TMUX(1) General Commands Manual TMUX(1)
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 de-
tached 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 com-
mands.
A session is a single collection of pseudo terminals under the manage-
ment 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 neces-
sary, the tmux server will be started to retrieve the
default-shell option. This option is for compatibility
with sh(1) when tmux is used as a login shell.
-D Do not start the tmux server as a daemon. This also turns
the exit-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 configu-
ration file at ~/.tmux.conf or
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tmux/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. The source-file command may be used
to load a file later.
tmux shows any error messages from commands in configura-
tion files in the first session created, and continues to
process the rest of the configuration file.
-L socket-name
tmux stores the server socket in a directory under
TMUX_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 independent tmux 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 by TMUX_TMPDIR or in /tmp. The tmux-UID
directory is created by tmux and must not be world read-
able, writable or executable.
If the socket is accidentally removed, the SIGUSR1 signal
may be sent to the tmux 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 ef-
fect 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 or start-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 op-
tion.
-u Write UTF-8 output to the terminal even if the first envi-
ronment variable of LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, or LANG 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 every-
thing tmux writes to the terminal.
The SIGUSR2 signal may be sent to the tmux 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 com-
mands are specified, the new-session command is assumed.
DEFAULT KEY BINDINGS
tmux may be controlled from an attached client by using a key combina-
tion 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 interac-
tively.
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-5 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’, ‘-g’ is a flag and
‘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 argu-
ments. 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 or confirm-before.
To execute commands, each client has a ‘command queue’. A global com-
mand queue not attached to any client is used on startup for configura-
tion 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 immedi-
ately 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 exam-
ple 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 com-
mand in the sequence encounters an error, no subsequent commands are ex-
ecuted.
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 separa-
tor, 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:
1. 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’).
2. Individual semicolons or trailing semicolons that should be
interpreted as arguments should be escaped twice: once ac-
cording to the shell conventions and a second time for tmux;
for example:
$ tmux neww 'foo\\;' bar
$ tmux neww foo\\\\; bar
3. Semicolons that are not individual tokens or trailing another
token should only be escaped once according to shell conven-
tions; for example:
$ tmux neww 'foo-;-bar'
$ tmux neww foo-\\;-bar
Comments are marked by the unquoted # character - any remaining text af-
ter a comment is ignored until the end of the line.
If the last character of a line is \, the line is joined with the fol-
lowing 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 ar-
gument 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 per-
formed:
- 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 cor-
responding to the given four or eight digit hexadecimal num-
ber.
- 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 com-
mands as an argument (for example to if-shell). These two examples pro-
duce 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 ex-
panded 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 run-
ning 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 af-
fect.
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 speci-
fied, 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:
1. A session ID prefixed with a $.
2. An exact name of a session (as listed by the list-sessions
command).
3. The start of a session name, for example ‘mysess’ would match
a session named ‘mysession’.
4. An fnmatch(3) pattern which is matched against the session
name.
If the session name is prefixed with an ‘=’, only an exact match is ac-
cepted (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 re-
cently 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:
1. A special token, listed below.
2. A window index, for example ‘mysession:1’ is window 1 in ses-
sion ‘mysession’.
3. A window ID, such as @1.
4. An exact window name, such as ‘mysession:mywindow’.
5. The start of a window name, such as ‘mysession:mywin’.
6. As an fnmatch(3) pattern matched against the window name.
Like sessions, a ‘=’ prefix will do an exact match only. An empty win-
dow 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 win-
dows. 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 simi-
lar 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 ac-
tive 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 argu-
ment 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 is-
sues 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, link-
ing 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: attach)
If run from outside tmux, attach to target-session in the cur-
rent terminal. target-session must already exist - to create a
new session, see the new-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,
send SIGHUP to the parent process of the client as well as de-
taching 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-output
the client does not receive pane output in control mode
pause-after=seconds
output is paused once the pane is seconds behind in con-
trol 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 at-
tached. -r is an alias for -f read-only,ignore-size. When a
client is read-only, only keys bound to the detach-client or
switch-client commands have any effect. A client with the
active-pane flag allows the active pane to be selected indepen-
dently 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 con-
tinue 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 configura-
tion file.
The target-session rules for attach-session are slightly ad-
justed: if tmux 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, the update-environment option will not be ap-
plied.
detach-client [-aP] [-E shell-command] [-s target-session] [-t
target-client]
(alias: detach)
Detach the current client if bound to a key, the client speci-
fied with -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, send SIGHUP 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: has)
Report an error and exit with 1 if the specified session does
not exist. If it does exist, exit with 0.
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 win-
dows linked to the session.
list-clients [-F format] [-f filter] [-t target-session]
(alias: lsc)
List all clients attached to the server. -F specifies the for-
mat 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: lscm)
List the syntax of command or - if omitted - of all commands
supported by tmux.
list-sessions [-F format] [-f filter]
(alias: ls)
List all sessions managed by the server. -F specifies the for-
mat 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: lockc)
Lock target-client, see the lock-server command.
lock-session [-t target-session]
(alias: locks)
Lock all clients attached to target-session.
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: new)
Create a new session with name session-name.
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 global default-size option; -x and -y can be
used to specify a different size. ‘-’ uses the size of the cur-
rent client if any. If -x or -y is given, the default-size op-
tion is set for the session. -f sets a comma-separated list of
client flags (see attach-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 makes new-session behave like attach-session if
session-name already exists; if -A is given, -D behaves like -d
to attach-session, and -X behaves like -x to attach-session.
If -t is given, it specifies a session 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 re-
moved 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:
1. the name of an existing group, in which case the new
session is added to that group;
2. the name of an existing session - the new session is
added to the same group as that session, creating a new
group if necessary;
3. the name for a new group containing only the new ses-
sion.
-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, the update-environment option will not be ap-
plied. -e takes the form ‘VARIABLE=value’ and sets an environ-
ment 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)
Refresh the current client if bound to a key, or a single client
if one is given with -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 ses-
sion 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 ac-
tions 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 notifica-
tion, 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, see
attach-session. -r allows a control mode client to provide in-
formation 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) es-
cape 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 the window-size option.
rename-session [-t target-session] new-name
(alias: rename)
Rename the session to new-name.
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 per-
missions.
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 un-
trusted users even read-only.
show-messages [-JT] [-t target-client]
(alias: showmsgs)
Show server messages or information. Messages are stored, up to
a maximum of the limit set by the message-limit server option.
-J and -T show debugging information about jobs and terminals.
source-file [-Fnqv] [-t target-pane] path ...
(alias: source)
Execute commands from one or more files specified by path (which
may be glob(7) patterns). If -F is present, then path is ex-
panded 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 com-
mands are executed. -v shows the parsed commands and line num-
bers if possible.
start-server
(alias: start)
Start the tmux server, if not already running, without creating
any sessions.
Note that as by default the tmux server will exit with no ses-
sions, 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: suspendc)
Suspend a client by sending SIGTSTP (tty stop).
switch-client [-ElnprZ] [-c target-client] [-t target-session] [-T
key-table]
(alias: switchc)
Switch the current session for client target-client to
target-session. As a special case, -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
client read-only and ignore-size flags (see the attach-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 config-
ure multiple prefix keys, or to bind commands to sequences of
keys. For example, to make typing ‘abc’ run the list-keys com-
mand:
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. Win-
dows 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 num-
bered 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 an-
other window. This mode is entered with the copy-mode com-
mand, bound to ‘[’ by default. Copied text can be pasted with
the paste-buffer command, bound to ‘]’.
- View mode, which is like copy mode but is entered when a com-
mand 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 and choose-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 com-
mand. 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 com-
mand.
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 [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 [prefix]
Copy from the cursor position and exit copy mode.
copy-pipe-end-of-line [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 [command] [prefix]
Same as copy-pipe-end-of-line but also exit copy mode.
copy-line [prefix]
Copy the entire line.
copy-line-and-cancel [prefix]
Copy the entire line and exit copy mode.
copy-pipe-line [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 [command] [prefix]
Same as copy-pipe-line but also exit copy mode.
copy-pipe [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 [command] [prefix]
Same as copy-pipe but do not clear the selection.
copy-pipe-and-cancel [command] [prefix]
Same as copy-pipe but also exit copy mode.
copy-selection [prefix]
Copies the current selection.
copy-selection-no-clear [prefix]
Same as copy-selection but do not clear the selection.
copy-selection-and-cancel [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 bot-
tom.
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 separa-
tor.
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 bot-
tom.
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 separa-
tor.
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 ex-
pected to be used with the -i flag to the command-prompt com-
mand.
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 ex-
pected to be used with the -i flag to the command-prompt com-
mand.
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 direc-
tion (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.
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 ar-
gument which is the command to which the selected text is piped.
‘copy-pipe’ variants also copy the selection. The ‘-and-cancel’ vari-
ants of some commands exit copy mode after they have completed (for copy
commands) or when the cursor reaches the bottom (for scrolling com-
mands). ‘-no-clear’ variants do not clear the selection.
The next and previous word keys skip over whitespace and treat consecu-
tive 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 ‘/’ charac-
ter 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 [-deHMqu] [-s src-pane] [-t target-pane]
Enter copy mode. -u also scrolls one page up after entering and
-d one page down if already in copy mode. -M begins a mouse
drag (only valid if bound to a mouse key binding, see “MOUSE
SUPPORT”). -H hides the position indicator in the top right.
-q cancels copy mode and any other modes. -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 win-
dow.
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: breakp)
Break src-pane off from its containing window to make it the
only pane in dst-window. With -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 for-
mat ‘#{session_name}:#{window_index}.#{pane_index}’ but a dif-
ferent format may be specified with -F.
capture-pane [-aAepPqCJN] [-b buffer-name] [-E end-line] [-S start-line]
[-t target-pane]
(alias: capturep)
Capture the contents of a pane. If -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 back-
ground 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 im-
plies -T. -P captures only any output that the pane has re-
ceived that is the beginning of an as-yet incomplete escape se-
quence.
-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 [-NrZ] [-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 imme-
diate choice, or the list may be navigated and an item chosen or
otherwise manipulated using the keys below. -Z zooms the pane.
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, oth-
erwise 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.
choose-tree [-GNrswZ] [-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 win-
dows collapsed. -Z zooms the pane. 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. -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 ig-
nored. -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: displayp)
Display a visible indicator of each pane shown by target-client.
See the display-panes-colour and display-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 in-
dicator 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 "se-
lect-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: findw)
Search for a fnmatch(3) pattern or, with -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 ig-
nore 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: joinp)
Like split-window, but instead of splitting dst-pane and creat-
ing a new pane, split it and move src-pane into the space. This
can be used to reverse break-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 (see select-pane
-m), the marked pane is used rather than the current pane.
kill-pane [-a] [-t target-pane]
(alias: killp)
Destroy the given pane. If no panes remain in the containing
window, it is also destroyed. The -a option kills all but the
pane given with -t.
kill-window [-a] [-t target-window]
(alias: killw)
Kill the current window or the window at target-window, removing
it from any sessions to which it is linked. The -a option kills
all but the window given with -t.
last-pane [-deZ] [-t target-window]
(alias: lastp)
Select the last (previously selected) pane. -Z keeps the window
zoomed if it was zoomed. -e enables or -d disables input to the
pane.
last-window [-t target-session]
(alias: last)
Select the last (previously selected) window. If no
target-session is specified, select the last window of the cur-
rent session.
link-window [-abdk] [-s src-window] [-t dst-window]
(alias: linkw)
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 -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: lsp)
If -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 cur-
rent 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: lsw)
If -a is given, list all windows on the server. Otherwise, list
windows in the current session or in target-session. -F speci-
fies 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: movep)
Does the same as join-pane.
move-window [-abrdk] [-s src-window] [-t dst-window]
(alias: movew)
This is similar to 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 the base-index op-
tion.
new-window [-abdkPS] [-c start-directory] [-e environment] [-F format]
[-n window-name] [-t target-window] [shell-command]
(alias: neww)
Create a new window. With -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 cre-
ated; 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 noth-
ing).
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 vari-
able 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 inside tmux. New windows will automat-
ically 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: nextl)
Move a window to the next layout and rearrange the panes to fit.
next-window [-a] [-t target-session]
(alias: next)
Move to the next window in the session. If -a is used, move to
the next window with an alert.
pipe-pane [-IOo] [-t target-pane] [shell-command]
(alias: pipep)
Pipe output sent by the program in target-pane to a shell com-
mand 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 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 nei-
ther 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: prevl)
Move to the previous layout in the session.
previous-window [-a] [-t target-session]
(alias: prev)
Move to the previous window in the session. With -a, move to
the previous window with an alert.
rename-window [-t target-window] new-name
(alias: renamew)
Rename the current window, or the window at target-window if
specified, to new-name.
resize-pane [-DLMRTUZ] [-t target-pane] [-x width] [-y height]
[adjustment]
(alias: resizep)
Resize a pane, up, down, left or right by adjustment with -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 fol-
lowed 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 po-
sition 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: resizew)
Resize a window, up, down, left or right by adjustment with -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 set
window-size to manual in the window options.
respawn-pane [-k] [-c start-directory] [-e environment] [-t target-pane]
[shell-command]
(alias: respawnp)
Reactivate a pane in which the command has exited (see the
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 speci-
fies a new working directory for the pane. The -e option has
the same meaning as for the new-window command.
respawn-window [-k] [-c start-directory] [-e environment] [-t
target-window] [shell-command]
(alias: respawnw)
Reactivate a window in which the command has exited (see the
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 speci-
fies a new working directory for the window. The -e option has
the same meaning as for the new-window command.
rotate-window [-DUZ] [-t target-window]
(alias: rotatew)
Rotate the positions of the panes within a window, either upward
(numerically lower) with -U or downward (numerically higher).
-Z keeps the window zoomed if it was zoomed.
select-layout [-Enop] [-t target-pane] [layout-name]
(alias: selectl)
Choose a specific layout for a window. If layout-name is not
given, the last preset layout used (if any) is reapplied. -n
and -p are equivalent to the next-layout and previous-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: selectp)
Make pane target-pane the active pane in its window. If one of
-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 the
last-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 to
join-pane, move-pane, swap-pane and swap-window.
select-window [-lnpT] [-t target-window]
(alias: selectw)
Select the window at target-window. -l, -n and -p are equiva-
lent to the last-window, next-window and previous-window com-
mands. If -T is given and the selected window is already the
current window, the command behaves like last-window.
split-window [-bdfhIvPZ] [-c start-directory] [-e environment] [-l size]
[-t target-pane] [shell-command] [-F format]
(alias: splitw)
Create a new pane by splitting target-pane: -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 cre-
ated 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 al-
ready 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: swapp)
Swap two panes. If -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 numeri-
cally). -d instructs tmux 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 (see select-pane
-m), the marked pane is used rather than the current pane.
swap-window [-d] [-s src-window] [-t dst-window]
(alias: swapw)
This is similar to link-window, except the source and destina-
tion 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 (see select-pane
-m), the window containing the marked pane is used rather than
the current window.
unlink-window [-k] [-t target-window]
(alias: unlinkw)
Unlink target-window. Unless -k is given, a window may be un-
linked 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)
Bind key key to command. Keys are bound in a key table. By de-
fault (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 ‘c’ is bound to new-window in the prefix ta-
ble, so ‘C-b c’ creates a new window). The root table is used
for keys pressed without the prefix key: binding ‘c’ to
new-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 the switch-client -T com-
mand used to switch to them from a key binding. The -r flag in-
dicates this key may repeat, see the repeat-time option. -N at-
taches a note to the key (shown with list-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: lsk)
List key bindings. There are two forms: the default lists keys
as 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)
Send a key or keys to a window or client. Each argument key is
the name of the key (such as ‘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)
Unbind the command bound to key. -n and -T are the same as for
bind-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 ex-
cept 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 op-
tions 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)
Set a pane option with -p, a window option with -w, a server op-
tion 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 un-
sets 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 op-
tions.
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 fore-
ground.
show-options [-AgHpqsvw] [-t target-pane] [option]
(alias: show)
Show the pane options (or a single option if option is provided)
with -p, the window options with -w, the server options with -s,
otherwise the session options. If the option is not a user op-
tion, -w or -s may be unnecessary - tmux will infer the type
from the option name, assuming -w for pane options. Global ses-
sion 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 de-
fault). -A includes options inherited from a parent set of op-
tions, 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. For tmux
to work correctly, this must be set to ‘screen’, ‘tmux’ or a de-
rivative of them.
escape-time time
Set the time in milliseconds for which tmux waits after an es-
cape 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 to always, modes 1
and 2 can still be requested by applications, but mode 1 will be
forced instead of the standard mode. When set to off, this fea-
ture is disabled and only standard keys are reported.
tmux will always request extended keys itself if the terminal
supports them. See also the extkeys feature for the
terminal-features option, the extended-keys-format option and
the pane_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 to xterm, and as ‘^[[65;6u’
when set to csi-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.
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) de-
scription (see the “TERMINFO EXTENSIONS” section).
If set to on, tmux will both accept the escape sequence to cre-
ate a buffer and attempt to set the terminal clipboard. If set
to external, tmux will attempt to set the terminal clipboard but
ignore attempts by applications to set tmux buffers. If off,
tmux will neither accept the clipboard escape sequence nor at-
tempt to set the clipboard.
Note that this feature needs to be enabled in xterm(1) by set-
ting 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 ap-
propriate 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 ter-
minals it cannot detect. The terminal-overrides option allows
individual terminfo(5) capabilities to be set instead,
terminal-features is intended for classes of functionality sup-
ported 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
fnmatch(3)) followed by a list of terminal features. The avail-
able 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 over-
ridden. Each entry is a colon-separated string made up of a
terminal type pattern (matched using fnmatch(3)) 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 as-
sociated 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 on visual-activity) in the current window
of that session, none means all activity is ignored (equivalent
to monitor-activity being off), current means only activity in
windows other than the current window are ignored and other
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 bind-
ings 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 for activity-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) com-
mand. The default is an empty string, which instructs tmux to
create a login shell using the value of the default-shell op-
tion.
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 started tmux
tries to set a default value from the first suitable of the
SHELL environment variable, the shell returned by getpwuid(3),
or /bin/sh. This option should be configured when tmux 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 with new-session
-d. The value is the width and height separated by an ‘x’ char-
acter. The default is 80x24.
destroy-unattached [off | on | keep-last | keep-group]
If on, destroy the session after the last client has detached.
If off (the default), leave the session orphaned. If keep-last,
destroy the session only if it is in a group and has other ses-
sions in that group. If keep-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. If off, the client is switched to
the most recently active of the remaining sessions. If
no-detached, the client is detached only if there are no de-
tached sessions; if detached sessions exist, the client is
switched to the most recently active. If previous or next, the
client is switched to the previous or next session in alphabeti-
cal order.
display-panes-active-colour colour
Set the colour used by the display-panes command to show the in-
dicator for the active pane.
display-panes-colour colour
Set the colour used by the display-panes command to show the in-
dicators 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 cre-
ated.
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.
menu-style style
Set the menu style. See the “STYLES” section on how to specify
style. Attributes are ignored.
menu-selected-style style
Set the selected menu item style. See the “STYLES” section on
how to specify style. Attributes are ignored.
menu-border-style style
Set the menu border style. See the “STYLES” section on how to
specify style. Attributes are ignored.
menu-border-lines type
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 de-
tails.
prefix key
Set the key accepted as a prefix key. In addition to the stan-
dard 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 after prefix
is input before dismissing it. Can be set to zero to disable
any timeout.
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 renum-
ber the windows.
repeat-time time
Allow multiple commands to be entered without pressing the pre-
fix-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 to bind-key. Repeat is enabled for the default keys
bound to the resize-pane command.
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 for activity-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 or 5 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 individ-
ual status options below.
status-interval interval
Update the status line every interval seconds. By default, up-
dates 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 exam-
ple at the command prompt. The default is emacs, unless the
VISUAL or EDITOR 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 en-
vironment are set to be removed from the session environment (as
if -r was given to the set-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 the
bell-action option.
visual-silence [on | off | both]
If monitor-silence is enabled, prints a message after the inter-
val 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 the window-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 sup-
port SIGWINCH and poor for interactive programs such as shells.
automatic-rename [on | off]
Control automatic window renaming. When this setting is en-
abled, tmux will rename the window automatically using the for-
mat specified by automatic-rename-format. This flag is automat-
ically disabled for an individual window when a name is speci-
fied at creation with new-window or new-session, or later with
rename-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 height
main-pane-width width
Set the width or height of the main (left or top) pane in the
main-horizontal, main-horizontal-mirrored, main-vertical, or
main-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 spec-
ify 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.
mode-keys [vi | emacs]
Use vi or emacs-style key bindings in copy mode. The default is
emacs, unless VISUAL or EDITOR contains ‘vi’.
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 high-
lighted 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 and main-horizontal-mirrored layouts. If this
option is set to 0 (the default), it will have no effect. If
both the main-pane-height and other-pane-height options are set,
the main pane will grow taller to make the other panes the spec-
ified 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 the
main-vertical and main-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.
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 win-
dow 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 the default-size option and windows are
resized automatically. With latest, tmux uses the size of the
client that had the most recent activity. See also the
resize-window command and the aggressive-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 es-
cape sequence (\ePtmux;...\e\\). If set to on, passthrough se-
quences will be allowed only if the pane is visible. If set to
all, 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 termi-
nal 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.
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.
cursor-style style
Set the style of the cursor. Available styles are: default,
blinking-block, block, blinking-underline, underline,
blinking-bar, bar.
remain-on-exit [on | off | failed]
A pane with this flag set is not destroyed when the program run-
ning in it exits. If set to failed, then only when the program
exit status is not zero. The pane may be reactivated with the
respawn-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 spec-
ify 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 as-
sociated 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 com-
mand 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 exam-
ple, 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-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 for set-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
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 vari-
ables 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 al-
ternatives 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 in-
clude ‘yes’ if automatic-rename is enabled, or ‘no’ if not. Condition-
als can be nested arbitrarily. Inside a conditional, ‘,’ and ‘}’ must
be escaped as ‘#,’ and ‘#}’, unless they are part of a ‘#{...}’ replace-
ment. For example:
#{?pane_in_mode,#[fg=white#,bg=red],#[fg=red#,bg=white]}#W .
String comparisons may be expressed by prefixing two comma-separated al-
ternatives by ‘==’, ‘!=’, ‘<’, ‘>’, ‘<=’ or ‘>=’ and a colon. For exam-
ple ‘#{==:#{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 an fnmatch(3) 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 fnmatch(3) pattern, and ‘i’ means to
ignore case. For example: ‘#{m:*foo*,#{host}}’ or ‘#{m/ri:^A,MYVAR}’.
A ‘C’ performs a search for an fnmatch(3) 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 al-
ternatives with an ‘e’ and an operator. An optional ‘f’ flag may be
given after the operator to use floating point numbers, otherwise inte-
gers are used. This may be followed by a number giving the number of
decimal places to use for the result. The available operators are: ad-
dition ‘+’, 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}’ multi-
plies 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 char-
acters. 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 dis-
played, 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 vari-
able respectively. ‘q:’ will escape sh(1) special characters or with a
‘h’ suffix, escape hash characters (so ‘#’ becomes ‘##’). ‘E:’ will ex-
pand 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 delim-
iter 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 fin-
ish; 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 sta-
tus line will not be updated more than once a second. Commands are exe-
cuted 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
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 as-
pects 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 variants brightred, brightgreen, brightyellow; colour0 to
colour255 from the 256-colour set; default for the default
colour; terminal for the terminal default colour; or a hexadeci-
mal 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 (or bold), 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 (or noalign), 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 appropri-
ate.
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 and list=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 the default term until a pop-default. Only one default
may be pushed (each push-default replaces the previous saved de-
fault).
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 the range=left or range=right range, the
‘StatusLeft’ and ‘StatusRight’ key bindings are triggered.
range=session|X, range=window|X and range=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’ argu-
ment. ‘X’ is a session ID, window index in the current session
or a pane ID. For these, the mouse_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 the
mouse_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 them-
selves 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 com-
mands. A window's name is set with one of:
1. A command argument (such as -n for new-window or new-session).
2. An escape sequence (if the allow-rename option is turned on):
$ printf '\033kWINDOW_NAME\033\\'
3. 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 hid-
den. 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: setenv)
Set or unset an environment variable. If -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 vari-
able. -r indicates the variable is to be removed from the envi-
ronment before starting a new process. -h marks the variable as
hidden.
show-environment [-hgs] [-t target-session] [variable]
(alias: showenv)
Display the environment for target-session or the global envi-
ronment with -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 con-
tains, 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 op-
tion. 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 win-
dow list. By default, the window list shows the index, name and (if
any) flag of the windows present in the current session in ascending nu-
merical 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 si-
lence) is present.
The colour and attributes of the status line may be configured, the en-
tire 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: clearphist)
Clear status prompt history for prompt type prompt-type. If -T
is omitted, then clear history for all types. See
command-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 in-
side 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 re-
sponse to the first prompt, all ‘%2’ are replaced with the re-
sponse 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 com-
mand prompt.
-T tells tmux 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: confirm)
Ask for confirmation before executing command. If -p is given,
prompt is the prompt to display; otherwise a prompt is con-
structed from command. It may contain the special character se-
quences supported by the status-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 behav-
iour (if Enter alone is pressed) of the prompt to run the com-
mand. -c changes the confirmation key to confirm-key; the de-
fault is ‘y’.
display-menu [-OM] [-b border-lines] [-c target-client] [-C
starting-choice] [-H selected-style] [-s style] [-S
border-style] [-t target-pane] [-T title] [-x position] [-y
position] name key command [argument ...]
(alias: menu)
Display a menu on target-client. target-pane gives the target
for any commands run from the 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 com-
mand 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.
See popup-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 addi-
tional 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 corre-
sponding 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 be-
haviour 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 tells tmux 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)
Display a message. If -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, the
display-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. Other-
wise, the format of message is described in the “FORMATS” sec-
tion; information is taken from target-pane if -t is given, oth-
erwise 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: popup)
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.
-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 the display-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. See
popup-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 vari-
able 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: showphist)
Display status prompt history for prompt type prompt-type. If
-T is omitted, then show history for all types. See
command-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 [-NZr] [-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 inter-
actively from a list. Each buffer is shown on one line. A
shortcut key is shown on the left in brackets allowing for imme-
diate choice, or the list may be navigated and an item chosen or
otherwise manipulated using the keys below. -Z zooms the pane.
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: clearhist)
Remove and free the history for the specified pane. -H also re-
moves all hyperlinks.
delete-buffer [-b buffer-name]
(alias: deleteb)
Delete the buffer named buffer-name, or the most recently added
automatically named buffer if not specified.
list-buffers [-F format] [-f filter]
(alias: lsb)
List the global buffers. -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: loadb)
Load the contents of the specified paste buffer from path. If
-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: pasteb)
Insert the contents of a paste buffer into the specified pane.
If not specified, paste into the current one. With -d, also
delete the paste buffer. When output, any linefeed (LF) charac-
ters in the paste buffer are replaced with a separator, by de-
fault 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 ap-
plication has requested bracketed paste mode.
save-buffer [-a] [-b buffer-name] path
(alias: saveb)
Save the contents of the specified paste buffer to path. The -a
option appends to rather than overwriting the file. If path is
‘-’, the contents are read from stdin.
set-buffer [-aw] [-b buffer-name] [-t target-client] [-n
new-buffer-name] data
(alias: setb)
Set the contents of the specified buffer to data. If -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: showb)
Display the contents of the specified buffer.
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: if)
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 -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)
Lock each client individually by running the command specified
by the lock-command option.
run-shell [-bC] [-c start-directory] [-d delay] [-t target-pane]
[shell-command]
(alias: run)
Execute shell-command using /bin/sh or (with -C) a tmux command
in the background without creating a window. Before being exe-
cuted, shell-command is expanded using the rules specified in
the “FORMATS” section. With -b, the command is run in the back-
ground. -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 cur-
rent pane if omitted) after the command finishes. If the com-
mand fails, the exit status is also displayed.
wait-for [-L | -S | -U] channel
(alias: wait)
When used without options, prevents the client from exiting un-
til woken using 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 with
wait-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 with detach-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 de-
fault 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 es-
cape sequence (for example, \e[38;2;255;255;255m).
If supported, this is used for the initialize colour escape se-
quence (which may be enabled by adding the ‘initc’ and ‘ccc’ ca-
pabilities to the tmux terminfo(5) entry).
This is equivalent to the RGB terminfo(5) capability.
Ms Store the current buffer in the host terminal's selection (clip-
board). 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 appli-
cations to communicate with tmux using a simple text-only protocol.
In control mode, a client sends tmux commands or command sequences ter-
minated 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 out-
put 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 lay-
out 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’ and VISUAL is unset, use vi-style key bindings. Overrid-
den by the mode-keys and status-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 if LC_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 pro-
vided by the operating system, it is used and LC_CTYPE is ig-
nored for input. Otherwise, LC_CTYPE tells tmux what the
UTF-8 locale is called on the current system. If the locale
specified by LC_CTYPE is not available or is not a UTF-8 lo-
cale, tmux exits with an error message.
LC_TIME The date and time format locale(1). It is used for locale-de-
pendent strftime(3) format specifiers.
PWD The current working directory to be set in the global environ-
ment. 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 the mode-keys
and status-keys options.
FILES
~/.tmux.conf
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tmux/tmux.conf
~/.config/tmux/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
pty(4)
AUTHORS
Nicholas Marriott <nicholas.marriott@gmail.com>
Debian $Mdocdate$ TMUX(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 04:40:11 CET 2025.