any other clients attached to the session are detached. If-x
is given, sendSIGHUP
to the parent process of the client as well as detaching the client, typically causing it to exit.-f
sets a comma-separated list of client flags. The flags are:- active-pane
- the client has an independent active pane
- ignore-size
- the client does not affect the size of other clients
- no-detach-on-destroy
- do not detach the client when the session it is attached to is destroyed if there are any other sessions
- no-output
- the client does not receive pane output in control mode
- pause-after=seconds
- output is paused once the pane is seconds behind in control mode
- read-only
- the client is read-only
- wait-exit
- wait for an empty line input before exiting in control mode
A leading ‘
!
’ turns a flag off if the client is already attached.-r
is an alias for-f
read-only,ignore-size. When a client is read-only, only keys bound to thedetach-client
orswitch-client
commands have any effect. A client with the active-pane flag allows the active pane to be selected independently of the window's active pane used by clients without the flag. This only affects the cursor position and commands issued from the client; other features such as hooks and styles continue to use the window's active pane.If no server is started,
attach-session
will attempt to start it; this will fail unless sessions are created in the configuration file.The target-session rules for
attach-session
are slightly adjusted: iftmux
needs to select the most recently used session, it will prefer the most recently used unattached session.-c
will set the session working directory (used for new windows) to working-directory.If
-E
is used, theupdate-environment
option will not be applied. detach-client
[-aP
] [-E
shell-command] [-s
target-session] [-t
target-client]-
(alias:Detach the current client if bound to a key, the client specified with
detach
)-t
, or all clients currently attached to the session specified by-s
. The-a
option kills all but the client given with-t
. If-P
is given, sendSIGHUP
to the parent process of the client, typically causing it to exit. With-E
, run shell-command to replace the client. has-session
[-t
target-session]-
(alias:Report an error and exit with 1 if the specified session does not exist. If it does exist, exit with 0.
has
) kill-server
- Kill the
tmux
server and clients and destroy all sessions. kill-session
[-aC
] [-t
target-session]- Destroy the given session, closing any windows linked to it and no other
sessions, and detaching all clients attached to it. If
-a
is given, all sessions but the specified one is killed. The-C
flag clears alerts (bell, activity, or silence) in all windows linked to the session. list-clients
[-F
format] [-f
filter] [-t
target-session]-
(alias:List all clients attached to the server.
lsc
)-F
specifies the format of each line and-f
a filter. Only clients for which the filter is true are shown. See the FORMATS section. If target-session is specified, list only clients connected to that session. list-commands
[-F
format] [command]-
(alias:List the syntax of command or - if omitted - of all commands supported by
lscm
)tmux
. list-sessions
[-F
format] [-f
filter]-
(alias:List all sessions managed by the server.
ls
)-F
specifies the format of each line and-f
a filter. Only sessions for which the filter is true are shown. See the FORMATS section. lock-client
[-t
target-client]-
(alias:Lock target-client, see the
lockc
)lock-server
command. lock-session
[-t
target-session]-
(alias:Lock all clients attached to target-session.
locks
) new-session
[-AdDEPX
] [-c
start-directory] [-e
environment] [-f
flags] [-F
format] [-n
window-name] [-s
session-name] [-t
group-name] [-x
width] [-y
height] [shell-command]-
(alias:Create a new session with name session-name.
new
)The new session is attached to the current terminal unless
-d
is given. window-name and shell-command are the name of and shell command to execute in the initial window. With-d
, the initial size comes from the globaldefault-size
option;-x
and-y
can be used to specify a different size. ‘-
’ uses the size of the current client if any. If-x
or-y
is given, thedefault-size
option is set for the session.-f
sets a comma-separated list of client flags (seeattach-session
).If run from a terminal, any termios(4) special characters are saved and used for new windows in the new session.
The
-A
flag makesnew-session
behave likeattach-session
if session-name already exists; if-A
is given,-D
behaves like-d
toattach-session
, and-X
behaves like-x
toattach-session
.If
-t
is given, it specifies asession group
. Sessions in the same group share the same set of windows - new windows are linked to all sessions in the group and any windows closed removed from all sessions. The current and previous window and any session options remain independent and any session in a group may be killed without affecting the others. The group-name argument may be:- the name of an existing group, in which case the new session is added to that group;
- the name of an existing session - the new session is added to the same group as that session, creating a new group if necessary;
- the name for a new group containing only the new session.
-n
and shell-command are invalid if-t
is used.The
-P
option prints information about the new session after it has been created. By default, it uses the format ‘#{session_name}:
’ but a different format may be specified with-F
.If
-E
is used, theupdate-environment
option will not be applied.-e
takes the form ‘VARIABLE=value
’ and sets an environment variable for the newly created session; it may be specified multiple times. refresh-client
[-cDLRSU
] [-A
pane:state] [-B
name:what:format] [-C
size] [-f
flags] [-l
[target-pane]] [-r
pane:report] [-t
target-client] [adjustment]-
(alias:Refresh the current client if bound to a key, or a single client if one is given with
refresh
)-t
. If-S
is specified, only update the client's status line.The
-U
,-D
,-L
-R
, and-c
flags allow the visible portion of a window which is larger than the client to be changed.-U
moves the visible part up by adjustment rows and-D
down,-L
left by adjustment columns and-R
right.-c
returns to tracking the cursor automatically. If adjustment is omitted, 1 is used. Note that the visible position is a property of the client not of the window, changing the current window in the attached session will reset it.-C
sets the width and height of a control mode client or of a window for a control mode client, size must be one of ‘widthxheight
’ or ‘window ID:widthxheight
’, for example ‘80x24
’ or ‘@0:80x24
’.-A
allows a control mode client to trigger actions on a pane. The argument is a pane ID (with leading ‘%
’), a colon, then one of ‘on
’, ‘off
’, ‘continue
’ or ‘pause
’. If ‘off
’,tmux
will not send output from the pane to the client and if all clients have turned the pane off, will stop reading from the pane. If ‘continue
’,tmux
will return to sending output to the pane if it was paused (manually or with the pause-after flag). If ‘pause
’,tmux
will pause the pane.-A
may be given multiple times for different panes.-B
sets a subscription to a format for a control mode client. The argument is split into three items by colons: name is a name for the subscription; what is a type of item to subscribe to; format is the format. After a subscription is added, changes to the format are reported with the%subscription-changed
notification, at most once a second. If only the name is given, the subscription is removed. what may be empty to check the format only for the attached session, or one of: a pane ID such as ‘%0
’; ‘%*
’ for all panes in the attached session; a window ID such as ‘@0
’; or ‘@*
’ for all windows in the attached session.-f
sets a comma-separated list of client flags, seeattach-session
.-r
allows a control mode client to provide information about a pane via a report (such as the response to OSC 10). The argument is a pane ID (with a leading ‘%
’), a colon, then a report escape sequence.-l
requests the clipboard from the client using the xterm(1) escape sequence. If target-pane is given, the clipboard is sent (in encoded form), otherwise it is stored in a new paste buffer.-L
,-R
,-U
and-D
move the visible portion of the window left, right, up or down by adjustment, if the window is larger than the client.-c
resets so that the position follows the cursor. See thewindow-size
option. rename-session
[-t
target-session] new-name-
(alias:Rename the session to new-name.
rename
) server-access
[-adlrw
] [user]- Change the access or read/write permission of user.
The user running the
tmux
server (its owner) and the root user cannot be changed and are always permitted access.-a
and-d
are used to give or revoke access for the specified user. If the user is already attached, the-d
flag causes their clients to be detached.-r
and-w
change the permissions for user:-r
makes their clients read-only and-w
writable.-l
lists current access permissions.By default, the access list is empty and
tmux
creates sockets with file system permissions preventing access by any user other than the owner (and root). These permissions must be changed manually. Great care should be taken not to allow access to untrusted users even read-only. show-messages
[-JT
] [-t
target-client]-
(alias:Show server messages or information. Messages are stored, up to a maximum of the limit set by the message-limit server option.
showmsgs
)-J
and-T
show debugging information about jobs and terminals. source-file
[-Fnqv
] [-t
target-pane] path ...-
(alias:Execute commands from one or more files specified by path (which may be glob(7) patterns). If
source
)-F
is present, then path is expanded as a format. If-q
is given, no error will be returned if path does not exist. With-n
, the file is parsed but no commands are executed.-v
shows the parsed commands and line numbers if possible. start-server
-
(alias:Start the
start
)tmux
server, if not already running, without creating any sessions.Note that as by default the
tmux
server will exit with no sessions, this is only useful if a session is created in ~/.tmux.conf,exit-empty
is turned off, or another command is run as part of the same command sequence. For example:$ tmux start \; show -g
suspend-client
[-t
target-client]-
(alias:Suspend a client by sending
suspendc
)SIGTSTP
(tty stop). switch-client
[-ElnprZ
] [-c
target-client] [-t
target-session] [-T
key-table]-
(alias:Switch the current session for client target-client to target-session. As a special case,
switchc
)-t
may refer to a pane (a target that contains ‘:
’, ‘.
’ or ‘%
’), to change session, window and pane. In that case,-Z
keeps the window zoomed if it was zoomed. If-l
,-n
or-p
is used, the client is moved to the last, next or previous session respectively.-r
toggles the clientread-only
andignore-size
flags (see theattach-session
command).If
-E
is used,update-environment
option will not be applied.-T
sets the client's key table; the next key from the client will be interpreted from key-table. This may be used to configure multiple prefix keys, or to bind commands to sequences of keys. For example, to make typing ‘abc
’ run thelist-keys
command:bind-key -Ttable2 c list-keys bind-key -Ttable1 b switch-client -Ttable2 bind-key -Troot a switch-client -Ttable1
WINDOWS AND PANES
Each window displayed by tmux
may be split
into one or more
panes;
each pane takes up a certain area of the display and is a separate terminal.
A window may be split into panes using the
split-window
command. Windows may be split
horizontally (with the -h
flag) or vertically. Panes
may be resized with the resize-pane
command (bound
to ‘C-Up
’,
‘C-Down
’
‘C-Left
’ and
‘C-Right
’ by default), the current
pane may be changed with the select-pane
command and
the rotate-window
and
swap-pane
commands may be used to swap panes without
changing their position. Panes are numbered beginning from zero in the order
they are created.
By default, a tmux
pane permits direct
access to the terminal contained in the pane. A pane may also be put into
one of several modes:
- Copy mode, which permits a section of a window or its history to be copied
to a paste buffer for later insertion into another
window. This mode is entered with the
copy-mode
command, bound to ‘[
’ by default. Copied text can be pasted with thepaste-buffer
command, bound to ‘]
’. - View mode, which is like copy mode but is entered when a command that
produces output, such as
list-keys
, is executed from a key binding. - Choose mode, which allows an item to be chosen from a list. This may be a
client, a session or window or pane, or a buffer. This mode is entered
with the
choose-buffer
,choose-client
andchoose-tree
commands.
In copy mode an indicator is displayed in the top-right corner of the pane with the current position and the number of lines in the history.
Commands are sent to copy mode using the
-X
flag to the send-keys
command. When a key is pressed, copy mode automatically uses one of two key
tables, depending on the mode-keys
option:
copy-mode
for emacs, or
copy-mode-vi
for vi. Key tables may be viewed with
the list-keys
command.
The following commands are supported in copy mode:
append-selection
- Append the selection to the top paste buffer.
append-selection-and-cancel
(vi: A)- Append the selection to the top paste buffer and exit copy mode.
back-to-indentation
(vi: ^) (emacs: M-m)- Move the cursor back to the indentation.
begin-selection
(vi: Space) (emacs: C-Space)- Begin selection.
bottom-line
(vi: L)- Move to the bottom line.
cancel
(vi: q) (emacs: Escape)- Exit copy mode.
clear-selection
(vi: Escape) (emacs: C-g)- Clear the current selection.
copy-end-of-line
[-CP
] [prefix]- Copy from the cursor position to the end of the line. prefix is used to name the new paste buffer.
copy-end-of-line-and-cancel
[-CP
] [prefix]- Copy from the cursor position and exit copy mode.
copy-pipe-end-of-line
[-CP
] [command] [prefix]- Copy from the cursor position to the end of the line and pipe the text to command. prefix is used to name the new paste buffer.
copy-pipe-end-of-line-and-cancel
[-CP
] [command] [prefix]- Same as
copy-pipe-end-of-line
but also exit copy mode. copy-line
[-CP
] [prefix]- Copy the entire line.
copy-line-and-cancel
[-CP
] [prefix]- Copy the entire line and exit copy mode.
copy-pipe-line
[-CP
] [command] [prefix]- Copy the entire line and pipe the text to command. prefix is used to name the new paste buffer.
copy-pipe-line-and-cancel
[-CP
] [command] [prefix]- Same as
copy-pipe-line
but also exit copy mode. copy-pipe
[-CP
] [command] [prefix]- Copy the selection, clear it and pipe its text to command. prefix is used to name the new paste buffer.
copy-pipe-no-clear
[-CP
] [command] [prefix]- Same as
copy-pipe
but do not clear the selection. copy-pipe-and-cancel
[-CP
] [command] [prefix]- Same as
copy-pipe
but also exit copy mode. copy-selection
[-CP
] [prefix]- Copies the current selection.
copy-selection-no-clear
[-CP
] [prefix]- Same as
copy-selection
but do not clear the selection. copy-selection-and-cancel
[-CP
] [prefix] (vi: Enter) (emacs: M-w)- Copy the current selection and exit copy mode.
cursor-down
(vi: j) (emacs: Down)- Move the cursor down.
cursor-down-and-cancel
- Same as
cursor-down
but also exit copy mode if reaching the bottom. cursor-left
(vi: h) (emacs: Left)- Move the cursor left.
cursor-right
(vi: l) (emacs: Right)- Move the cursor right.
cursor-up
(vi: k) (emacs: Up)- Move the cursor up.
end-of-line
(vi: $) (emacs: C-e)- Move the cursor to the end of the line.
goto-line
line (vi: :) (emacs: g)- Move the cursor to a specific line.
halfpage-down
(vi: C-d) (emacs: M-Down)- Scroll down by half a page.
halfpage-down-and-cancel
- Same as
halfpage-down
but also exit copy mode if reaching the bottom. halfpage-up
(vi: C-u) (emacs: M-Up)- Scroll up by half a page.
history-bottom
(vi: G) (emacs: M->)- Scroll to the bottom of the history.
history-top
(vi: g) (emacs: M-<)- Scroll to the top of the history.
jump-again
(vi: ;) (emacs: ;)- Repeat the last jump.
jump-backward
to (vi: F) (emacs: F)- Jump backwards to the specified text.
jump-forward
to (vi: f) (emacs: f)- Jump forward to the specified text.
jump-reverse
(vi: ,) (emacs: ,)- Repeat the last jump in the reverse direction (forward becomes backward and backward becomes forward).
jump-to-backward
to (vi: T)- Jump backwards, but one character less, placing the cursor on the character after the target.
jump-to-forward
to (vi: t)- Jump forward, but one character less, placing the cursor on the character before the target.
jump-to-mark
(vi: M-x) (emacs: M-x)- Jump to the last mark.
middle-line
(vi: M) (emacs: M-r)- Move to the middle line.
next-matching-bracket
(vi: %) (emacs: M-C-f)- Move to the next matching bracket.
next-paragraph
(vi: }) (emacs: M-})- Move to the next paragraph.
next-prompt
[-o
]- Move to the next prompt.
next-word
(vi: w)- Move to the next word.
next-word-end
(vi: e) (emacs: M-f)- Move to the end of the next word.
next-space
(vi: W)- Same as
next-word
but use a space alone as the word separator. next-space-end
(vi: E)- Same as
next-word-end
but use a space alone as the word separator. other-end
(vi: o)- Switch at which end of the selection the cursor sits.
page-down
(vi: C-f) (emacs: PageDown)- Scroll down by one page.
page-down-and-cancel
- Same as
page-down
but also exit copy mode if reaching the bottom. page-up
(vi: C-b) (emacs: PageUp)- Scroll up by one page.
pipe
[command]- Pipe the selected text to command and clear the selection.
pipe-no-clear
[command]- Same as
pipe
but do not clear the selection. pipe-and-cancel
[command] [prefix]- Same as
pipe
but also exit copy mode. previous-matching-bracket
(emacs: M-C-b)- Move to the previous matching bracket.
previous-paragraph
(vi: {) (emacs: M-{)- Move to the previous paragraph.
previous-prompt
[-o
]- Move to the previous prompt.
previous-word
(vi: b) (emacs: M-b)- Move to the previous word.
previous-space
(vi: B)- Same as
previous-word
but use a space alone as the word separator. rectangle-on
- Turn on rectangle selection mode.
rectangle-off
- Turn off rectangle selection mode.
rectangle-toggle
(vi: v) (emacs: R)- Toggle rectangle selection mode.
refresh-from-pane
(vi: r) (emacs: r)- Refresh the content from the pane.
scroll-bottom
- Scroll up until the current line is at the bottom while keeping the cursor on that line.
scroll-down
(vi: C-e) (emacs: C-Down)- Scroll down.
scroll-down-and-cancel
- Same as
scroll-down
but also exit copy mode if the cursor reaches the bottom. scroll-middle
(vi: z)- Scroll so that the current line becomes the middle one while keeping the cursor on that line.
scroll-top
- Scroll down until the current line is at the top while keeping the cursor on that line.
scroll-up
(vi: C-y) (emacs: C-Up)- Scroll up.
search-again
(vi: n) (emacs: n)- Repeat the last search.
search-backward
text (vi: ?)- Search backwards for the specified text.
search-backward-incremental
text (emacs: C-r)- Search backwards incrementally for the specified text. Is expected to be
used with the
-i
flag to thecommand-prompt
command. search-backward-text
text- Search backwards for the specified plain text.
search-forward
text (vi: /)- Search forward for the specified text.
search-forward-incremental
text (emacs: C-s)- Search forward incrementally for the specified text. Is expected to be
used with the
-i
flag to thecommand-prompt
command. search-forward-text
text- Search forward for the specified plain text.
search-reverse
(vi: N) (emacs: N)- Repeat the last search in the reverse direction (forward becomes backward and backward becomes forward).
select-line
(vi: V)- Select the current line.
select-word
- Select the current word.
set-mark
(vi: X) (emacs: X)- Mark the current line.
start-of-line
(vi: 0) (emacs: C-a)- Move the cursor to the start of the line.
stop-selection
- Stop selecting without clearing the current selection.
toggle-position
(vi: P) (emacs: P)- Toggle the visibility of the position indicator in the top right.
top-line
(vi: H) (emacs: M-R)- Move to the top line.
The search commands come in several varieties:
‘search-forward
’ and
‘search-backward
’ search for a regular
expression; the ‘-text
’ variants
search for a plain text string rather than a regular expression;
‘-incremental
’ perform an incremental
search and expect to be used with the -i
flag to the
command-prompt
command.
‘search-again
’ repeats the last search
and ‘search-reverse
’ does the same but
reverses the direction (forward becomes backward and backward becomes
forward).
The ‘next-prompt
’ and
‘previous-prompt
’ move between shell
prompts, but require the shell to emit an escape sequence (\033]133;A\033\\)
to tell tmux
where the prompts are located; if the
shell does not do this, these commands will do nothing. The
-o
flag jumps to the beginning of the command output
instead of the shell prompt. Finding the beginning of command output
requires the shell to emit an escape sequence (\033]133;C\033\\) to tell
tmux where the output begins. If the shell does not send these escape
sequences, these commands do nothing.
Copy commands may take an optional buffer prefix argument which is
used to generate the buffer name (the default is
‘buffer
’ so buffers are named
‘buffer0
’,
‘buffer1
’ and so on). Pipe commands
take a command argument which is the command to which the selected text is
piped. ‘copy-pipe
’ variants also copy
the selection. The ‘-and-cancel
’
variants of some commands exit copy mode after they have completed (for copy
commands) or when the cursor reaches the bottom (for scrolling commands).
‘-no-clear
’ variants do not clear the
selection. All the copy commands can take the -C
and
-P
flags. The -C
flag
suppresses setting the terminal clipboard when copying, while the
-P
flag suppresses adding a paste buffer with the
text.
The next and previous word keys skip over whitespace and treat consecutive runs of either word separators or other letters as words. Word separators can be customized with the word-separators session option. Next word moves to the start of the next word, next word end to the end of the next word and previous word to the start of the previous word. The three next and previous space keys work similarly but use a space alone as the word separator. Setting word-separators to the empty string makes next/previous word equivalent to next/previous space.
The jump commands enable quick movement within a line. For
instance, typing ‘f
’ followed by
‘/
’ will move the cursor to the next
‘/
’ character on the current line. A
‘;
’ will then jump to the next
occurrence.
Commands in copy mode may be prefaced by an optional repeat count. With vi key bindings, a prefix is entered using the number keys; with emacs, the Alt (meta) key and a number begins prefix entry.
The synopsis for the copy-mode
command
is:
copy-mode
[-deHMqSu
] [-s
src-pane] [-t
target-pane]- Enter copy mode.
-u
enters copy mode and scrolls one page up and-d
one page down.-H
hides the position indicator in the top right.-q
cancels copy mode and any other modes.-M
begins a mouse drag (only valid if bound to a mouse key binding, see MOUSE SUPPORT).-S
scrolls when bound to a mouse drag event; for example,copy-mode -Se
is bound to MouseDrag1ScrollbarSlider by default.-s
copies from src-pane instead of target-pane.-e
specifies that scrolling to the bottom of the history (to the visible screen) should exit copy mode. While in copy mode, pressing a key other than those used for scrolling will disable this behaviour. This is intended to allow fast scrolling through a pane's history, for example with:bind PageUp copy-mode -eu bind PageDown copy-mode -ed
A number of preset arrangements of panes are available, these are
called layouts. These may be selected with the
select-layout
command or cycled with
next-layout
(bound to
‘Space
’ by default); once a layout is
chosen, panes within it may be moved and resized as normal.
The following layouts are supported:
even-horizontal
- Panes are spread out evenly from left to right across the window.
even-vertical
- Panes are spread evenly from top to bottom.
main-horizontal
- A large (main) pane is shown at the top of the window and the remaining panes are spread from left to right in the leftover space at the bottom. Use the main-pane-height window option to specify the height of the top pane.
main-horizontal-mirrored
- The same as
main-horizontal
but mirrored so the main pane is at the bottom of the window. main-vertical
- A large (main) pane is shown on the left of the window and the remaining panes are spread from top to bottom in the leftover space on the right. Use the main-pane-width window option to specify the width of the left pane.
main-vertical-mirrored
- The same as
main-vertical
but mirrored so the main pane is on the right of the window. tiled
- Panes are spread out as evenly as possible over the window in both rows and columns.
In addition, select-layout
may be used to
apply a previously used layout - the list-windows
command displays the layout of each window in a form suitable for use with
select-layout
. For example:
$ tmux list-windows 0: ksh [159x48] layout: bb62,159x48,0,0{79x48,0,0,79x48,80,0} $ tmux select-layout 'bb62,159x48,0,0{79x48,0,0,79x48,80,0}'
tmux
automatically adjusts the size of the
layout for the current window size. Note that a layout cannot be applied to
a window with more panes than that from which the layout was originally
defined.
Commands related to windows and panes are as follows:
break-pane
[-abdP
] [-F
format] [-n
window-name] [-s
src-pane] [-t
dst-window]-
(alias:Break src-pane off from its containing window to make it the only pane in dst-window. With
breakp
)-a
or-b
, the window is moved to the next index after or before (existing windows are moved if necessary). If-d
is given, the new window does not become the current window. The-P
option prints information about the new window after it has been created. By default, it uses the format ‘#{session_name}:#{window_index}.#{pane_index}
’ but a different format may be specified with-F
. capture-pane
[-aAepPqCJN
] [-b
buffer-name] [-E
end-line] [-S
start-line] [-t
target-pane]-
(alias:Capture the contents of a pane. If
capturep
)-p
is given, the output goes to stdout, otherwise to the buffer specified with-b
or a new buffer if omitted. If-a
is given, the alternate screen is used, and the history is not accessible. If no alternate screen exists, an error will be returned unless-q
is given. If-e
is given, the output includes escape sequences for text and background attributes.-C
also escapes non-printable characters as octal \xxx.-T
ignores trailing positions that do not contain a character.-N
preserves trailing spaces at each line's end and-J
preserves trailing spaces and joins any wrapped lines;-J
implies-T
.-P
captures only any output that the pane has received that is the beginning of an as-yet incomplete escape sequence.-S
and-E
specify the starting and ending line numbers, zero is the first line of the visible pane and negative numbers are lines in the history. ‘-
’ to-S
is the start of the history and to-E
the end of the visible pane. The default is to capture only the visible contents of the pane. choose-client
[-NryZ
] [-F
format] [-f
filter] [-K
key-format] [-O
sort-order] [-t
target-pane] [template]- Put a pane into client mode, allowing a client to be selected
interactively from a list. Each client is shown on one line. A shortcut
key is shown on the left in brackets allowing for immediate choice, or the
list may be navigated and an item chosen or otherwise manipulated using
the keys below.
-Z
zooms the pane.-y
disables any confirmation prompts. The following keys may be used in client mode:Key Function Enter
Choose selected client Up
Select previous client Down
Select next client C-s
Search by name n
Repeat last search forwards N
Repeat last search backwards t
Toggle if client is tagged T
Tag no clients C-t
Tag all clients d
Detach selected client D
Detach tagged clients x
Detach and HUP selected client X
Detach and HUP tagged clients z
Suspend selected client Z
Suspend tagged clients f
Enter a format to filter items O
Change sort field r
Reverse sort order v
Toggle preview q
Exit mode After a client is chosen, ‘
%%
’ is replaced by the client name in template and the result executed as a command. If template is not given, "detach-client -t '%%'" is used.-O
specifies the initial sort field: one of ‘name
’, ‘size
’, ‘creation
’ (time), or ‘activity
’ (time).-r
reverses the sort order.-f
specifies an initial filter: the filter is a format - if it evaluates to zero, the item in the list is not shown, otherwise it is shown. If a filter would lead to an empty list, it is ignored.-F
specifies the format for each item in the list and-K
a format for each shortcut key; both are evaluated once for each line.-N
starts without the preview or if given twice with the larger preview. This command works only if at least one client is attached. choose-tree
[-GNrswyZ
] [-F
format] [-f
filter] [-K
key-format] [-O
sort-order] [-t
target-pane] [template]- Put a pane into tree mode, where a session, window or pane may be chosen
interactively from a tree. Each session, window or pane is shown on one
line. A shortcut key is shown on the left in brackets allowing for
immediate choice, or the tree may be navigated and an item chosen or
otherwise manipulated using the keys below.
-s
starts with sessions collapsed and-w
with windows collapsed.-Z
zooms the pane.-y
disables any confirmation prompts. The following keys may be used in tree mode:Key Function Enter
Choose selected item Up
Select previous item Down
Select next item +
Expand selected item -
Collapse selected item M-+
Expand all items M--
Collapse all items x
Kill selected item X
Kill tagged items <
Scroll list of previews left >
Scroll list of previews right C-s
Search by name m
Set the marked pane M
Clear the marked pane n
Repeat last search forwards N
Repeat last search backwards t
Toggle if item is tagged T
Tag no items C-t
Tag all items :
Run a command for each tagged item f
Enter a format to filter items H
Jump to the starting pane O
Change sort field r
Reverse sort order v
Toggle preview q
Exit mode After a session, window or pane is chosen, the first instance of ‘
%%
’ and all instances of ‘%1
’ are replaced by the target in template and the result executed as a command. If template is not given, "switch-client -t '%%'" is used.-O
specifies the initial sort field: one of ‘index
’, ‘name
’, or ‘time
’ (activity).-r
reverses the sort order.-f
specifies an initial filter: the filter is a format - if it evaluates to zero, the item in the list is not shown, otherwise it is shown. If a filter would lead to an empty list, it is ignored.-F
specifies the format for each item in the tree and-K
a format for each shortcut key; both are evaluated once for each line.-N
starts without the preview or if given twice with the larger preview.-G
includes all sessions in any session groups in the tree rather than only the first. This command works only if at least one client is attached. customize-mode
[-NZ
] [-F
format] [-f
filter] [-t
target-pane] [template]- Put a pane into customize mode, where options and key bindings may be
browsed and modified from a list. Option values in the list are shown for
the active pane in the current window.
-Z
zooms the pane. The following keys may be used in customize mode:Key Function Enter
Set pane, window, session or global option value Up
Select previous item Down
Select next item +
Expand selected item -
Collapse selected item M-+
Expand all items M--
Collapse all items s
Set option value or key attribute S
Set global option value w
Set window option value, if option is for pane and window d
Set an option or key to the default D
Set tagged options and tagged keys to the default u
Unset an option (set to default value if global) or unbind a key U
Unset tagged options and unbind tagged keys C-s
Search by name n
Repeat last search forwards N
Repeat last search backwards t
Toggle if item is tagged T
Tag no items C-t
Tag all items f
Enter a format to filter items v
Toggle option information q
Exit mode -f
specifies an initial filter: the filter is a format - if it evaluates to zero, the item in the list is not shown, otherwise it is shown. If a filter would lead to an empty list, it is ignored.-F
specifies the format for each item in the tree.-N
starts without the option information. This command works only if at least one client is attached. display-panes
[-bN
] [-d
duration] [-t
target-client] [template]-
(alias:Display a visible indicator of each pane shown by target-client. See the
displayp
)display-panes-colour
anddisplay-panes-active-colour
session options. The indicator is closed when a key is pressed (unless-N
is given) or duration milliseconds have passed. If-d
is not given,display-panes-time
is used. A duration of zero means the indicator stays until a key is pressed. While the indicator is on screen, a pane may be chosen with the ‘0
’ to ‘9
’ keys, which will cause template to be executed as a command with ‘%%
’ substituted by the pane ID. The default template is "select-pane -t '%%'". With-b
, other commands are not blocked from running until the indicator is closed. find-window
[-iCNrTZ
] [-t
target-pane] match-string-
(alias:Search for a glob(7) pattern or, with
findw
)-r
, regular expression match-string in window names, titles, and visible content (but not history). The flags control matching behavior:-C
matches only visible window contents,-N
matches only the window name and-T
matches only the window title.-i
makes the search ignore case. The default is-CNT
.-Z
zooms the pane.This command works only if at least one client is attached.
join-pane
[-bdfhv
] [-l
size] [-s
src-pane] [-t
dst-pane]-
(alias:Like
joinp
)split-window
, but instead of splitting dst-pane and creating a new pane, split it and move src-pane into the space. This can be used to reversebreak-pane
. The-b
option causes src-pane to be joined to left of or above dst-pane.If
-s
is omitted and a marked pane is present (seeselect-pane
-m
), the marked pane is used rather than the current pane. kill-pane
[-a
] [-t
target-pane]-
(alias:Destroy the given pane. If no panes remain in the containing window, it is also destroyed. The
killp
)-a
option kills all but the pane given with-t
. kill-window
[-a
] [-t
target-window]-
(alias:Kill the current window or the window at target-window, removing it from any sessions to which it is linked. The
killw
)-a
option kills all but the window given with-t
. last-pane
[-deZ
] [-t
target-window]-
(alias:Select the last (previously selected) pane.
lastp
)-Z
keeps the window zoomed if it was zoomed.-e
enables or-d
disables input to the pane. last-window
[-t
target-session]-
(alias:Select the last (previously selected) window. If no target-session is specified, select the last window of the current session.
last
) link-window
[-abdk
] [-s
src-window] [-t
dst-window]-
(alias:Link the window at src-window to the specified dst-window. If dst-window is specified and no such window exists, the src-window is linked there. With
linkw
)-a
or-b
the window is moved to the next index after or before dst-window (existing windows are moved if necessary). If-k
is given and dst-window exists, it is killed, otherwise an error is generated. If-d
is given, the newly linked window is not selected. list-panes
[-as
] [-F
format] [-f
filter] [-t
target]-
(alias:If
lsp
)-a
is given, target is ignored and all panes on the server are listed. If-s
is given, target is a session (or the current session). If neither is given, target is a window (or the current window).-F
specifies the format of each line and-f
a filter. Only panes for which the filter is true are shown. See the FORMATS section. list-windows
[-a
] [-F
format] [-f
filter] [-t
target-session]-
(alias:If
lsw
)-a
is given, list all windows on the server. Otherwise, list windows in the current session or in target-session.-F
specifies the format of each line and-f
a filter. Only windows for which the filter is true are shown. See the FORMATS section. move-pane
[-bdfhv
] [-l
size] [-s
src-pane] [-t
dst-pane]-
(alias:Does the same as
movep
)join-pane
. move-window
[-abrdk
] [-s
src-window] [-t
dst-window]-
(alias:This is similar to
movew
)link-window
, except the window at src-window is moved to dst-window. With-r
, all windows in the session are renumbered in sequential order, respecting thebase-index
option. new-window
[-abdkPS
] [-c
start-directory] [-e
environment] [-F
format] [-n
window-name] [-t
target-window] [shell-command]-
(alias:Create a new window. With
neww
)-a
or-b
, the new window is inserted at the next index after or before the specified target-window, moving windows up if necessary; otherwise target-window is the new window location.If
-d
is given, the session does not make the new window the current window. target-window represents the window to be created; if the target already exists an error is shown, unless the-k
flag is used, in which case it is destroyed. If-S
is given and a window named window-name already exists, it is selected (unless-d
is also given in which case the command does nothing).shell-command is the command to execute. If shell-command is not specified, the value of the
default-command
option is used.-c
specifies the working directory in which the new window is created.When the shell command completes, the window closes. See the
remain-on-exit
option to change this behaviour.-e
takes the form ‘VARIABLE=value
’ and sets an environment variable for the newly created window; it may be specified multiple times.The
TERM
environment variable must be set to ‘screen
’ or ‘tmux
’ for all programs running insidetmux
. New windows will automatically have ‘TERM=screen
’ added to their environment, but care must be taken not to reset this in shell start-up files or by the-e
option.The
-P
option prints information about the new window after it has been created. By default, it uses the format ‘#{session_name}:#{window_index}
’ but a different format may be specified with-F
. next-layout
[-t
target-window]-
(alias:Move a window to the next layout and rearrange the panes to fit.
nextl
) next-window
[-a
] [-t
target-session]-
(alias:Move to the next window in the session. If
next
)-a
is used, move to the next window with an alert. pipe-pane
[-IOo
] [-t
target-pane] [shell-command]-
(alias:Pipe output sent by the program in target-pane to a shell command or vice versa. A pane may only be connected to one command at a time, any existing pipe is closed before shell-command is executed. The shell-command string may contain the special character sequences supported by the
pipep
)status-left
option. If no shell-command is given, the current pipe (if any) is closed.-I
and-O
specify which of the shell-command output streams are connected to the pane: with-I
stdout is connected (so anything shell-command prints is written to the pane as if it were typed); with-O
stdin is connected (so any output in the pane is piped to shell-command). Both may be used together and if neither are specified,-O
is used.The
-o
option only opens a new pipe if no previous pipe exists, allowing a pipe to be toggled with a single key, for example:bind-key C-p pipe-pane -o 'cat >>~/output.#I-#P'
previous-layout
[-t
target-window]-
(alias:Move to the previous layout in the session.
prevl
) previous-window
[-a
] [-t
target-session]-
(alias:Move to the previous window in the session. With
prev
)-a
, move to the previous window with an alert. rename-window
[-t
target-window] new-name-
(alias:Rename the current window, or the window at target-window if specified, to new-name.
renamew
) resize-pane
[-DLMRTUZ
] [-t
target-pane] [-x
width] [-y
height] [adjustment]-
(alias:Resize a pane, up, down, left or right by adjustment with
resizep
)-U
,-D
,-L
or-R
, or to an absolute size with-x
or-y
. The adjustment is given in lines or columns (the default is 1);-x
and-y
may be a given as a number of lines or columns or followed by ‘%
’ for a percentage of the window size (for example ‘-x 10%
’). With-Z
, the active pane is toggled between zoomed (occupying the whole of the window) and unzoomed (its normal position in the layout).-M
begins mouse resizing (only valid if bound to a mouse key binding, see MOUSE SUPPORT).-T
trims all lines below the current cursor position and moves lines out of the history to replace them. resize-window
[-aADLRU
] [-t
target-window] [-x
width] [-y
height] [adjustment]-
(alias:Resize a window, up, down, left or right by adjustment with
resizew
)-U
,-D
,-L
or-R
, or to an absolute size with-x
or-y
. The adjustment is given in lines or cells (the default is 1).-A
sets the size of the largest session containing the window;-a
the size of the smallest. This command will automatically setwindow-size
to manual in the window options. respawn-pane
[-k
] [-c
start-directory] [-e
environment] [-t
target-pane] [shell-command]-
(alias:Reactivate a pane in which the command has exited (see the
respawnp
)remain-on-exit
window option). If shell-command is not given, the command used when the pane was created or last respawned is executed. The pane must be already inactive, unless-k
is given, in which case any existing command is killed.-c
specifies a new working directory for the pane. The-e
option has the same meaning as for thenew-window
command. respawn-window
[-k
] [-c
start-directory] [-e
environment] [-t
target-window] [shell-command]-
(alias:Reactivate a window in which the command has exited (see the
respawnw
)remain-on-exit
window option). If shell-command is not given, the command used when the window was created or last respawned is executed. The window must be already inactive, unless-k
is given, in which case any existing command is killed.-c
specifies a new working directory for the window. The-e
option has the same meaning as for thenew-window
command. rotate-window
[-DUZ
] [-t
target-window]-
(alias:Rotate the positions of the panes within a window, either upward (numerically lower) with
rotatew
)-U
or downward (numerically higher).-Z
keeps the window zoomed if it was zoomed. select-layout
[-Enop
] [-t
target-pane] [layout-name]-
(alias:Choose a specific layout for a window. If layout-name is not given, the last preset layout used (if any) is reapplied.
selectl
)-n
and-p
are equivalent to thenext-layout
andprevious-layout
commands.-o
applies the last set layout if possible (undoes the most recent layout change).-E
spreads the current pane and any panes next to it out evenly. select-pane
[-DdeLlMmRUZ
] [-T
title] [-t
target-pane]-
(alias:Make pane target-pane the active pane in its window. If one of
selectp
)-D
,-L
,-R
, or-U
is used, respectively the pane below, to the left, to the right, or above the target pane is used.-Z
keeps the window zoomed if it was zoomed.-l
is the same as using thelast-pane
command.-e
enables or-d
disables input to the pane.-T
sets the pane title.-m
and-M
are used to set and clear the marked pane. There is one marked pane at a time, setting a new marked pane clears the last. The marked pane is the default target for-s
tojoin-pane
,move-pane
,swap-pane
andswap-window
. select-window
[-lnpT
] [-t
target-window]-
(alias:Select the window at target-window.
selectw
)-l
,-n
and-p
are equivalent to thelast-window
,next-window
andprevious-window
commands. If-T
is given and the selected window is already the current window, the command behaves likelast-window
. split-window
[-bdfhIvPZ
] [-c
start-directory] [-e
environment] [-l
size] [-t
target-pane] [shell-command] [-F
format]-
(alias:Create a new pane by splitting target-pane:
splitw
)-h
does a horizontal split and-v
a vertical split; if neither is specified,-v
is assumed. The-l
option specifies the size of the new pane in lines (for vertical split) or in columns (for horizontal split); size may be followed by ‘%
’ to specify a percentage of the available space. The-b
option causes the new pane to be created to the left of or above target-pane. The-f
option creates a new pane spanning the full window height (with-h
) or full window width (with-v
), instead of splitting the active pane.-Z
zooms if the window is not zoomed, or keeps it zoomed if already zoomed.An empty shell-command ('') will create a pane with no command running in it. Output can be sent to such a pane with the
display-message
command. The-I
flag (if shell-command is not specified or empty) will create an empty pane and forward any output from stdin to it. For example:$ make 2>&1|tmux splitw -dI &
All other options have the same meaning as for the
new-window
command. swap-pane
[-dDUZ
] [-s
src-pane] [-t
dst-pane]-
(alias:Swap two panes. If
swapp
)-U
is used and no source pane is specified with-s
, dst-pane is swapped with the previous pane (before it numerically);-D
swaps with the next pane (after it numerically).-d
instructstmux
not to change the active pane and-Z
keeps the window zoomed if it was zoomed.If
-s
is omitted and a marked pane is present (seeselect-pane
-m
), the marked pane is used rather than the current pane. swap-window
[-d
] [-s
src-window] [-t
dst-window]-
(alias:This is similar to
swapw
)link-window
, except the source and destination windows are swapped. It is an error if no window exists at src-window. If-d
is given, the new window does not become the current window.If
-s
is omitted and a marked pane is present (seeselect-pane
-m
), the window containing the marked pane is used rather than the current window. unlink-window
[-k
] [-t
target-window]-
(alias:Unlink target-window. Unless
unlinkw
)-k
is given, a window may be unlinked only if it is linked to multiple sessions - windows may not be linked to no sessions; if-k
is specified and the window is linked to only one session, it is unlinked and destroyed.
KEY BINDINGS
tmux
allows a command to be bound to most
keys, with or without a prefix key. When specifying keys, most represent
themselves (for example ‘A
’ to
‘Z
’). Ctrl keys may be prefixed with
‘C-
’ or
‘^
’, Shift keys with
‘S-
’ and Alt (meta) with
‘M-
’. In addition, the following
special key names are accepted: Up,
Down,
Left,
Right,
BSpace,
BTab,
DC (Delete),
End,
Enter,
Escape,
F1 to
F12,
Home,
IC (Insert),
NPage/PageDown/PgDn,
PPage/PageUp/PgUp,
Space,
and Tab. Note that to bind the
‘"
’ or
‘'
’ keys, quotation marks are
necessary, for example:
bind-key '"' split-window bind-key "'" new-window
A command bound to the Any key will execute for all keys which do not have a more specific binding.
Commands related to key bindings are as follows:
bind-key
[-nr
] [-N
note] [-T
key-table] key command [argument ...]-
(alias:Bind key key to command. Keys are bound in a key table. By default (without -T), the key is bound in the prefix key table. This table is used for keys pressed after the prefix key (for example, by default ‘
bind
)c
’ is bound tonew-window
in the prefix table, so ‘C-b c
’ creates a new window). The root table is used for keys pressed without the prefix key: binding ‘c
’ tonew-window
in the root table (not recommended) means a plain ‘c
’ will create a new window.-n
is an alias for-T
root. Keys may also be bound in custom key tables and theswitch-client
-T
command used to switch to them from a key binding. The-r
flag indicates this key may repeat, see theinitial-repeat-time
andrepeat-time
options.-N
attaches a note to the key (shown withlist-keys
-N
).To view the default bindings and possible commands, see the
list-keys
command. list-keys
[-1aN
] [-P
prefix-string-T
key-table] [key]-
(alias:List key bindings. There are two forms: the default lists keys as
lsk
)bind-key
commands;-N
lists only keys with attached notes and shows only the key and note for each key.With the default form, all key tables are listed by default.
-T
lists only keys in key-table.With the
-N
form, only keys in the root and prefix key tables are listed by default;-T
also lists only keys in key-table.-P
specifies a prefix to print before each key and-1
lists only the first matching key.-a
lists the command for keys that do not have a note rather than skipping them. send-keys
[-FHKlMRX
] [-c
target-client] [-N
repeat-count] [-t
target-pane] key ...-
(alias:Send a key or keys to a window or client. Each argument key is the name of the key (such as ‘
send
)C-a
’ or ‘NPage
’) to send; if the string is not recognised as a key, it is sent as a series of characters. If-K
is given, keys are sent to target-client, so they are looked up in the client's key table, rather than to target-pane. All arguments are sent sequentially from first to last. If no keys are given and the command is bound to a key, then that key is used.The
-l
flag disables key name lookup and processes the keys as literal UTF-8 characters. The-H
flag expects each key to be a hexadecimal number for an ASCII character.The
-R
flag causes the terminal state to be reset.-M
passes through a mouse event (only valid if bound to a mouse key binding, see MOUSE SUPPORT).-X
is used to send a command into copy mode - see the WINDOWS AND PANES section.-N
specifies a repeat count and-F
expands formats in arguments where appropriate. send-prefix
[-2
] [-t
target-pane]- Send the prefix key, or with
-2
the secondary prefix key, to a window as if it was pressed. unbind-key
[-anq
] [-T
key-table] key-
(alias:Unbind the command bound to key.
unbind
)-n
and-T
are the same as forbind-key
. If-a
is present, all key bindings are removed. The-q
option prevents errors being returned.
OPTIONS
The appearance and behaviour of tmux
may
be modified by changing the value of various options. There are four types
of option: server options, session
options, window options, and
pane
options.
The tmux
server has a set of global server
options which do not apply to any particular window or session or pane.
These are altered with the set-option
-s
command, or displayed with the
show-options
-s
command.
In addition, each individual session may have a set of session
options, and there is a separate set of global session options. Sessions
which do not have a particular option configured inherit the value from the
global session options. Session options are set or unset with the
set-option
command and may be listed with the
show-options
command. The available server and
session options are listed under the set-option
command.
Similarly, a set of window options is attached to each window and a set of pane options to each pane. Pane options inherit from window options. This means any pane option may be set as a window option to apply the option to all panes in the window without the option set, for example these commands will set the background colour to red for all panes except pane 0:
set -w window-style bg=red set -pt:.0 window-style bg=blue
There is also a set of global window options from which any unset
window or pane options are inherited. Window and pane options are altered
with set-option
-w
and
-p
commands and displayed with
show-option
-w
and
-p
.
tmux
also supports user options which are
prefixed with a ‘@
’. User options may
have any name, so long as they are prefixed with
‘@
’, and be set to any string. For
example:
$ tmux set -wq @foo "abc123" $ tmux show -wv @foo abc123
Commands which set options are as follows:
set-option
[-aFgopqsuUw
] [-t
target-pane] option value-
(alias:Set a pane option with
set
)-p
, a window option with-w
, a server option with-s
, otherwise a session option. If the option is not a user option,-w
or-s
may be unnecessary -tmux
will infer the type from the option name, assuming-w
for pane options. If-g
is given, the global session or window option is set.-F
expands formats in the option value. The-u
flag unsets an option, so a session inherits the option from the global options (or with-g
, restores a global option to the default).-U
unsets an option (like-u
) but if the option is a pane option also unsets the option on any panes in the window. value depends on the option and may be a number, a string, or a flag (on, off, or omitted to toggle).The
-o
flag prevents setting an option that is already set and the-q
flag suppresses errors about unknown or ambiguous options.With
-a
, and if the option expects a string or a style, value is appended to the existing setting. For example:set -g status-left "foo" set -ag status-left "bar"
Will result in ‘
foobar
’. And:set -g status-style "bg=red" set -ag status-style "fg=blue"
Will result in a red background and blue foreground. Without
-a
, the result would be the default background and a blue foreground. show-options
[-AgHpqsvw
] [-t
target-pane] [option]-
(alias:Show the pane options (or a single option if option is provided) with
show
)-p
, the window options with-w
, the server options with-s
, otherwise the session options. If the option is not a user option,-w
or-s
may be unnecessary -tmux
will infer the type from the option name, assuming-w
for pane options. Global session or window options are listed if-g
is used.-v
shows only the option value, not the name. If-q
is set, no error will be returned if option is unset.-H
includes hooks (omitted by default).-A
includes options inherited from a parent set of options, such options are marked with an asterisk.
Available server options are:
backspace
key- Set the key sent by
tmux
for backspace. buffer-limit
number- Set the number of buffers; as new buffers are added to the top of the stack, old ones are removed from the bottom if necessary to maintain this maximum length.
command-alias[]
name=value- This is an array of custom aliases for commands. If an unknown command
matches name, it is replaced with
value. For example, after:
set -s command-alias[100] zoom='resize-pane -Z'
Using:
zoom -t:.1
Is equivalent to:
resize-pane -Z -t:.1
Note that aliases are expanded when a command is parsed rather than when it is executed, so binding an alias with
bind-key
will bind the expanded form. copy-command
shell-command- Give the command to pipe to if the
copy-pipe
copy mode command is used without arguments. default-terminal
terminal- Set the default terminal for new windows created in this session - the
default value of the
TERM
environment variable. Fortmux
to work correctly, this must be set to ‘screen
’, ‘tmux
’ or a derivative of them. escape-time
time- Set the time in milliseconds for which
tmux
waits after an escape is input to determine if it is part of a function or meta key sequences. editor
shell-command- Set the command used when
tmux
runs an editor. exit-empty
[on
|off
]- If enabled (the default), the server will exit when there are no active sessions.
exit-unattached
[on
|off
]- If enabled, the server will exit when there are no attached clients.
extended-keys
[on
|off
|always
]- Controls how modified keys (keys pressed together with Control, Meta, or
Shift) are reported. This is the equivalent of the
modifyOtherKeys
xterm(1) resource.When set to
on
, the program inside the pane can request one of two modes: mode 1 which changes the sequence for only keys which lack an existing well-known representation; or mode 2 which changes the sequence for all keys. When set toalways
, modes 1 and 2 can still be requested by applications, but mode 1 will be forced instead of the standard mode. When set tooff
, this feature is disabled and only standard keys are reported.tmux
will always request extended keys itself if the terminal supports them. See also theextkeys
feature for theterminal-features
option, theextended-keys-format
option and thepane_key_mode
variable. extended-keys-format
[csi-u
|xterm
]- Selects one of the two possible formats for reporting modified keys to
applications. This is the equivalent of the
formatOtherKeys
xterm(1) resource. For example, C-S-a will be reported as ‘^[[27;6;65~
’ when set toxterm
, and as ‘^[[65;6u
’ when set tocsi-u
. focus-events
[on
|off
]- When enabled, focus events are requested from the terminal if supported
and passed through to applications running in
tmux
. Attached clients should be detached and attached again after changing this option. history-file
path- If not empty, a file to which
tmux
will write command prompt history on exit and load it from on start. input-buffer-size
bytes- Maximum of bytes allowed to read in escape and control sequences. Once reached, the sequence will be discarded.
message-limit
number- Set the number of error or information messages to save in the message log for each client.
prompt-history-limit
number- Set the number of history items to save in the history file for each type of command prompt.
set-clipboard
[on
|external
|off
]- Attempt to set the terminal clipboard content using the
xterm(1)
escape sequence, if there is an Ms entry in the
terminfo(5) description (see the
TERMINFO EXTENSIONS
section).
If set to
on
,tmux
will both accept the escape sequence to create a buffer and attempt to set the terminal clipboard. If set toexternal
,tmux
will attempt to set the terminal clipboard but ignore attempts by applications to settmux
buffers. Ifoff
,tmux
will neither accept the clipboard escape sequence nor attempt to set the clipboard.Note that this feature needs to be enabled in xterm(1) by setting the resource:
disallowedWindowOps: 20,21,SetXprop
Or changing this property from the xterm(1) interactive menu when required.
terminal-features[]
string- Set terminal features for terminal types read from
terminfo(5).
tmux
has a set of named terminal features. Each will apply appropriate changes to the terminfo(5) entry in use.tmux
can detect features for a few common terminals; this option can be used to easily tell tmux about features supported by terminals it cannot detect. Theterminal-overrides
option allows individual terminfo(5) capabilities to be set instead,terminal-features
is intended for classes of functionality supported in a standard way but not reported by terminfo(5). Care must be taken to configure this only with features the terminal actually supports.This is an array option where each entry is a colon-separated string made up of a terminal type pattern (matched using glob(7) patterns) followed by a list of terminal features. The available features are:
- 256
- Supports 256 colours with the SGR escape sequences.
- clipboard
- Allows setting the system clipboard.
- ccolour
- Allows setting the cursor colour.
- cstyle
- Allows setting the cursor style.
- extkeys
- Supports extended keys.
- focus
- Supports focus reporting.
- hyperlinks
- Supports OSC 8 hyperlinks.
- ignorefkeys
- Ignore function keys from
terminfo(5) and use the
tmux
internal set only. - margins
- Supports DECSLRM margins.
- mouse
- Supports xterm(1) mouse sequences.
- osc7
- Supports the OSC 7 working directory extension.
- overline
- Supports the overline SGR attribute.
- rectfill
- Supports the DECFRA rectangle fill escape sequence.
- RGB
- Supports RGB colour with the SGR escape sequences.
- sixel
- Supports SIXEL graphics.
- strikethrough
- Supports the strikethrough SGR escape sequence.
- sync
- Supports synchronized updates.
- title
- Supports xterm(1) title setting.
- usstyle
- Allows underscore style and colour to be set.
terminal-overrides[]
string- Allow terminal descriptions read using
terminfo(5) to be overridden. Each entry is a colon-separated
string made up of a terminal type pattern (matched using
glob(7)
patterns) and a set of
name=value
entries.
For example, to set the ‘
clear
’ terminfo(5) entry to ‘\e[H\e[2J
’ for all terminal types matching ‘rxvt*
’:rxvt*:clear=\e[H\e[2J
The terminal entry value is passed through strunvis(3) before interpretation.
user-keys[]
key- Set list of user-defined key escape sequences. Each item is associated
with a key named ‘
User0
’, ‘User1
’, and so on.For example:
set -s user-keys[0] "\e[5;30012~" bind User0 resize-pane -L 3
Available session options are:
activity-action
[any
|none
|current
|other
]- Set action on window activity when
monitor-activity
is on.any
means activity in any window linked to a session causes a bell or message (depending onvisual-activity
) in the current window of that session,none
means all activity is ignored (equivalent tomonitor-activity
being off),current
means only activity in windows other than the current window are ignored andother
means activity in the current window is ignored but not those in other windows. assume-paste-time
milliseconds- If keys are entered faster than one in milliseconds,
they are assumed to have been pasted rather than typed and
tmux
key bindings are not processed. The default is one millisecond and zero disables. base-index
index- Set the base index from which an unused index should be searched when a new window is created. The default is zero.
bell-action
[any
|none
|current
|other
]- Set action on a bell in a window when
monitor-bell
is on. The values are the same as those foractivity-action
. default-command
shell-command- Set the command used for new windows (if not specified when the window is
created) to shell-command, which may be any
sh(1) command.
The default is an empty string, which instructs
tmux
to create a login shell using the value of thedefault-shell
option. default-shell
path- Specify the default shell. This is used as the login shell for new windows
when the
default-command
option is set to empty, and must be the full path of the executable. When startedtmux
tries to set a default value from the first suitable of theSHELL
environment variable, the shell returned by getpwuid(3), or /bin/sh. This option should be configured whentmux
is used as a login shell. default-size
XxY- Set the default size of new windows when the
window-size
option is set to manual or when a session is created withnew-session
-d
. The value is the width and height separated by an ‘x
’ character. The default is 80x24. destroy-unattached
[off
|on
|keep-last
|keep-group
]- If
on
, destroy the session after the last client has detached. Ifoff
(the default), leave the session orphaned. Ifkeep-last
, destroy the session only if it is in a group and has other sessions in that group. Ifkeep-group
, destroy the session unless it is in a group and is the only session in that group. detach-on-destroy
[off
|on
|no-detached
|previous
|next
]- If
on
(the default), the client is detached when the session it is attached to is destroyed. Ifoff
, the client is switched to the most recently active of the remaining sessions. Ifno-detached
, the client is detached only if there are no detached sessions; if detached sessions exist, the client is switched to the most recently active. Ifprevious
ornext
, the client is switched to the previous or next session in alphabetical order. display-panes-active-colour
colour- Set the colour used by the
display-panes
command to show the indicator for the active pane. display-panes-colour
colour- Set the colour used by the
display-panes
command to show the indicators for inactive panes. display-panes-time
time- Set the time in milliseconds for which the indicators shown by the
display-panes
command appear. display-time
time- Set the amount of time for which status line messages and other on-screen indicators are displayed. If set to 0, messages and indicators are displayed until a key is pressed. time is in milliseconds.
history-limit
lines- Set the maximum number of lines held in window history. This setting applies only to new windows - existing window histories are not resized and retain the limit at the point they were created.
initial-repeat-time
time- Set the time in milliseconds for the initial repeat when a key is bound
with the
-r
flag. This allows multiple commands to be entered without pressing the prefix key again. See also therepeat-time
option. Ifinitial-repeat-time
is zero,repeat-time
is used for the first key press. key-table
key-table- Set the default key table to key-table instead of root.
lock-after-time
number- Lock the session (like the
lock-session
command) after number seconds of inactivity. The default is not to lock (set to 0). lock-command
shell-command- Command to run when locking each client. The default is to run
lock(1) with
-np
. - Set the menu style. See the STYLES section on how to specify style.
- Set the selected menu item style. See the STYLES section on how to specify style.
- Set the menu border style. See the STYLES section on how to specify style.
- Set the type of characters used for drawing menu borders. See
popup-border-lines
for possible values for border-lines. message-command-style
style- Set status line message command style. This is used for the command prompt with vi(1) keys when in command mode. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
message-line
[0
|1
|2
|3
|4
]- Set line on which status line messages and the command prompt are shown.
message-style
style- Set status line message style. This is used for messages and for the command prompt. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
mouse
[on
|off
]- If on,
tmux
captures the mouse and allows mouse events to be bound as key bindings. See the MOUSE SUPPORT section for details. prefix
key- Set the key accepted as a prefix key. In addition to the standard keys
described under KEY BINDINGS,
prefix
can be set to the special key ‘None
’ to set no prefix. prefix2
key- Set a secondary key accepted as a prefix key. Like
prefix
,prefix2
can be set to ‘None
’. prefix-timeout
time- Set the time in milliseconds for which
tmux
waits afterprefix
is input before dismissing it. Can be set to zero to disable any timeout. prompt-cursor-colour
colour- Set the colour of the cursor in the command prompt.
prompt-cursor-style
style- Set the style of the cursor in the command prompt. See the
cursor-style
options for available styles. renumber-windows
[on
|off
]- If on, when a window is closed in a session, automatically renumber the
other windows in numerical order. This respects the
base-index
option if it has been set. If off, do not renumber the windows. repeat-time
time- Allow multiple commands to be entered without pressing the prefix key
again in the specified time milliseconds (the
default is 500). Whether a key repeats may be set when it is bound using
the
-r
flag tobind-key
. Repeat is enabled for the default keys bound to theresize-pane
command. See also theinitial-repeat-time
option. set-titles
[on
|off
]- Attempt to set the client terminal title using the
tsl and
fsl
terminfo(5) entries if they exist.
tmux
automatically sets these to the \e]0;...\007 sequence if the terminal appears to be xterm(1). This option is off by default. set-titles-string
string- String used to set the client terminal title if
set-titles
is on. Formats are expanded, see the FORMATS section. silence-action
[any
|none
|current
|other
]- Set action on window silence when
monitor-silence
is on. The values are the same as those foractivity-action
. status
[off
|on
|2
|3
|4
|5
]- Show or hide the status line or specify its size. Using
on
gives a status line one row in height;2
,3
,4
or5
more rows. status-format[]
format- Specify the format to be used for each line of the status line. The default builds the top status line from the various individual status options below.
status-interval
interval- Update the status line every interval seconds. By default, updates will occur every 15 seconds. A setting of zero disables redrawing at interval.
status-justify
[left
|centre
|right
|absolute-centre
]- Set the position of the window list in the status line: left, centre or right. centre puts the window list in the relative centre of the available free space; absolute-centre uses the centre of the entire horizontal space.
status-keys
[vi
|emacs
]- Use vi or emacs-style key bindings in the status line, for example at the
command prompt. The default is emacs, unless the
VISUAL
orEDITOR
environment variables are set and contain the string ‘vi
’. status-left
string- Display string (by default the session name) to the
left of the status line. string will be passed
through strftime(3). Also see the FORMATS
and STYLES sections.
For details on how the names and titles can be set see the NAMES AND TITLES section.
Examples are:
#(sysctl vm.loadavg) #[fg=yellow,bold]#(apm -l)%%#[default] [#S]
The default is ‘
[#S]
’. status-left-length
length- Set the maximum length of the left component of the status line. The default is 10.
status-left-style
style- Set the style of the left part of the status line. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
status-position
[top
|bottom
]- Set the position of the status line.
status-right
string- Display string to the right of the status line. By
default, the current pane title in double quotes, the date and the time
are shown. As with
status-left
, string will be passed to strftime(3) and character pairs are replaced. status-right-length
length- Set the maximum length of the right component of the status line. The default is 40.
status-right-style
style- Set the style of the right part of the status line. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
status-style
style- Set status line style. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
update-environment[]
variable- Set list of environment variables to be copied into the session
environment when a new session is created or an existing session is
attached. Any variables that do not exist in the source environment are
set to be removed from the session environment (as if
-r
was given to theset-environment
command). visual-activity
[on
|off
|both
]- If on, display a message instead of sending a bell when activity occurs in
a window for which the
monitor-activity
window option is enabled. If set to both, a bell and a message are produced. visual-bell
[on
|off
|both
]- If on, a message is shown on a bell in a window for which the
monitor-bell
window option is enabled instead of it being passed through to the terminal (which normally makes a sound). If set to both, a bell and a message are produced. Also see thebell-action
option. visual-silence
[on
|off
|both
]- If
monitor-silence
is enabled, prints a message after the interval has expired on a given window instead of sending a bell. If set to both, a bell and a message are produced. word-separators
string- Sets the session's conception of what characters are considered word separators, for the purposes of the next and previous word commands in copy mode.
Available window options are:
aggressive-resize
[on
|off
]- Aggressively resize the chosen window. This means that
tmux
will resize the window to the size of the smallest or largest session (see thewindow-size
option) for which it is the current window, rather than the session to which it is attached. The window may resize when the current window is changed on another session; this option is good for full-screen programs which supportSIGWINCH
and poor for interactive programs such as shells. automatic-rename
[on
|off
]- Control automatic window renaming. When this setting is enabled,
tmux
will rename the window automatically using the format specified byautomatic-rename-format
. This flag is automatically disabled for an individual window when a name is specified at creation withnew-window
ornew-session
, or later withrename-window
, or with a terminal escape sequence. It may be switched off globally with:set-option -wg automatic-rename off
automatic-rename-format
format- The format (see FORMATS) used when the
automatic-rename
option is enabled. clock-mode-colour
colour- Set clock colour.
clock-mode-style
[12
|24
]- Set clock hour format.
fill-character
character- Set the character used to fill areas of the terminal unused by a window.
main-pane-height
heightmain-pane-width
width- Set the width or height of the main (left or top) pane in the
main-horizontal
,main-horizontal-mirrored
,main-vertical
, ormain-vertical-mirrored
layouts. If suffixed by ‘%
’, this is a percentage of the window size. copy-mode-match-style
style- Set the style of search matches in copy mode. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
copy-mode-mark-style
style- Set the style of the line containing the mark in copy mode. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
copy-mode-current-match-style
style- Set the style of the current search match in copy mode. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
copy-mode-position-format
format- Format of the position indicator in copy mode.
mode-keys
[vi
|emacs
]- Use vi or emacs-style key bindings in copy mode. The default is emacs,
unless
VISUAL
orEDITOR
contains ‘vi
’. copy-mode-position-style
style- Set the style of the position indicator in copy mode. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
copy-mode-selection-style
style- Set the style of the selection in copy mode. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
mode-style
style- Set window modes style. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
monitor-activity
[on
|off
]- Monitor for activity in the window. Windows with activity are highlighted in the status line.
monitor-bell
[on
|off
]- Monitor for a bell in the window. Windows with a bell are highlighted in the status line.
monitor-silence
[interval
]- Monitor for silence (no activity) in the window within
interval
seconds. Windows that have been silent for the interval are highlighted in the status line. An interval of zero disables the monitoring. other-pane-height
height- Set the height of the other panes (not the main pane) in the
main-horizontal
andmain-horizontal-mirrored
layouts. If this option is set to 0 (the default), it will have no effect. If both themain-pane-height
andother-pane-height
options are set, the main pane will grow taller to make the other panes the specified height, but will never shrink to do so. If suffixed by ‘%
’, this is a percentage of the window size. other-pane-width
width- Like
other-pane-height
, but set the width of other panes in themain-vertical
andmain-vertical-mirrored
layouts. pane-active-border-style
style- Set the pane border style for the currently active pane. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section. Attributes are ignored.
pane-base-index
index- Like
base-index
, but set the starting index for pane numbers. pane-border-format
format- Set the text shown in pane border status lines.
pane-border-indicators
[off
|colour
|arrows
|both
]- Indicate active pane by colouring only half of the border in windows with exactly two panes, by displaying arrow markers, by drawing both or neither.
pane-border-lines
type- Set the type of characters used for drawing pane borders.
type may be one of:
- single
- single lines using ACS or UTF-8 characters
- double
- double lines using UTF-8 characters
- heavy
- heavy lines using UTF-8 characters
- simple
- simple ASCII characters
- number
- the pane number
‘
double
’ and ‘heavy
’ will fall back to standard ACS line drawing when UTF-8 is not supported. pane-border-status
[off
|top
|bottom
]- Turn pane border status lines off or set their position.
pane-border-style
style- Set the pane border style for panes aside from the active pane. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section. Attributes are ignored.
popup-style
style- Set the popup style. See the STYLES section on how to specify style. Attributes are ignored.
popup-border-style
style- Set the popup border style. See the STYLES section on how to specify style. Attributes are ignored.
popup-border-lines
type- Set the type of characters used for drawing popup borders.
type may be one of:
- single
- single lines using ACS or UTF-8 characters (default)
- rounded
- variation of single with rounded corners using UTF-8 characters
- double
- double lines using UTF-8 characters
- heavy
- heavy lines using UTF-8 characters
- simple
- simple ASCII characters
- padded
- simple ASCII space character
- none
- no border
‘
double
’ and ‘heavy
’ will fall back to standard ACS line drawing when UTF-8 is not supported. pane-scrollbars
[off
|modal
|on
]- When enabled, a character based scrollbar appears on the left or right of
each pane. A filled section of the scrollbar, known as the
‘
slider
’, represents the position and size of the visible part of the pane content.If set to
on
the scrollbar is visible all the time. If set tomodal
the scrollbar only appears when the pane is in copy mode or view mode. When the scrollbar is visible, the pane is narrowed by the width of the scrollbar and the text in the pane is reflowed. If set tomodal
, the pane is narrowed only when the scrollbar is visible.See also
pane-scrollbars-style
. pane-scrollbars-style
style- Set the scrollbars style. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section. The foreground colour is used for the slider, the background for the rest of the scrollbar. The width attribute sets the width of the scrollbar and the pad attribute the padding between the scrollbar and the pane. Other attributes are ignored.
pane-scrollbars-position
[left
|right
]- Sets which side of the pane to display pane scrollbars on.
window-status-activity-style
style- Set status line style for windows with an activity alert. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
window-status-bell-style
style- Set status line style for windows with a bell alert. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
window-status-current-format
string- Like window-status-format, but is the format used when the window is the current window.
window-status-current-style
style- Set status line style for the currently active window. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
window-status-format
string- Set the format in which the window is displayed in the status line window list. See the FORMATS and STYLES sections.
window-status-last-style
style- Set status line style for the last active window. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
window-status-separator
string- Sets the separator drawn between windows in the status line. The default is a single space character.
window-status-style
style- Set status line style for a single window. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
window-size
largest | smallest | manual | latest- Configure how
tmux
determines the window size. If set to largest, the size of the largest attached session is used; if smallest, the size of the smallest. If manual, the size of a new window is set from thedefault-size
option and windows are resized automatically. With latest,tmux
uses the size of the client that had the most recent activity. See also theresize-window
command and theaggressive-resize
option. wrap-search
[on
|off
]- If this option is set, searches will wrap around the end of the pane contents. The default is on.
Available pane options are:
allow-passthrough
[on
|off
|all
]- Allow programs in the pane to bypass
tmux
using a terminal escape sequence (\ePtmux;...\e\\). If set toon
, passthrough sequences will be allowed only if the pane is visible. If set toall
, they will be allowed even if the pane is invisible. allow-rename
[on
|off
]- Allow programs in the pane to change the window name using a terminal escape sequence (\ek...\e\\).
allow-set-title
[on
|off
]- Allow programs in the pane to change the title using the terminal escape sequences (\e]2;...\e\\ or \e]0;...\e\\).
alternate-screen
[on
|off
]- This option configures whether programs running inside the pane may use the terminal alternate screen feature, which allows the smcup and rmcup terminfo(5) capabilities. The alternate screen feature preserves the contents of the window when an interactive application starts and restores it on exit, so that any output visible before the application starts reappears unchanged after it exits.
cursor-colour
colour- Set the colour of the cursor.
cursor-style
style- Set the style of the cursor. Available styles are:
default
,blinking-block
,block
,blinking-underline
,underline
,blinking-bar
,bar
. pane-colours[]
colour- The default colour palette. Each entry in the array defines the colour
tmux
uses when the colour with that index is requested. The index may be from zero to 255. remain-on-exit
[on
|off
|failed
]- A pane with this flag set is not destroyed when the program running in it
exits. If set to
failed
, then only when the program exit status is not zero. The pane may be reactivated with therespawn-pane
command. remain-on-exit-format
string- Set the text shown at the bottom of exited panes when
remain-on-exit
is enabled. scroll-on-clear
[on
|off
]- When the entire screen is cleared and this option is on, scroll the contents of the screen into history before clearing it.
synchronize-panes
[on
|off
]- Duplicate input to all other panes in the same window where this option is also on (only for panes that are not in any mode).
window-active-style
style- Set the pane style when it is the active pane. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
window-style
style- Set the pane style. For how to specify style, see the STYLES section.
HOOKS
tmux
allows commands to run on various
triggers, called
hooks.
Most tmux
commands have an
after
hook and there are a number of hooks not associated with commands.
Hooks are stored as array options, members of the array are
executed in order when the hook is triggered. Like options different hooks
may be global or belong to a session, window or pane. Hooks may be
configured with the set-hook
or
set-option
commands and displayed with
show-hooks
or show-options
-H
. The following two commands are equivalent:
set-hook -g pane-mode-changed[42] 'set -g status-left-style bg=red' set-option -g pane-mode-changed[42] 'set -g status-left-style bg=red'
Setting a hook without specifying an array index clears the hook and sets the first member of the array.
A command's after hook is run after it completes, except when the
command is run as part of a hook itself. They are named with an
‘after-
’ prefix. For example, the
following command adds a hook to select the even-vertical layout after every
split-window
:
set-hook -g after-split-window "selectl even-vertical"
If a command fails, the
‘command-error
’ hook will be fired.
For example, this could be used to write to a log file:
set-hook -g command-error "run-shell \"echo 'a tmux command failed' >>/tmp/log\""
All the notifications listed in the
CONTROL MODE section are hooks
(without any arguments), except %exit
. The following
additional hooks are available:
- alert-activity
- Run when a window has activity. See
monitor-activity
. - alert-bell
- Run when a window has received a bell. See
monitor-bell
. - alert-silence
- Run when a window has been silent. See
monitor-silence
. - client-active
- Run when a client becomes the latest active client of its session.
- client-attached
- Run when a client is attached.
- client-detached
- Run when a client is detached
- client-focus-in
- Run when focus enters a client
- client-focus-out
- Run when focus exits a client
- client-resized
- Run when a client is resized.
- client-session-changed
- Run when a client's attached session is changed.
- command-error
- Run when a command fails.
- pane-died
- Run when the program running in a pane exits, but
remain-on-exit
is on so the pane has not closed. - pane-exited
- Run when the program running in a pane exits.
- pane-focus-in
- Run when the focus enters a pane, if the
focus-events
option is on. - pane-focus-out
- Run when the focus exits a pane, if the
focus-events
option is on. - pane-set-clipboard
- Run when the terminal clipboard is set using the xterm(1) escape sequence.
- session-created
- Run when a new session created.
- session-closed
- Run when a session closed.
- session-renamed
- Run when a session is renamed.
- window-layout-changed
- Run when a window layout is changed.
- window-linked
- Run when a window is linked into a session.
- window-renamed
- Run when a window is renamed.
- window-resized
- Run when a window is resized. This may be after the client-resized hook is run.
- window-unlinked
- Run when a window is unlinked from a session.
Hooks are managed with these commands:
set-hook
[-agpRuw
] [-t
target-pane] hook-name command- Without
-R
, sets (or with-u
unsets) hook hook-name to command. The flags are the same as forset-option
.With
-R
, run hook-name immediately. show-hooks
[-gpw
] [-t
target-pane]- Shows hooks. The flags are the same as for
show-options
.
MOUSE SUPPORT
If the mouse
option is on (the default is
off), tmux
allows mouse events to be bound as keys.
The name of each key is made up of a mouse event (such as
‘MouseUp1
’) and a location suffix, one
of the following:
Pane |
the contents of a pane |
Border |
a pane border |
Status |
the status line window list |
StatusLeft |
the left part of the status line |
StatusRight |
the right part of the status line |
StatusDefault |
any other part of the status line |
ScrollbarSlider |
the scrollbar slider |
ScrollbarUp |
above the scrollbar slider |
ScrollbarDown |
below the scrollbar slider |
The following mouse events are available:
WheelUp |
WheelDown | ||
MouseDown1 |
MouseUp1 | MouseDrag1 | MouseDragEnd1 |
MouseDown2 |
MouseUp2 | MouseDrag2 | MouseDragEnd2 |
MouseDown3 |
MouseUp3 | MouseDrag3 | MouseDragEnd3 |
SecondClick1 |
SecondClick2 | SecondClick3 | |
DoubleClick1 |
DoubleClick2 | DoubleClick3 | |
TripleClick1 |
TripleClick2 | TripleClick3 |
The ‘SecondClick
’ events are
fired for the second click of a double click, even if there may be a third
click which will fire ‘TripleClick
’
instead of ‘DoubleClick
’.
Each should be suffixed with a location, for example
‘MouseDown1Status
’.
The special token ‘{mouse}
’
or ‘=
’ may be used as
target-window or target-pane in
commands bound to mouse key bindings. It resolves to the window or pane over
which the mouse event took place (for example, the window in the status line
over which button 1 was released for a
‘MouseUp1Status
’ binding, or the pane
over which the wheel was scrolled for a
‘WheelDownPane
’ binding).
The send-keys
-M
flag may be used to forward a mouse event to a pane.
The default key bindings allow the mouse to be used to select and
resize panes, to copy text and to change window using the status line. These
take effect if the mouse
option is turned on.
FORMATS
Certain commands accept the -F
flag with a
format argument. This is a string which controls the
output format of the command. Format variables are enclosed in
‘#{
’ and
‘}
’, for example
‘#{session_name}
’. The possible
variables are listed in the table below, or the name of a
tmux
option may be used for an option's value. Some
variables have a shorter alias such as
‘#S
’;
‘##
’ is replaced by a single
‘#
’,
‘#,
’ by a
‘,
’ and
‘#}
’ by a
‘}
’.
Conditionals are available by prefixing with
‘?
’ and separating two alternatives
with a comma; if the specified variable exists and is not zero, the first
alternative is chosen, otherwise the second is used. For example
‘#{?session_attached,attached,not
attached}
’ will include the string
‘attached
’ if the session is attached
and the string ‘not attached
’ if it is
unattached, or
‘#{?automatic-rename,yes,no}
’ will
include ‘yes
’ if
automatic-rename
is enabled, or
‘no
’ if not. Conditionals can be
nested arbitrarily. Inside a conditional,
‘,
’ and
‘}
’ must be escaped as
‘#,
’ and
‘#}
’, unless they are part of a
‘#{...}
’ replacement. For example:
#{?pane_in_mode,#[fg=white#,bg=red],#[fg=red#,bg=white]}#W .
String comparisons may be expressed by prefixing two
comma-separated alternatives by ‘==
’,
‘!=
’,
‘<
’,
‘>
’,
‘<=
’ or
‘>=
’ and a colon. For example
‘#{==:#{host},myhost}
’ will be
replaced by ‘1
’ if running on
‘myhost
’, otherwise by
‘0
’.
‘||
’ and
‘&&
’ evaluate to true if
either or both of two comma-separated alternatives are true, for example
‘#{||:#{pane_in_mode},#{alternate_on}}
’.
An ‘m
’ specifies a
glob(7)
pattern or regular expression comparison. The first argument is the pattern
and the second the string to compare. An optional argument specifies flags:
‘r
’ means the pattern is a regular
expression instead of the default
glob(7)
pattern, and ‘i
’ means to ignore case.
For example: ‘#{m:*foo*,#{host}}
’ or
‘#{m/ri:^A,MYVAR}
’. A
‘C
’ performs a search for a
glob(7)
pattern or regular expression in the pane content and evaluates to zero if
not found, or a line number if found. Like
‘m
’, an
‘r
’ flag means search for a regular
expression and ‘i
’ ignores case. For
example: ‘#{C/r:^Start}
’
Numeric operators may be performed by prefixing two
comma-separated alternatives with an
‘e
’ and an operator. An optional
‘f
’ flag may be given after the
operator to use floating point numbers, otherwise integers are used. This
may be followed by a number giving the number of decimal places to use for
the result. The available operators are: addition
‘+
’, subtraction
‘-
’, multiplication
‘*
’, division
‘/
’, modulus
‘m
’ or
‘%
’ (note that
‘%
’ must be escaped as
‘%%
’ in formats which are also
expanded by strftime(3)) and numeric comparison operators
‘==
’,
‘!=
’,
‘<
’,
‘<=
’,
‘>
’ and
‘>=
’. For example,
‘#{e|*|f|4:5.5,3}
’ multiplies 5.5 by 3
for a result with four decimal places and
‘#{e|%%:7,3}
’ returns the modulus of 7
and 3. ‘a
’ replaces a numeric argument
by its ASCII equivalent, so ‘#{a:98}
’
results in ‘b
’.
‘c
’ replaces a
tmux
colour by its six-digit hexadecimal RGB
value.
A limit may be placed on the length of the resultant string by
prefixing it by an ‘=
’, a number and a
colon. Positive numbers count from the start of the string and negative from
the end, so ‘#{=5:pane_title}
’ will
include at most the first five characters of the pane title, or
‘#{=-5:pane_title}
’ the last five
characters. A suffix or prefix may be given as a second argument - if
provided then it is appended or prepended to the string if the length has
been trimmed, for example
‘#{=/5/...:pane_title}
’ will append
‘...
’ if the pane title is more than
five characters. Similarly, ‘p
’ pads
the string to a given width, for example
‘#{p10:pane_title}
’ will result in a
width of at least 10 characters. A positive width pads on the left, a
negative on the right. ‘n
’ expands to
the length of the variable and ‘w
’ to
its width when displayed, for example
‘#{n:window_name}
’.
Prefixing a time variable with
‘t:
’ will convert it to a string, so
if ‘#{window_activity}
’ gives
‘1445765102
’,
‘#{t:window_activity}
’ gives
‘Sun Oct 25 09:25:02 2015
’. Adding
‘p (
’
‘`t/p`
’) will use shorter but less
accurate time format for times in the past. A custom format may be given
using an ‘f
’ suffix (note that
‘%
’ must be escaped as
‘%%
’ if the format is separately being
passed through strftime(3), for example in the
status-left
option):
‘#{t/f/%%H#:%%M:window_activity}
’, see
strftime(3).
The ‘b:
’ and
‘d:
’ prefixes are
basename(3) and dirname(3) of the variable respectively.
‘q:
’ will escape
sh(1) special
characters or with a ‘h
’ suffix,
escape hash characters (so ‘#
’ becomes
‘##
’).
‘E:
’ will expand the format twice, for
example ‘#{E:status-left}
’ is the
result of expanding the content of the status-left
option rather than the option itself.
‘T:
’ is like
‘E:
’ but also expands
strftime(3) specifiers. ‘S:
’,
‘W:
’,
‘P:
’ or
‘L:
’ will loop over each session,
window, pane or client and insert the format once for each. For windows and
panes, two comma-separated formats may be given: the second is used for the
current window or active pane. For example, to get a list of windows
formatted like the status line:
#{W:#{E:window-status-format} ,#{E:window-status-current-format} }
‘N:
’ checks if a window
(without any suffix or with the ‘w
’
suffix) or a session (with the ‘s
’
suffix) name exists, for example
‘`N/w:foo`
’ is replaced with 1 if a
window named ‘foo
’ exists.
A prefix of the form
‘s/foo/bar/:
’ will substitute
‘foo
’ with
‘bar
’ throughout. The first argument
may be an extended regular expression and a final argument may be
‘i
’ to ignore case, for example
‘s/a(.)/\1x/i:
’ would change
‘abABab
’ into
‘bxBxbx
’. A different delimiter
character may also be used, to avoid collisions with literal slashes in the
pattern. For example, ‘s|foo/|bar/|:
’
will substitute ‘foo/
’ with
‘bar/
’ throughout.
In addition, the last line of a shell command's output may be
inserted using ‘#()
’. For example,
‘#(uptime)
’ will insert the system's
uptime. When constructing formats, tmux
does not
wait for ‘#()
’ commands to finish;
instead, the previous result from running the same command is used, or a
placeholder if the command has not been run before. If the command hasn't
exited, the most recent line of output will be used, but the status line
will not be updated more than once a second. Commands are executed using
/bin/sh and with the tmux
global environment set (see the
GLOBAL AND SESSION
ENVIRONMENT section).
An ‘l
’ specifies that a
string should be interpreted literally and not expanded. For example
‘#{l:#{?pane_in_mode,yes,no}}
’ will be
replaced by
‘#{?pane_in_mode,yes,no}
’.
The following variables are available, where appropriate:
Variable name | Alias | Replaced with |
active_window_index |
Index of active window in session | |
alternate_on |
1 if pane is in alternate screen | |
alternate_saved_x |
Saved cursor X in alternate screen | |
alternate_saved_y |
Saved cursor Y in alternate screen | |
buffer_created |
Time buffer created | |
buffer_name |
Name of buffer | |
buffer_sample |
Sample of start of buffer | |
buffer_size |
Size of the specified buffer in bytes | |
client_activity |
Time client last had activity | |
client_cell_height |
Height of each client cell in pixels | |
client_cell_width |
Width of each client cell in pixels | |
client_control_mode |
1 if client is in control mode | |
client_created |
Time client created | |
client_discarded |
Bytes discarded when client behind | |
client_flags |
List of client flags | |
client_height |
Height of client | |
client_key_table |
Current key table | |
client_last_session |
Name of the client's last session | |
client_name |
Name of client | |
client_pid |
PID of client process | |
client_prefix |
1 if prefix key has been pressed | |
client_readonly |
1 if client is read-only | |
client_session |
Name of the client's session | |
client_termfeatures |
Terminal features of client, if any | |
client_termname |
Terminal name of client | |
client_termtype |
Terminal type of client, if available | |
client_tty |
Pseudo terminal of client | |
client_uid |
UID of client process | |
client_user |
User of client process | |
client_utf8 |
1 if client supports UTF-8 | |
client_width |
Width of client | |
client_written |
Bytes written to client | |
command |
Name of command in use, if any | |
command_list_alias |
Command alias if listing commands | |
command_list_name |
Command name if listing commands | |
command_list_usage |
Command usage if listing commands | |
config_files |
List of configuration files loaded | |
copy_cursor_hyperlink |
Hyperlink under cursor in copy mode | |
copy_cursor_line |
Line the cursor is on in copy mode | |
copy_cursor_word |
Word under cursor in copy mode | |
copy_cursor_x |
Cursor X position in copy mode | |
copy_cursor_y |
Cursor Y position in copy mode | |
current_file |
Current configuration file | |
cursor_character |
Character at cursor in pane | |
cursor_flag |
Pane cursor flag | |
cursor_x |
Cursor X position in pane | |
cursor_y |
Cursor Y position in pane | |
history_bytes |
Number of bytes in window history | |
history_limit |
Maximum window history lines | |
history_size |
Size of history in lines | |
hook |
Name of running hook, if any | |
hook_client |
Name of client where hook was run, if any | |
hook_pane |
ID of pane where hook was run, if any | |
hook_session |
ID of session where hook was run, if any | |
hook_session_name |
Name of session where hook was run, if any | |
hook_window |
ID of window where hook was run, if any | |
hook_window_name |
Name of window where hook was run, if any | |
host |
#H | Hostname of local host |
host_short |
#h | Hostname of local host (no domain name) |
insert_flag |
Pane insert flag | |
keypad_cursor_flag |
Pane keypad cursor flag | |
keypad_flag |
Pane keypad flag | |
last_window_index |
Index of last window in session | |
line |
Line number in the list | |
mouse_all_flag |
Pane mouse all flag | |
mouse_any_flag |
Pane mouse any flag | |
mouse_button_flag |
Pane mouse button flag | |
mouse_hyperlink |
Hyperlink under mouse, if any | |
mouse_line |
Line under mouse, if any | |
mouse_sgr_flag |
Pane mouse SGR flag | |
mouse_standard_flag |
Pane mouse standard flag | |
mouse_status_line |
Status line on which mouse event took place | |
mouse_status_range |
Range type or argument of mouse event on status line | |
mouse_utf8_flag |
Pane mouse UTF-8 flag | |
mouse_word |
Word under mouse, if any | |
mouse_x |
Mouse X position, if any | |
mouse_y |
Mouse Y position, if any | |
next_session_id |
Unique session ID for next new session | |
origin_flag |
Pane origin flag | |
pane_active |
1 if active pane | |
pane_at_bottom |
1 if pane is at the bottom of window | |
pane_at_left |
1 if pane is at the left of window | |
pane_at_right |
1 if pane is at the right of window | |
pane_at_top |
1 if pane is at the top of window | |
pane_bg |
Pane background colour | |
pane_bottom |
Bottom of pane | |
pane_current_command |
Current command if available | |
pane_current_path |
Current path if available | |
pane_dead |
1 if pane is dead | |
pane_dead_signal |
Exit signal of process in dead pane | |
pane_dead_status |
Exit status of process in dead pane | |
pane_dead_time |
Exit time of process in dead pane | |
pane_fg |
Pane foreground colour | |
pane_format |
1 if format is for a pane | |
pane_height |
Height of pane | |
pane_id |
#D | Unique pane ID |
pane_in_mode |
1 if pane is in a mode | |
pane_index |
#P | Index of pane |
pane_input_off |
1 if input to pane is disabled | |
pane_key_mode |
Extended key reporting mode in this pane | |
pane_last |
1 if last pane | |
pane_left |
Left of pane | |
pane_marked |
1 if this is the marked pane | |
pane_marked_set |
1 if a marked pane is set | |
pane_mode |
Name of pane mode, if any | |
pane_path |
Path of pane (can be set by application) | |
pane_pid |
PID of first process in pane | |
pane_pipe |
1 if pane is being piped | |
pane_right |
Right of pane | |
pane_search_string |
Last search string in copy mode | |
pane_start_command |
Command pane started with | |
pane_start_path |
Path pane started with | |
pane_synchronized |
1 if pane is synchronized | |
pane_tabs |
Pane tab positions | |
pane_title |
#T | Title of pane (can be set by application) |
pane_top |
Top of pane | |
pane_tty |
Pseudo terminal of pane | |
pane_unseen_changes |
1 if there were changes in pane while in mode | |
pane_width |
Width of pane | |
pid |
Server PID | |
rectangle_toggle |
1 if rectangle selection is activated | |
scroll_position |
Scroll position in copy mode | |
scroll_region_lower |
Bottom of scroll region in pane | |
scroll_region_upper |
Top of scroll region in pane | |
search_count |
Count of search results | |
search_count_partial |
1 if search count is partial count | |
search_match |
Search match if any | |
search_present |
1 if search started in copy mode | |
selection_active |
1 if selection started and changes with the cursor in copy mode | |
selection_end_x |
X position of the end of the selection | |
selection_end_y |
Y position of the end of the selection | |
selection_present |
1 if selection started in copy mode | |
selection_start_x |
X position of the start of the selection | |
selection_start_y |
Y position of the start of the selection | |
server_sessions |
Number of sessions | |
session_activity |
Time of session last activity | |
session_alerts |
List of window indexes with alerts | |
session_attached |
Number of clients session is attached to | |
session_attached_list |
List of clients session is attached to | |
session_created |
Time session created | |
session_format |
1 if format is for a session | |
session_group |
Name of session group | |
session_group_attached |
Number of clients sessions in group are attached to | |
session_group_attached_list |
List of clients sessions in group are attached to | |
session_group_list |
List of sessions in group | |
session_group_many_attached |
1 if multiple clients attached to sessions in group | |
session_group_size |
Size of session group | |
session_grouped |
1 if session in a group | |
session_id |
Unique session ID | |
session_last_attached |
Time session last attached | |
session_many_attached |
1 if multiple clients attached | |
session_marked |
1 if this session contains the marked pane | |
session_name |
#S | Name of session |
session_path |
Working directory of session | |
session_stack |
Window indexes in most recent order | |
session_windows |
Number of windows in session | |
socket_path |
Server socket path | |
sixel_support |
1 if server has support for SIXEL | |
start_time |
Server start time | |
uid |
Server UID | |
user |
Server user | |
version |
Server version | |
window_active |
1 if window active | |
window_active_clients |
Number of clients viewing this window | |
window_active_clients_list |
List of clients viewing this window | |
window_active_sessions |
Number of sessions on which this window is active | |
window_active_sessions_list |
List of sessions on which this window is active | |
window_activity |
Time of window last activity | |
window_activity_flag |
1 if window has activity | |
window_bell_flag |
1 if window has bell | |
window_bigger |
1 if window is larger than client | |
window_cell_height |
Height of each cell in pixels | |
window_cell_width |
Width of each cell in pixels | |
window_end_flag |
1 if window has the highest index | |
window_flags |
#F | Window flags with # escaped as ## |
window_format |
1 if format is for a window | |
window_height |
Height of window | |
window_id |
Unique window ID | |
window_index |
#I | Index of window |
window_last_flag |
1 if window is the last used | |
window_layout |
Window layout description, ignoring zoomed window panes | |
window_linked |
1 if window is linked across sessions | |
window_linked_sessions |
Number of sessions this window is linked to | |
window_linked_sessions_list |
List of sessions this window is linked to | |
window_marked_flag |
1 if window contains the marked pane | |
window_name |
#W | Name of window |
window_offset_x |
X offset into window if larger than client | |
window_offset_y |
Y offset into window if larger than client | |
window_panes |
Number of panes in window | |
window_raw_flags |
Window flags with nothing escaped | |
window_silence_flag |
1 if window has silence alert | |
window_stack_index |
Index in session most recent stack | |
window_start_flag |
1 if window has the lowest index | |
window_visible_layout |
Window layout description, respecting zoomed window panes | |
window_width |
Width of window | |
window_zoomed_flag |
1 if window is zoomed | |
wrap_flag |
Pane wrap flag |
STYLES
tmux
offers various options to specify the
colour and attributes of aspects of the interface, for example
status-style
for the status line. In addition,
embedded styles may be specified in format options, such as
status-left
, by enclosing them in
‘#[
’ and
‘]
’.
A style may be the single term
‘default
’ to specify the default style
(which may come from an option, for example
status-style
in the status line) or a space or comma
separated list of the following:
fg=colour
- Set the foreground colour. The colour is one of:
black
,red
,green
,yellow
,blue
,magenta
,cyan
,white
; if supported the bright variantsbrightred
,brightgreen
,brightyellow
;colour0
tocolour255
from the 256-colour set;default
for the default colour;terminal
for the terminal default colour; or a hexadecimal RGB string such as ‘#ffffff
’. bg=colour
- Set the background colour.
us=colour
- Set the underscore colour.
none
- Set no attributes (turn off any active attributes).
acs
,bright
(orbold
),dim
,underscore
,blink
,reverse
,hidden
,italics
,overline
,strikethrough
,double-underscore
,curly-underscore
,dotted-underscore
,dashed-underscore
- Set an attribute. Any of the attributes may be prefixed with
‘
no
’ to unset.acs
is the terminal alternate character set. align=left
(ornoalign
),align=centre
,align=right
- Align text to the left, centre or right of the available space if appropriate.
fill=colour
- Fill the available space with a background colour if appropriate.
list=on
,list=focus
,list=left-marker
,list=right-marker
,nolist
- Mark the position of the various window list components in the
status-format
option:list=on
marks the start of the list;list=focus
is the part of the list that should be kept in focus if the entire list won't fit in the available space (typically the current window);list=left-marker
andlist=right-marker
mark the text to be used to mark that text has been trimmed from the left or right of the list if there is not enough space. push-default
,pop-default
- Store the current colours and attributes as the default or reset to the
previous default. A
push-default
affects any subsequent use of thedefault
term until apop-default
. Only one default may be pushed (eachpush-default
replaces the previous saved default). range=left
,range=right
,range=session|X
,range=window|X
,range=pane|X
,range=user|X
,norange
- Mark a range for mouse events in the
status-format
option. When a mouse event occurs in therange=left
orrange=right
range, the ‘StatusLeft
’ and ‘StatusRight
’ key bindings are triggered.range=session|X
,range=window|X
andrange=pane|X
are ranges for a session, window or pane. These trigger the ‘Status
’ mouse key with the target session, window or pane given by the ‘X
’ argument. ‘X
’ is a session ID, window index in the current session or a pane ID. For these, themouse_status_range
format variable will be set to ‘session
’, ‘window
’ or ‘pane
’.range=user|X
is a user-defined range; it triggers the ‘Status
’ mouse key. The argument ‘X
’ will be available in themouse_status_range
format variable. ‘X
’ must be at most 15 bytes in length.
Examples are:
fg=yellow bold underscore blink bg=black,fg=default,noreverse
NAMES AND TITLES
tmux
distinguishes between names and
titles. Windows and sessions have names, which may be used to specify them
in targets and are displayed in the status line and various lists: the name
is the tmux
identifier for a window or session. Only
panes have titles. A pane's title is typically set by the program running
inside the pane using an escape sequence (like it would set the
xterm(1)
window title in X(7)). Windows themselves do not have titles - a window's title is
the title of its active pane. tmux
itself may set
the title of the terminal in which the client is running, see the
set-titles
option.
A session's name is set with the
new-session
and
rename-session
commands. A window's name is set with
one of:
- A command argument (such as
-n
fornew-window
ornew-session
). - An escape sequence (if the
allow-rename
option is turned on):$ printf '\033kWINDOW_NAME\033\\'
- Automatic renaming, which sets the name to the active command in the
window's active pane. See the
automatic-rename
option.
When a pane is first created, its title is the hostname. A pane's title can be set via the title setting escape sequence, for example:
$ printf '\033]2;My Title\033\\'
It can also be modified with the
select-pane
-T
command.
GLOBAL AND SESSION ENVIRONMENT
When the server is started, tmux
copies
the environment into the
global
environment; in addition, each session has a session
environment. When a window is created, the session and global
environments are merged. If a variable exists in both, the value from the
session environment is used. The result is the initial environment passed to
the new process.
The update-environment
session option may
be used to update the session environment from the client when a new session
is created or an old reattached. tmux
also
initialises the TMUX
variable with some internal
information to allow commands to be executed from inside, and the
TERM
variable with the correct terminal setting of
‘screen
’.
Variables in both session and global environments may be marked as hidden. Hidden variables are not passed into the environment of new processes and instead can only be used by tmux itself (for example in formats, see the FORMATS section).
Commands to alter and view the environment are:
set-environment
[-Fhgru
] [-t
target-session] name [value]-
(alias:Set or unset an environment variable. If
setenv
)-g
is used, the change is made in the global environment; otherwise, it is applied to the session environment for target-session. If-F
is present, then value is expanded as a format. The-u
flag unsets a variable.-r
indicates the variable is to be removed from the environment before starting a new process.-h
marks the variable as hidden. show-environment
[-hgs
] [-t
target-session] [variable]-
(alias:Display the environment for target-session or the global environment with
showenv
)-g
. If variable is omitted, all variables are shown. Variables removed from the environment are prefixed with ‘-
’. If-s
is used, the output is formatted as a set of Bourne shell commands.-h
shows hidden variables (omitted by default).
STATUS LINE
tmux
includes an optional status line
which is displayed in the bottom line of each terminal.
By default, the status line is enabled and one line in height (it
may be disabled or made multiple lines with the
status
session option) and contains, from
left-to-right: the name of the current session in square brackets; the
window list; the title of the active pane in double quotes; and the time and
date.
Each line of the status line is configured with the
status-format
option. The default is made of three
parts: configurable left and right sections (which may contain dynamic
content such as the time or output from a shell command, see the
status-left
,
status-left-length
,
status-right
, and
status-right-length
options below), and a central
window list. By default, the window list shows the index, name and (if any)
flag of the windows present in the current session in ascending numerical
order. It may be customised with the
window-status-format and
window-status-current-format options. The flag is one
of the following symbols appended to the window name:
Symbol | Meaning |
* |
Denotes the current window. |
- |
Marks the last window (previously selected). |
# |
Window activity is monitored and activity has been detected. |
! |
Window bells are monitored and a bell has occurred in the window. |
~ |
The window has been silent for the monitor-silence interval. |
M |
The window contains the marked pane. |
Z |
The window's active pane is zoomed. |
The # symbol relates to the
monitor-activity
window option. The window name is
printed in inverted colours if an alert (bell, activity or silence) is
present.
The colour and attributes of the status line may be configured,
the entire status line using the status-style
session option and individual windows using the
window-status-style
window option.
The status line is automatically refreshed at interval if it has
changed, the interval may be controlled with the
status-interval
session option.
Commands related to the status line are as follows:
clear-prompt-history
[-T
prompt-type]-
(alias:Clear status prompt history for prompt type prompt-type. If
clearphist
)-T
is omitted, then clear history for all types. Seecommand-prompt
for possible values for prompt-type. command-prompt
[-1bFikN
] [-I
inputs] [-p
prompts] [-t
target-client] [-T
prompt-type] [template]- Open the command prompt in a client. This may be used from inside
tmux
to execute commands interactively.If template is specified, it is used as the command. With
-F
, template is expanded as a format.If present,
-I
is a comma-separated list of the initial text for each prompt. If-p
is given, prompts is a comma-separated list of prompts which are displayed in order; otherwise a single prompt is displayed, constructed from template if it is present, or ‘:
’ if not.Before the command is executed, the first occurrence of the string ‘
%%
’ and all occurrences of ‘%1
’ are replaced by the response to the first prompt, all ‘%2
’ are replaced with the response to the second prompt, and so on for further prompts. Up to nine prompt responses may be replaced (‘%1
’ to ‘%9
’). ‘%%%
’ is like ‘%%
’ but any quotation marks are escaped.-1
makes the prompt only accept one key press, in this case the resulting input is a single character.-k
is like-1
but the key press is translated to a key name.-N
makes the prompt only accept numeric key presses.-i
executes the command every time the prompt input changes instead of when the user exits the command prompt.-T
tellstmux
the prompt type. This affects what completions are offered when Tab is pressed. Available types are: ‘command
’, ‘search
’, ‘target
’ and ‘window-target
’.The following keys have a special meaning in the command prompt, depending on the value of the
status-keys
option:Function vi emacs Cancel command prompt
q Escape Delete from cursor to start of word
C-w Delete entire command
d C-u Delete from cursor to end
D C-k Execute command
Enter Enter Get next command from history
Down Get previous command from history
Up Insert top paste buffer
p C-y Look for completions
Tab Tab Move cursor left
h Left Move cursor right
l Right Move cursor to end
$ C-e Move cursor to next word
w M-f Move cursor to previous word
b M-b Move cursor to start
0 C-a Transpose characters
C-t With
-b
, the prompt is shown in the background and the invoking client does not exit until it is dismissed. confirm-before
[-by
] [-c
confirm-key] [-p
prompt] [-t
target-client] command-
(alias:Ask for confirmation before executing command. If
confirm
)-p
is given, prompt is the prompt to display; otherwise a prompt is constructed from command. It may contain the special character sequences supported by thestatus-left
option. With-b
, the prompt is shown in the background and the invoking client does not exit until it is dismissed.-y
changes the default behaviour (if Enter alone is pressed) of the prompt to run the command.-c
changes the confirmation key to confirm-key; the default is ‘y
’. -
(alias:Display a menu on target-client. target-pane gives the target for any commands run from the menu.
menu
)A menu is passed as a series of arguments: first the menu item name, second the key shortcut (or empty for none) and third the command to run when the menu item is chosen. The name and command are formats, see the FORMATS and STYLES sections. If the name begins with a hyphen (-), then the item is disabled (shown dim) and may not be chosen. The name may be empty for a separator line, in which case both the key and command should be omitted.
-b
sets the type of characters used for drawing menu borders. Seepopup-border-lines
for possible values for border-lines.-H
sets the style for the selected menu item (see STYLES).-s
sets the style for the menu and-S
sets the style for the menu border (see STYLES).-T
is a format for the menu title (see FORMATS).-C
sets the menu item selected by default, if the menu is not bound to a mouse key binding.-x
and-y
give the position of the menu. Both may be a row or column number, or one of the following special values:Value Flag Meaning C
Both The centre of the terminal R
-x
The right side of the terminal P
Both The bottom left of the pane M
Both The mouse position W
Both The window position on the status line S
-y
The line above or below the status line Or a format, which is expanded including the following additional variables:
Variable name Replaced with popup_centre_x
Centered in the client popup_centre_y
Centered in the client popup_height
Height of menu or popup popup_mouse_bottom
Bottom of at the mouse popup_mouse_centre_x
Horizontal centre at the mouse popup_mouse_centre_y
Vertical centre at the mouse popup_mouse_top
Top at the mouse popup_mouse_x
Mouse X position popup_mouse_y
Mouse Y position popup_pane_bottom
Bottom of the pane popup_pane_left
Left of the pane popup_pane_right
Right of the pane popup_pane_top
Top of the pane popup_status_line_y
Above or below the status line popup_width
Width of menu or popup popup_window_status_line_x
At the window position in status line popup_window_status_line_y
At the status line showing the window Each menu consists of items followed by a key shortcut shown in brackets. If the menu is too large to fit on the terminal, it is not displayed. Pressing the key shortcut chooses the corresponding item. If the mouse is enabled and the menu is opened from a mouse key binding, releasing the mouse button with an item selected chooses that item and releasing the mouse button without an item selected closes the menu.
-O
changes this behaviour so that the menu does not close when the mouse button is released without an item selected the menu is not closed and a mouse button must be clicked to choose an item.-M
tellstmux
the menu should handle mouse events; by default only menus opened from mouse key bindings do so.The following keys are available in menus:
Key Function Enter
Choose selected item Up
Select previous item Down
Select next item q
Exit menu display-message
[-aIlNpv
] [-c
target-client] [-d
delay] [-t
target-pane] [message]-
(alias:Display a message. If
display
)-p
is given, the output is printed to stdout, otherwise it is displayed in the target-client status line for up to delay milliseconds. If delay is not given, thedisplay-time
option is used; a delay of zero waits for a key press. ‘N
’ ignores key presses and closes only after the delay expires. If-l
is given, message is printed unchanged. Otherwise, the format of message is described in the FORMATS section; information is taken from target-pane if-t
is given, otherwise the active pane.-v
prints verbose logging as the format is parsed and-a
lists the format variables and their values.-I
forwards any input read from stdin to the empty pane given by target-pane. display-popup
[-BCE
] [-b
border-lines] [-c
target-client] [-d
start-directory] [-e
environment] [-h
height] [-s
border-style] [-S
style] [-t
target-pane] [-T
title] [-w
width] [-x
position] [-y
position] [shell-command]-
(alias:Display a popup running shell-command on target-client. A popup is a rectangular box drawn over the top of any panes. Panes are not updated while a popup is present.
popup
)-E
closes the popup automatically when shell-command exits. Two-E
closes the popup only if shell-command exited with success.-x
and-y
give the position of the popup, they have the same meaning as for thedisplay-menu
command.-w
and-h
give the width and height - both may be a percentage (followed by ‘%
’). If omitted, half of the terminal size is used.-B
does not surround the popup by a border.-b
sets the type of characters used for drawing popup borders. When-B
is specified, the-b
option is ignored. Seepopup-border-lines
for possible values for border-lines.-s
sets the style for the popup and-S
sets the style for the popup border (see STYLES).-e
takes the form ‘VARIABLE=value
’ and sets an environment variable for the popup; it may be specified multiple times.-T
is a format for the popup title (see FORMATS).The
-C
flag closes any popup on the client. show-prompt-history
[-T
prompt-type]-
(alias:Display status prompt history for prompt type prompt-type. If
showphist
)-T
is omitted, then show history for all types. Seecommand-prompt
for possible values for prompt-type.
BUFFERS
tmux
maintains a set of named
paste buffers. Each buffer may be either explicitly or
automatically named. Explicitly named buffers are named when created with
the set-buffer
or
load-buffer
commands, or by renaming an
automatically named buffer with set-buffer
-n
. Automatically named buffers are given a name
such as ‘buffer0001
’,
‘buffer0002
’ and so on. When the
buffer-limit
option is reached, the oldest
automatically named buffer is deleted. Explicitly named buffers are not
subject to buffer-limit
and may be deleted with the
delete-buffer
command.
Buffers may be added using copy-mode
or
the set-buffer
and
load-buffer
commands, and pasted into a window using
the paste-buffer
command. If a buffer command is
used and no buffer is specified, the most recently added automatically named
buffer is assumed.
A configurable history buffer is also maintained for each window.
By default, up to 2000 lines are kept; this can be altered with the
history-limit
option (see the
set-option
command above).
The buffer commands are as follows:
choose-buffer
[-NryZ
] [-F
format] [-f
filter] [-K
key-format] [-O
sort-order] [-t
target-pane] [template]- Put a pane into buffer mode, where a buffer may be chosen interactively
from a list. Each buffer is shown on one line. A shortcut key is shown on
the left in brackets allowing for immediate choice, or the list may be
navigated and an item chosen or otherwise manipulated using the keys
below.
-Z
zooms the pane.-y
disables any confirmation prompts. The following keys may be used in buffer mode:Key Function Enter
Paste selected buffer Up
Select previous buffer Down
Select next buffer C-s
Search by name or content n
Repeat last search forwards N
Repeat last search backwards t
Toggle if buffer is tagged T
Tag no buffers C-t
Tag all buffers p
Paste selected buffer P
Paste tagged buffers d
Delete selected buffer D
Delete tagged buffers e
Open the buffer in an editor f
Enter a format to filter items O
Change sort field r
Reverse sort order v
Toggle preview q
Exit mode After a buffer is chosen, ‘
%%
’ is replaced by the buffer name in template and the result executed as a command. If template is not given, "paste-buffer -p -b '%%'" is used.-O
specifies the initial sort field: one of ‘time
’ (creation), ‘name
’ or ‘size
’.-r
reverses the sort order.-f
specifies an initial filter: the filter is a format - if it evaluates to zero, the item in the list is not shown, otherwise it is shown. If a filter would lead to an empty list, it is ignored.-F
specifies the format for each item in the list and-K
a format for each shortcut key; both are evaluated once for each line.-N
starts without the preview. This command works only if at least one client is attached. clear-history
[-H
] [-t
target-pane]-
(alias:Remove and free the history for the specified pane.
clearhist
)-H
also removes all hyperlinks. delete-buffer
[-b
buffer-name]-
(alias:Delete the buffer named buffer-name, or the most recently added automatically named buffer if not specified.
deleteb
) list-buffers
[-F
format] [-f
filter]-
(alias:List the global buffers.
lsb
)-F
specifies the format of each line and-f
a filter. Only buffers for which the filter is true are shown. See the FORMATS section. load-buffer
[-w
] [-b
buffer-name] [-t
target-client] path-
(alias:Load the contents of the specified paste buffer from path. If
loadb
)-w
is given, the buffer is also sent to the clipboard for target-client using the xterm(1) escape sequence, if possible. If path is ‘-
’, the contents are read from stdin. paste-buffer
[-dpr
] [-b
buffer-name] [-s
separator] [-t
target-pane]-
(alias:Insert the contents of a paste buffer into the specified pane. If not specified, paste into the current one. With
pasteb
)-d
, also delete the paste buffer. When output, any linefeed (LF) characters in the paste buffer are replaced with a separator, by default carriage return (CR). A custom separator may be specified using the-s
flag. The-r
flag means to do no replacement (equivalent to a separator of LF). If-p
is specified, paste bracket control codes are inserted around the buffer if the application has requested bracketed paste mode. save-buffer
[-a
] [-b
buffer-name] path-
(alias:Save the contents of the specified paste buffer to path. The
saveb
)-a
option appends to rather than overwriting the file. If path is ‘-
’, the contents are written to stdout. set-buffer
[-aw
] [-b
buffer-name] [-t
target-client] [-n
new-buffer-name] data-
(alias:Set the contents of the specified buffer to data. If
setb
)-w
is given, the buffer is also sent to the clipboard for target-client using the xterm(1) escape sequence, if possible. The-a
option appends to rather than overwriting the buffer. The-n
option renames the buffer to new-buffer-name. show-buffer
[-b
buffer-name]-
(alias:Display the contents of the specified buffer.
showb
)
MISCELLANEOUS
Miscellaneous commands are as follows:
clock-mode
[-t
target-pane]- Display a large clock.
if-shell
[-bF
] [-t
target-pane] shell-command command [command]-
(alias:Execute the first command if shell-command (run with /bin/sh) returns success or the second command otherwise. Before being executed, shell-command is expanded using the rules specified in the FORMATS section, including those relevant to target-pane. With
if
)-b
, shell-command is run in the background.If
-F
is given, shell-command is not executed but considered success if neither empty nor zero (after formats are expanded). lock-server
-
(alias:Lock each client individually by running the command specified by the
lock
)lock-command
option. run-shell
[-bC
] [-c
start-directory] [-d
delay] [-t
target-pane] [shell-command]-
(alias:Execute shell-command using /bin/sh or (with
run
)-C
) atmux
command in the background without creating a window. Before being executed, shell-command is expanded using the rules specified in the FORMATS section. With-b
, the command is run in the background.-d
waits for delay seconds before starting the command. If-c
is given, the current working directory is set to start-directory. If-C
is not given, any output to stdout is displayed in view mode (in the pane specified by-t
or the current pane if omitted) after the command finishes. If the command fails, the exit status is also displayed. wait-for
[-L
|-S
|-U
] channel-
(alias:When used without options, prevents the client from exiting until woken using
wait
)wait-for
-S
with the same channel. When-L
is used, the channel is locked and any clients that try to lock the same channel are made to wait until the channel is unlocked withwait-for
-U
.
EXIT MESSAGES
When a tmux
client detaches, it prints a
message. This may be one of:
- detached (from session ...)
- The client was detached normally.
- detached and SIGHUP
- The client was detached and its parent sent the
SIGHUP
signal (for example withdetach-client
-P
). - lost tty
- The client's tty(4) or pty(4) was unexpectedly destroyed.
- terminated
- The client was killed with
SIGTERM
. - too far behind
- The client is in control mode and became unable to keep up with the data
from
tmux
. - exited
- The server exited when it had no sessions.
- server exited
- The server exited when it received
SIGTERM
. - server exited unexpectedly
- The server crashed or otherwise exited without telling the client the reason.
TERMINFO EXTENSIONS
tmux
understands some unofficial
extensions to terminfo(5). It is not normally necessary to set these manually,
instead the terminal-features
option should be
used.
- AX
- An existing extension that tells
tmux
the terminal supports default colours. - Bidi
- Tell
tmux
that the terminal supports the VTE bidirectional text extensions. - Cs, Cr
- Set the cursor colour. The first takes a single string argument and is
used to set the colour; the second takes no arguments and restores the
default cursor colour. If set, a sequence such as this may be used to
change the cursor colour from inside
tmux
:$ printf '\033]12;red\033\\'
The colour is an X(7) colour, see XParseColor(3).
- Cmg, Clmg, Dsmg, Enmg
- Set, clear, disable or enable DECSLRM margins. These are set automatically if the terminal reports it is VT420 compatible.
- Dsbp, Enbp
- Disable and enable bracketed paste. These are set automatically if the XT capability is present.
- Dseks, Eneks
- Disable and enable extended keys.
- Dsfcs, Enfcs
- Disable and enable focus reporting. These are set automatically if the XT capability is present.
- Hls
- Set or clear a hyperlink annotation.
- Nobr
- Tell
tmux
that the terminal does not use bright colors for bold display. - Rect
- Tell
tmux
that the terminal supports rectangle operations. - Smol
- Enable the overline attribute.
- Smulx
- Set a styled underscore. The single parameter is one of: 0 for no underscore, 1 for normal underscore, 2 for double underscore, 3 for curly underscore, 4 for dotted underscore and 5 for dashed underscore.
- Setulc, Setulc1, ol
- Set the underscore colour or reset to the default. Setulc is for RGB colours and Setulc1 for ANSI or 256 colours. The Setulc argument is (red * 65536) + (green * 256) + blue where each is between 0 and 255.
- Ss, Se
- Set or reset the cursor style. If set, a sequence such as this may be used
to change the cursor to an underline:
$ printf '\033[4 q'
If Se is not set, Ss with argument 0 will be used to reset the cursor style instead.
- Swd
- Set the opening sequence for the working directory notification. The sequence is terminated using the standard fsl capability.
- Sxl
- Indicates that the terminal supports SIXEL.
- Sync
- Start (parameter is 1) or end (parameter is 2) a synchronized update.
- Tc
- Indicate that the terminal supports the ‘
direct colour
’ RGB escape sequence (for example, \e[38;2;255;255;255m).If supported, this is used for the initialize colour escape sequence (which may be enabled by adding the ‘
initc
’ and ‘ccc
’ capabilities to thetmux
terminfo(5) entry).This is equivalent to the RGB terminfo(5) capability.
- Ms
- Store the current buffer in the host terminal's selection (clipboard). See the set-clipboard option above and the xterm(1) man page.
- XT
- This is an existing extension capability that tmux uses to mean that the terminal supports the xterm(1) title set sequences and to automatically set some of the capabilities above.
CONTROL MODE
tmux
offers a textual interface called
control
mode. This allows applications to communicate with
tmux
using a simple text-only protocol.
In control mode, a client sends tmux
commands or command sequences terminated by newlines on standard input. Each
command will produce one block of output on standard output. An output block
consists of a %begin line followed by the output (which
may be empty). The output block ends with a %end or
%error. %begin and matching
%end or %error have three arguments: an
integer time (as seconds from epoch), command number and flags (currently
not used). For example:
%begin 1363006971 2 1 0: ksh* (1 panes) [80x24] [layout b25f,80x24,0,0,2] @2 (active) %end 1363006971 2 1
The refresh-client
-C
command may be used to set the size of a client
in control mode.
In control mode, tmux
outputs
notifications. A notification will never occur inside an output block.
The following notifications are defined:
%client-detached
client- The client has detached.
%client-session-changed
client session-id name- The client is now attached to the session with ID session-id, which is named name.
%config-error
error- An error has happened in a configuration file.
%continue
pane-id- The pane has been continued after being paused (if the
pause-after flag is set, see
refresh-client
-A
). %exit
[reason]- The
tmux
client is exiting immediately, either because it is not attached to any session or an error occurred. If present, reason describes why the client exited. %extended-output
pane-id age ... : value- New form of
%output
sent when the pause-after flag is set. age is the time in milliseconds for which tmux had buffered the output before it was sent. Any subsequent arguments up until a single ‘:
’ are for future use and should be ignored. %layout-change
window-id window-layout window-visible-layout window-flags- The layout of a window with ID window-id changed. The new layout is window-layout. The window's visible layout is window-visible-layout and the window flags are window-flags.
%message
message- A message sent with the
display-message
command. %output
pane-id value- A window pane produced output. value escapes non-printable characters and backslash as octal \xxx.
%pane-mode-changed
pane-id- The pane with ID pane-id has changed mode.
%paste-buffer-changed
name- Paste buffer name has been changed.
%paste-buffer-deleted
name- Paste buffer name has been deleted.
%pause
pane-id- The pane has been paused (if the pause-after flag is set).
%session-changed
session-id name- The client is now attached to the session with ID session-id, which is named name.
%session-renamed
name- The current session was renamed to name.
%session-window-changed
session-id window-id- The session with ID session-id changed its active window to the window with ID window-id.
%sessions-changed
- A session was created or destroyed.
%subscription-changed
name session-id window-id window-index pane-id ... : value- The value of the format associated with subscription
name has changed to value. See
refresh-client
-B
. Any arguments after pane-id up until a single ‘:
’ are for future use and should be ignored. %unlinked-window-add
window-id- The window with ID window-id was created but is not linked to the current session.
%unlinked-window-close
window-id- The window with ID window-id, which is not linked to the current session, was closed.
%unlinked-window-renamed
window-id- The window with ID window-id, which is not linked to the current session, was renamed.
%window-add
window-id- The window with ID window-id was linked to the current session.
%window-close
window-id- The window with ID window-id closed.
%window-pane-changed
window-id pane-id- The active pane in the window with ID window-id changed to the pane with ID pane-id.
%window-renamed
window-id name- The window with ID window-id was renamed to name.
ENVIRONMENT
When tmux
is started, it inspects the
following environment variables:
EDITOR
- If the command specified in this variable contains the string
‘
vi
’ andVISUAL
is unset, use vi-style key bindings. Overridden by themode-keys
andstatus-keys
options. HOME
- The user's login directory. If unset, the passwd(5) database is consulted.
LC_CTYPE
- The character encoding locale(1). It is used for two separate purposes. For output
to the terminal, UTF-8 is used if the
-u
option is given or ifLC_CTYPE
contains "UTF-8" or "UTF8". Otherwise, only ASCII characters are written and non-ASCII characters are replaced with underscores (‘_
’). For input,tmux
always runs with a UTF-8 locale. If en_US.UTF-8 is provided by the operating system, it is used andLC_CTYPE
is ignored for input. Otherwise,LC_CTYPE
tellstmux
what the UTF-8 locale is called on the current system. If the locale specified byLC_CTYPE
is not available or is not a UTF-8 locale,tmux
exits with an error message. LC_TIME
- The date and time format locale(1). It is used for locale-dependent strftime(3) format specifiers.
PWD
- The current working directory to be set in the global environment. This may be useful if it contains symbolic links. If the value of the variable does not match the current working directory, the variable is ignored and the result of getcwd(3) is used instead.
SHELL
- The absolute path to the default shell for new windows. See the
default-shell
option for details. TMUX_TMPDIR
- The parent directory of the directory containing the server sockets. See
the
-L
option for details. VISUAL
- If the command specified in this variable contains the string
‘
vi
’, use vi-style key bindings. Overridden by themode-keys
andstatus-keys
options.
FILES
- ~/.tmux.conf
- Default
tmux
configuration file. - /etc/tmux.conf
- System-wide configuration file.
EXAMPLES
To create a new tmux
session running
vi(1):
$ tmux new-session vi
Most commands have a shorter form, known as an alias. For
new-session, this is new
:
$ tmux new vi
Alternatively, the shortest unambiguous form of a command is accepted. If there are several options, they are listed:
$ tmux n ambiguous command: n, could be: new-session, new-window, next-window
Within an active session, a new window may be created by typing
‘C-b c
’ (Ctrl followed by the
‘b
’ key followed by the
‘c
’ key).
Windows may be navigated with: ‘C-b
0
’ (to select window 0), ‘C-b
1
’ (to select window 1), and so on;
‘C-b n
’ to select the next window; and
‘C-b p
’ to select the previous
window.
A session may be detached using ‘C-b
d
’ (or by an external event such as
ssh(1)
disconnection) and reattached with:
$ tmux attach-session
Typing ‘C-b ?
’ lists the
current key bindings in the current window; up and down may be used to
navigate the list or ‘q
’ to exit from
it.
Commands to be run when the tmux
server is
started may be placed in the ~/.tmux.conf
configuration file. Common examples include:
Changing the default prefix key:
set-option -g prefix C-a unbind-key C-b bind-key C-a send-prefix
Turning the status line off, or changing its colour:
set-option -g status off set-option -g status-style bg=blue
Setting other options, such as the default command, or locking after 30 minutes of inactivity:
set-option -g default-command "exec /bin/ksh" set-option -g lock-after-time 1800
Creating new key bindings:
bind-key b set-option status bind-key / command-prompt "split-window 'exec man %%'" bind-key S command-prompt "new-window -n %1 'ssh %1'"
SEE ALSO
AUTHORS
Nicholas Marriott <nicholas.marriott@gmail.com>