NAME
tmux —
terminal multiplexer
SYNOPSIS
tmux |
[-2CluvV]
[-c shell-command]
[-f file]
[-L socket-name]
[-S socket-path]
[command [flags]] |
DESCRIPTION
tmux is a terminal multiplexer: it enables a number of
terminals to be created, accessed, and controlled from a single screen.
tmux may be detached from a screen and continue running in
the background, then later reattached.
When
tmux is started it creates a new
session with a single
window and displays
it on screen. A status line at the bottom of the screen shows information on
the current session and is used to enter interactive commands.
A session is a single collection of
pseudo terminals under the
management of
tmux. Each session has one or more windows
linked to it. A window occupies the entire screen and may be split into
rectangular panes, each of which is a separate pseudo terminal (the
pty(4) manual page documents the
technical details of pseudo terminals). Any number of
tmux
instances may connect to the same session, and any number of windows may be
present in the same session. Once all sessions are killed,
tmux exits.
Each session is persistent and will survive accidental disconnection (such as
ssh(1) connection timeout) or
intentional detaching (with the ‘
C-b d
’
key strokes).
tmux may be reattached using:
$ tmux attach
In
tmux, a session is displayed on screen by a
client and all sessions are managed by a single
server. The server and each client are separate processes
which communicate through a socket in
/tmp.
The options are as follows:
-
-
- -2
- Force tmux to assume the terminal
supports 256 colours.
-
-
- -C
- Start in control mode (see the
CONTROL MODE section). Given twice
(-CC) disables echo.
-
-
- -c
shell-command
- Execute shell-command using the
default shell. If necessary, the tmux server will be
started to retrieve the default-shell option. This
option is for compatibility with
sh(1) when
tmux is used as a login shell.
-
-
- -f
file
- Specify an alternative configuration file. By default,
tmux loads the system configuration file from
@SYSCONFDIR@/tmux.conf, if present, then looks for a
user configuration file at ~/.tmux.conf.
The configuration file is a set of tmux commands which are
executed in sequence when the server is first started.
tmux loads configuration files once when the server
process has started. The source-file command may be used
to load a file later.
tmux shows any error messages from commands in
configuration files in the first session created, and continues to process
the rest of the configuration file.
-
-
- -L
socket-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 the same directory.
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 effect
and is for compatibility with other shells when using tmux as a login
shell.
-
-
- -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.
-
-
- -u
- Write UTF-8 output to the terminal even if the first
environment variable of
LC_ALL
,
LC_CTYPE
, or LANG
that is
set does not contain “UTF-8” or “UTF8”.
-
-
- -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
everything 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.
-
-
- -V
- Report the tmux version.
-
-
- command
[flags]
- This specifies one of a set of commands used to control
tmux, as described in the following sections. If no
commands are specified, the new-session command is
assumed.
DEFAULT KEY BINDINGS
tmux may be controlled from an attached client by using a key
combination of a prefix key, ‘
C-b
’
(Ctrl-b) by default, followed by a command key.
The default command key bindings are:
- C-b
- Send the prefix key (C-b) through to the application.
- C-o
- Rotate the panes in the current window forwards.
- C-z
- Suspend the tmux client.
- !
- Break the current pane out of the window.
- "
- Split the current pane into two, top and bottom.
- #
- List all paste buffers.
- $
- Rename the current session.
- %
- Split the current pane into two, left and right.
- &
- Kill the current window.
- '
- Prompt for a window index to select.
- (
- Switch the attached client to the previous session.
- )
- Switch the attached client to the next session.
- ,
- Rename the current window.
- -
- Delete the most recently copied buffer of text.
- .
- Prompt for an index to move the current window.
- 0 to 9
- Select windows 0 to 9.
- :
- Enter the tmux command prompt.
- ;
- Move to the previously active pane.
- =
- Choose which buffer to paste interactively from a
list.
- ?
- List all key bindings.
- D
- Choose a client to detach.
- L
- Switch the attached client back to the last session.
- [
- Enter copy mode to copy text or view the history.
- ]
- Paste the most recently copied buffer of text.
- c
- Create a new window.
- d
- Detach the current client.
- f
- Prompt to search for text in open windows.
- i
- Display some information about the current window.
- l
- Move to the previously selected window.
- m
- Mark the current pane (see select-pane
-m).
- M
- Clear the marked pane.
- n
- Change to the next window.
- o
- Select the next pane in the current window.
- p
- Change to the previous window.
- q
- Briefly display pane indexes.
- r
- Force redraw of the attached client.
- s
- Select a new session for the attached client
interactively.
- t
- Show the time.
- w
- Choose the current window interactively.
- x
- Kill the current pane.
- z
- Toggle zoom state of the current pane.
- {
- Swap the current pane with the previous pane.
- }
- Swap the current pane with the next pane.
- ~
- Show previous messages from tmux, if
any.
- Page Up
- Enter copy mode and scroll one page up.
- Up, Down
-
- Left, Right
- Change to the pane above, below, to the left, or to the
right of the current pane.
- M-1 to M-5
- Arrange panes in one of the five preset layouts:
even-horizontal, even-vertical, main-horizontal, 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 arguments. This is command parsing. If a command is run from
the shell, the shell parses it; from inside
tmux or from a
configuration file,
tmux does. Examples of when
tmux parses commands are:
- in a configuration file;
- typed at the command prompt (see
command-prompt);
- given to bind-key;
- passed as arguments to if-shell or
confirm-before.
To execute commands, each client has a ‘
command
queue
’. A global command queue not attached to any client is used
on startup for configuration files like
~/.tmux.conf. Parsed
commands added to the queue are executed in order. Some commands, like
if-shell and
confirm-before, parse their
argument to create a new command which is inserted immediately after
themselves. This means that arguments can be parsed twice or more - once when
the parent command (such as
if-shell) is parsed and again
when it parses and executes its command. Commands like
if-shell,
run-shell and
display-panes stop execution of subsequent commands on the
queue until something happens -
if-shell and
run-shell until a shell command finishes and
display-panes until a key is pressed. For example, the
following commands:
new-session; new-window
if-shell "true" "split-window"
kill-session
Will execute
new-session,
new-window,
if-shell, the shell command
true(1),
split-window and
kill-session in that
order.
The
COMMANDS section lists the
tmux commands and their arguments.
PARSING SYNTAX
This section describes the syntax of commands parsed by
tmux,
for example in a configuration file or at the command prompt. Note that when
commands are entered into the shell, they are parsed by the shell - see for
example
ksh(1) or
csh(1).
Each command is terminated by a newline or a semicolon (;). Commands separated
by semicolons together form a ‘
command
sequence
’ - if a command in the sequence encounters an error, no
subsequent commands are executed.
Comments are marked by the unquoted # character - any remaining text after a
comment is ignored until the end of the line.
If the last character of a line is \, the line is joined with the following line
(the \ and the newline are completely removed). This is called line
continuation and applies both inside and outside quoted strings and in
comments, but not inside braces.
Command arguments may be specified as strings surrounded by single (') quotes,
double quotes (") or braces ({}). This is required when the argument
contains any special character. Single and double quoted strings cannot span
multiple lines except with line continuation. Braces can span multiple lines.
Outside of quotes and inside double quotes, these replacements are performed:
- Environment variables preceded by $ are replaced with
their value from the global environment (see the
GLOBAL AND SESSION
ENVIRONMENT section).
- A leading ~ or ~user is expanded to the home directory of
the current or specified user.
- \uXXXX or \uXXXXXXXX is replaced by the Unicode codepoint
corresponding to the given four or eight digit hexadecimal number.
- When preceded (escaped) by a \, the following characters
are replaced: \e by the escape character; \r by a carriage return; \n by a
newline; and \t by a tab.
- \ooo is replaced by a character of the octal value ooo.
Three octal digits are required, for example \001. The largest valid
character is \377.
- Any other characters preceded by \ are replaced by
themselves (that is, the \ is removed) and are not treated as having any
special meaning - so for example \; will not mark a command sequence and
\$ will not expand an environment variable.
Braces are similar to single quotes in that the text inside is taken literally
without any replacements but this also includes line continuation. Braces can
span multiple lines in which case a literal newline is included in the string.
They are designed to avoid the need for additional escaping when passing a
group of
tmux or shell commands as an argument (for example
to
if-shell or
pipe-pane). These two
examples produce an identical command - note that no escaping is needed when
using {}:
if-shell true {
display -p 'brace-dollar-foo: }$foo'
}
if-shell true "\n display -p 'brace-dollar-foo: }\$foo'\n"
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.
Commands may be parsed conditionally by surrounding them with
‘
%if
’,
‘
%elif
’,
‘
%else
’ and
‘
%endif
’. The argument to
‘
%if
’ and
‘
%elif
’ is expanded as a format (see
FORMATS) and if it evaluates to false (zero
or empty), subsequent text is ignored until the closing
‘
%elif
’,
‘
%else
’ or
‘
%endif
’. For example:
%if "#{==:#{host},myhost}"
set -g status-style bg=red
%elif "#{==:#{host},myotherhost}"
set -g status-style bg=green
%else
set -g status-style bg=blue
%endif
Will change the status line to red if running on
‘
myhost
’, green if running on
‘
myotherhost
’, or blue if running on
another host. Conditionals may be given on one line, for example:
%if #{==:#{host},myhost} set -g status-style bg=red %endif
COMMANDS
This section describes the commands supported by
tmux. Most
commands accept the optional
-t (and sometimes
-s) argument with one of
target-client,
target-session,
target-window, or
target-pane.
These specify the client, session, window or pane which a command should
affect.
target-client should be the name of the client, typically
the
pty(4) file to which the client
is connected, for example either of
/dev/ttyp1 or
ttyp1 for the client attached to
/dev/ttyp1. If no client is specified,
tmux attempts to work out the client currently in use; if
that fails, an error is reported. Clients may be listed with the
list-clients command.
target-session is tried as, in order:
- A session ID prefixed with a $.
- An exact name of a session (as listed by the
list-sessions command).
- The start of a session name, for example
‘
mysess
’ would match a session named
‘mysession
’.
- An
fnmatch(3) pattern which is
matched against the session name.
If the session name is prefixed with an ‘
=
’,
only an exact match is accepted (so
‘
=mysess
’ will only match exactly
‘
mysess
’, not
‘
mysession
’).
If a single session is found, it is used as the target session; multiple matches
produce an error. If a session is omitted, the current session is used if
available; if no current session is available, the most recently used is
chosen.
target-window (or
src-window or
dst-window) specifies a window in the form
session:
window.
session
follows the same rules as for
target-session, and
window is looked for in order as:
- A special token, listed below.
- A window index, for example
‘
mysession:1
’ is window 1 in session
‘mysession
’.
- A window ID, such as @1.
- An exact window name, such as
‘
mysession:mywindow
’.
- The start of a window name, such as
‘
mysession:mywin
’.
- As an
fnmatch(3) pattern matched
against the window name.
Like sessions, a ‘
=
’ prefix will do an exact
match only. An empty window name specifies the next unused index if
appropriate (for example the
new-window and
link-window commands) otherwise the current window in
session is chosen.
The following special tokens are available to indicate particular windows. Each
has a single-character alternative form.
Token |
|
Meaning |
{start} |
^ |
The lowest-numbered window |
{end} |
$ |
The highest-numbered window |
{last} |
! |
The last (previously current) window |
{next} |
+ |
The next window by number |
{previous} |
- |
The previous window by number |
target-pane (or
src-pane or
dst-pane) may be a pane ID or takes a similar form to
target-window but with the optional addition of a period
followed by a pane index or pane ID, for example:
‘
mysession:mywindow.1
’. If the pane index
is omitted, the currently active pane in the specified window is used. The
following special tokens are available for the pane index:
Token |
|
Meaning |
{last} |
! |
The last (previously active) pane |
{next} |
+ |
The next pane by number |
{previous} |
- |
The previous pane by number |
{top} |
|
The top pane |
{bottom} |
|
The bottom pane |
{left} |
|
The leftmost pane |
{right} |
|
The rightmost pane |
{top-left} |
|
The top-left pane |
{top-right} |
|
The top-right pane |
{bottom-left} |
|
The bottom-left pane |
{bottom-right} |
|
The bottom-right pane |
{up-of} |
|
The pane above the active pane |
{down-of} |
|
The pane below the active pane |
{left-of} |
|
The pane to the left of the active pane |
{right-of} |
|
The pane to the right of the active pane |
The tokens ‘
+
’ and
‘
-
’ may be followed by an offset, for
example:
In addition,
target-session,
target-window
or
target-pane may consist entirely of the token
‘
{mouse}
’ (alternative form
‘
=
’) to specify the session, window or
pane where the most recent mouse event occurred (see the
MOUSE SUPPORT section) or
‘
{marked}
’ (alternative form
‘
~
’) to specify the marked pane (see
select-pane -m).
Sessions, window and panes are each numbered with a unique ID; session IDs are
prefixed with a ‘
$
’, windows with a
‘
@
’, and panes with a
‘
%
’. These are unique and are unchanged
for the life of the session, window or pane in the
tmux
server. The pane ID is passed to the child process of the pane in the
TMUX_PANE
environment variable. IDs may be displayed
using the ‘
session_id
’,
‘
window_id
’, or
‘
pane_id
’ formats (see the
FORMATS section) and the
display-message,
list-sessions,
list-windows or
list-panes commands.
shell-command arguments are
sh(1) commands. This may be a single
argument passed to the shell, for example:
new-window 'vi /etc/passwd'
Will run:
/bin/sh -c 'vi /etc/passwd'
Additionally, the
new-window,
new-session,
split-window,
respawn-window and
respawn-pane commands allow
shell-command to be given as multiple arguments and
executed directly (without ‘
sh -c
’). This
can avoid issues with shell quoting. For example:
$ tmux new-window vi /etc/passwd
Will run
vi(1) directly without
invoking the shell.
command
[
arguments] 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 /etc/passwd' \; split-window -d \; attach
CLIENTS AND SESSIONS
The
tmux server manages clients, sessions, windows and panes.
Clients are attached to sessions to interact with them, either when they are
created with the
new-session command, or later with the
attach-session command. Each session has one or more windows
linked into it. Windows may be linked to multiple sessions
and are made up of one or more panes, each of which contains a pseudo
terminal. Commands for creating, linking and otherwise manipulating windows
are covered in the
WINDOWS AND
PANES section.
The following commands are available to manage clients and sessions:
-
-
- attach-session
[-dErx]
[-c
working-directory]
[-t
target-session]
-
(alias: attach)
If run from outside tmux, create a new client in the
current terminal and attach it to target-session. If
used from inside, switch the current client. 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 detaching the client, typically
causing it to exit. -r signifies the client is read-only
(only keys bound to the detach-client or
switch-client commands have any effect)
If no server is started, attach-session will attempt to
start it; this will fail unless sessions are created in the configuration
file.
The target-session rules for
attach-session are slightly adjusted: 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 applied.
-
-
- 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 specified 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 windows linked to the session.
-
-
- list-clients
[-F format]
[-t
target-session]
-
(alias: lsc)
List all clients attached to the server. For the meaning of the
-F flag, 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]
-
(alias: ls)
List all sessions managed by the server. For the meaning of the
-F flag, 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]
[-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 current client if any. If -x or -y
is given, the default-size option is set for the
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; in this case,
-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
removed from all sessions. The current and previous window and any session
options remain independent and any session in a group may be killed
without affecting the others. The group-name
argument may be:
- the name of an existing group, in which case the new
session is added to that group;
- the name of an existing session - the new session is
added to the same group as that session, creating a new group if
necessary;
- the name for a new group containing only the new
session.
-n and shell-command are invalid if
-t is used.
The -P option prints information about the new session
after it has been created. By default, it uses the format
‘#{session_name}:
’ but a different
format may be specified with -F.
If -E is used, the update-environment
option will not be applied.
-
-
- refresh-client
[-cDlLRSU]
[-C XxY]
[-F flags]
[-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 session will reset
it.
-C sets the width and height of a control client and
-F sets a comma-separated list of flags. Currently the
only flag available is ‘no-output
’ to
disable receiving pane output.
-l requests the clipboard from the client using the
xterm(1) escape sequence and
stores it 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.
-
-
- show-messages
[-JT]
[-t
target-client]
-
(alias: showmsgs)
Show client messages or server information. Any messages displayed on the
status line are saved in a per-client message log, up to a maximum of the
limit set by the message-limit server option. With
-t, display the log for
target-client. -J and
-T show debugging information about jobs and
terminals.
-
-
- source-file
[-nqv] path
...
-
(alias: source)
Execute commands from one or more files specified by
path (which may be
glob(7) patterns). If
-q is given, no error will be returned if
path does not exist. With -n, the
file is parsed but no commands are executed. -v shows
the parsed commands and line numbers if possible.
-
-
- start-server
-
(alias: start)
Start the tmux server, if not already running, without
creating any sessions.
Note that as by default the tmux server will exit with no
sessions, this is only useful if a session is created in
~/.tmux.conf, exit-empty is turned
off, or another command is run as part of the same command sequence. For
example:
-
-
- 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 whether a
client is read-only (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 configure multiple prefix keys, or to bind commands to
sequences of keys. For example, to make typing
‘abc
’ run the
list-keys command:
bind-key -Ttable2 c list-keys
bind-key -Ttable1 b switch-client -Ttable2
bind-key -Troot a switch-client -Ttable1
WINDOWS AND PANES
Each window displayed by
tmux may be split into one or more
panes; each pane takes up a certain area of the display and
is a separate terminal. A window may be split into panes using the
split-window command. Windows may be split horizontally
(with the
-h flag) or vertically. Panes may be resized with
the
resize-pane command (bound to
‘
C-Up
’,
‘
C-Down
’
‘
C-Left
’ and
‘
C-Right
’ by default), the current pane
may be changed with the
select-pane command and the
rotate-window and
swap-pane commands may
be used to swap panes without changing their position. Panes are numbered
beginning from zero in the order they are created.
By default, a
tmux pane permits direct access to the terminal
contained in the pane. A pane may also be put into one of several modes:
- Copy mode, which permits a section of a window or its
history to be copied to a paste buffer for later
insertion into another window. This mode is entered with the
copy-mode command, bound to
‘
[
’ by default.
- View mode, which is like copy mode but is entered when a
command that produces output, such as list-keys, is
executed from a key binding.
- Choose mode, which allows an item to be chosen from a
list. This may be a client, a session or window or pane, or a buffer. This
mode is entered with the choose-buffer,
choose-client 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 command. When a key is pressed, copy mode
automatically uses one of two key tables, depending on the
mode-keys option:
copy-mode for emacs, or
copy-mode-vi for vi. Key tables may be viewed with the
list-keys command.
The following commands are supported in copy mode:
Command |
vi |
emacs |
append-selection |
|
|
append-selection-and-cancel |
A |
|
back-to-indentation |
^ |
M-m |
begin-selection |
Space |
C-Space |
bottom-line |
L |
|
cancel |
q |
Escape |
clear-selection |
Escape |
C-g |
copy-end-of-line
[<prefix>] |
D |
C-k |
copy-line
[<prefix>] |
|
|
copy-pipe <command>
[<prefix>] |
|
|
copy-pipe-no-clear <command>
[<prefix>] |
|
|
copy-pipe-and-cancel <command>
[<prefix>] |
|
|
copy-selection
[<prefix>] |
|
|
copy-selection-no-clear
[<prefix>] |
|
|
copy-selection-and-cancel
[<prefix>] |
Enter |
M-w |
cursor-down |
j |
Down |
cursor-down-and-cancel |
|
|
cursor-left |
h |
Left |
cursor-right |
l |
Right |
cursor-up |
k |
Up |
end-of-line |
$ |
C-e |
goto-line <line> |
: |
g |
halfpage-down |
C-d |
M-Down |
halfpage-down-and-cancel |
|
|
halfpage-up |
C-u |
M-Up |
history-bottom |
G |
M-> |
history-top |
g |
M-< |
jump-again |
; |
; |
jump-backward <to> |
F |
F |
jump-forward <to> |
f |
f |
jump-reverse |
, |
, |
jump-to-backward
<to> |
T |
|
jump-to-forward
<to> |
t |
|
middle-line |
M |
M-r |
next-matching-bracket |
% |
M-C-f |
next-paragraph |
} |
M-} |
next-space |
W |
|
next-space-end |
E |
|
next-word |
w |
|
next-word-end |
e |
M-f |
other-end |
o |
|
page-down |
C-f |
PageDown |
page-down-and-cancel |
|
|
page-up |
C-b |
PageUp |
previous-matching-bracket |
|
M-C-b |
previous-paragraph |
{ |
M-{ |
previous-space |
B |
|
previous-word |
b |
M-b |
rectangle-toggle |
v |
R |
scroll-down |
C-e |
C-Down |
scroll-down-and-cancel |
|
|
scroll-up |
C-y |
C-Up |
search-again |
n |
n |
search-backward
<for> |
? |
|
search-backward-incremental
<for> |
|
C-r |
search-backward-text
<for> |
|
|
search-forward
<for> |
/ |
|
search-forward-incremental
<for> |
|
C-s |
search-forward-text
<for> |
|
|
search-reverse |
N |
N |
select-line |
V |
|
select-word |
|
|
start-of-line |
0 |
C-a |
stop-selection |
|
|
top-line |
H |
M-R |
The search commands come in several varieties:
‘
search-forward
’ and
‘
search-backward
’ search for a regular
expression; the ‘
-text
’ variants search
for a plain text string rather than a regular expression;
‘
-incremental
’ perform an incremental
search and expect to be used with the
-i flag to the
command-prompt command.
‘
search-again
’ repeats the last search and
‘
search-reverse
’ does the same but
reverses the direction (forward becomes backward and backward becomes
forward).
Copy commands may take an optional buffer prefix argument which is used to
generate the buffer name (the default is
‘
buffer
’ so buffers are named
‘
buffer0
’,
‘
buffer1
’ and so on). Pipe commands take a
command argument which is the command to which the copied text is piped. The
‘
-and-cancel
’ variants of some commands
exit copy mode after they have completed (for copy commands) or when the
cursor reaches the bottom (for scrolling commands).
‘
-no-clear
’ variants do not clear the
selection.
The next and previous word keys use space and the
‘
-
’,
‘
_
’ and
‘
@
’ characters as word delimiters by
default, but this can be adjusted by setting 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.
The jump commands enable quick movement within a line. For instance, typing
‘
f
’ followed by
‘
/
’ will move the cursor to the next
‘
/
’ character on the current line. A
‘
;
’ will then jump to the next occurrence.
Commands in copy mode may be prefaced by an optional repeat count. With vi key
bindings, a prefix is entered using the number keys; with emacs, the Alt
(meta) key and a number begins prefix entry.
The synopsis for the
copy-mode command is:
-
-
- copy-mode
[-eHMqu]
[-t
target-pane]
- Enter copy mode. The -u option scrolls
one page up. -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.
-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
A number of preset arrangements of panes are available, these are called
layouts. These may be selected with the
select-layout
command or cycled with
next-layout (bound to
‘
Space
’ by default); once a layout is
chosen, panes within it may be moved and resized as normal.
The following layouts are supported:
-
-
- even-horizontal
- Panes are spread out evenly from left to right across the
window.
-
-
- even-vertical
- Panes are spread evenly from top to bottom.
-
-
- main-horizontal
- A large (main) pane is shown at the top of the window and
the remaining panes are spread from left to right in the leftover space at
the bottom. Use the main-pane-height window option to
specify the height of the top pane.
-
-
- main-vertical
- Similar to main-horizontal but the large
pane is placed on the left and the others spread from top to bottom along
the right. See the main-pane-width window option.
-
-
- 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
[-dP]
[-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. If
-d is given, the new window does not become the current
window. The -P option prints information about the new
window after it has been created. By default, it uses the format
‘#{session_name}:#{window_index}
’ but
a different format may be specified with -F.
-
-
- capture-pane
[-aepPqCJN]
[-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 background attributes.
-C also escapes non-printable characters as octal \xxx.
-N preserves trailing spaces at each line's end and
-J preserves trailing spaces and joins any wrapped
lines. -P captures only any output that the pane has
received that is the beginning of an as-yet incomplete escape sequence.
-S and -E specify the starting and
ending line numbers, zero is the first line of the visible pane and
negative numbers are lines in the history.
‘-
’ to -S is the
start of the history and to -E the end of the visible
pane. The default is to capture only the visible contents of the
pane.
-
-
- choose-client
[-NrZ]
[-F format]
[-f filter]
[-O
sort-order]
[-t
target-pane]
[template]
- Put a pane into client mode, allowing a client to be
selected interactively from a list. -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 |
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
’, or
‘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 list. -N starts without the preview. This command
works only if at least one client is attached.
-
-
- choose-tree
[-GNrswZ]
[-F format]
[-f filter]
[-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 list. -s starts with
sessions collapsed and -w with windows 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 |
x |
Kill selected item |
X |
Kill tagged items |
< |
Scroll list of previews left |
> |
Scroll list of previews right |
C-s |
Search by name |
n |
Repeat last search |
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 |
O |
Change sort field |
r |
Reverse sort order |
v |
Toggle preview |
q |
Exit mode |
After a session, window or pane is chosen,
‘%%
’ is 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
’. -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. -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.
-
-
- display-panes
[-b]
[-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 or
duration milliseconds have passed. If
-d is not given, display-panes-time is
used. A duration of zero means the indicator stays until a key is pressed.
While the indicator is on screen, a pane may be chosen with the
‘0
’ to
‘9
’ keys, which will cause
template to be executed as a command with
‘%%
’ substituted by the pane ID. The
default template is "select-pane -t '%%'".
With -b, other commands are not blocked from running
until the indicator is closed.
-
-
- find-window
[-rCNTZ]
[-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. 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 creating 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 current session.
-
-
- link-window
[-adk]
[-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, the window is moved to the
next index up (following 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]
[-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 current
window). For the meaning of the -F flag, see the
FORMATS section.
-
-
- list-windows
[-a]
[-F format]
[-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. For the meaning of the
-F flag, see the
FORMATS section.
-
-
- move-pane
[-bdhv]
[-l size]
[-s
src-pane]
[-t
dst-pane]
-
(alias: movep)
Like join-pane, but src-pane and
dst-pane may belong to the same window.
-
-
- move-window
[-ardk]
[-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 option.
-
-
- new-window
[-adkP]
[-c
start-directory]
[-e
environment]
[-F format]
[-n
window-name]
[-t
target-window]
[shell-command]
-
(alias: neww)
Create a new window. With -a, the new window is inserted
at the next index up from the specified
target-window, moving windows up if necessary,
otherwise target-window is the new window location.
If -d is given, the session does not make the new window
the current window. target-window represents the
window to be created; if the target already exists an error is shown,
unless the -k flag is used, in which case it is
destroyed. shell-command is the command to execute.
If shell-command is not specified, the value of the
default-command option is used. -c
specifies the working directory in which the new window is created.
When the shell command completes, the window closes. See the
remain-on-exit option to change this behaviour.
-e takes the form
‘VARIABLE=value
’ and sets an
environment variable for the newly created window; it may be specified
multiple times.
The TERM
environment variable must be set to
‘screen
’ or
‘tmux
’ for all programs running
inside tmux. New windows will
automatically have ‘TERM=screen
’ added
to their environment, but care must be taken not to reset this in shell
start-up files or by the -e option.
The -P option prints information about the new window
after it has been created. By default, it uses the format
‘#{session_name}:#{window_index}
’ but
a different format may be specified with -F.
-
-
- next-layout
[-t
target-window]
-
(alias: 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 command or vice versa. A pane may only be connected to one command
at a time, any existing pipe is closed before
shell-command is executed. The
shell-command string may contain the special
character sequences supported by the status-left option.
If no shell-command is given, the current pipe (if
any) is closed.
-I and -O specify which of the
shell-command output streams are connected to the
pane: with -I stdout is connected (so anything
shell-command prints is written to the pane as if it
were typed); with -O stdin is connected (so any output
in the pane is piped to shell-command). Both may be
used together and if neither are specified, -O is used.
The -o option only opens a new pipe if no previous pipe
exists, allowing a pipe to be toggled with a single key, for example:
bind-key C-p pipe-pane -o 'cat >>~/output.#I-#P'
-
-
- previous-layout
[-t
target-window]
-
(alias: 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
[-DLMRUZ]
[-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
followed by ‘%
’ for a percentage of
the window size (for example ‘-x
10%
’). With -Z, the active pane is toggled
between zoomed (occupying the whole of the window) and unzoomed (its
normal position in the layout).
-M begins mouse resizing (only valid if bound to a mouse
key binding, see MOUSE
SUPPORT).
-
-
- 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 is executed. The pane must be already inactive,
unless -k is given, in which case any existing command
is killed. -c specifies a new working directory for the
pane. The -e option has the same meaning as for 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 is executed. The window must be already inactive,
unless -k is given, in which case any existing command
is killed. -c specifies a new working directory for the
window. The -e option has the same meaning as for 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 window
target-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,
swap-pane and swap-window.
-
-
- select-window
[-lnpT]
[-t
target-window]
-
(alias: selectw)
Select the window at target-window.
-l, -n and -p are
equivalent to the last-window,
next-window and previous-window
commands. If -T is given and the selected window is
already the current window, the command behaves like
last-window.
-
-
- split-window
[-bdfhIvP]
[-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
created to the left of or above target-pane. The
-f option creates a new pane spanning the full window
height (with -h) or full window width (with
-v), instead of splitting the active pane.
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 numerically).
-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
destination windows are swapped. It is an error if no window exists at
src-window. If -d is given, the
new window does not become the current window.
If -s is omitted and a marked pane is present (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 unlinked only if it is linked to multiple sessions
- windows may not be linked to no sessions; if -k is
specified and the window is linked to only one session, it is unlinked and
destroyed.
KEY BINDINGS
tmux allows a command to be bound to most keys, with or
without a prefix key. When specifying keys, most represent themselves (for
example ‘
A
’ to
‘
Z
’). Ctrl keys may be prefixed with
‘
C-
’ or
‘
^
’, 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
[arguments]
-
(alias: bind)
Bind key key to command. Keys
are bound in a key table. By default (without -T), the key is bound in the
prefix key table. This table is used for keys pressed
after the prefix key (for example, by default
‘c
’ is bound to
new-window in the prefix table, so
‘C-b c
’ creates a new window). The
root table is used for keys pressed without the prefix
key: binding ‘c
’ 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 command used to switch to them from a key binding.
The -r flag indicates this key may repeat, see the
repeat-time option. -N attaches 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 have
a note rather than skipping them.
-
-
- send-keys
[-FHlMRX]
[-N
repeat-count]
[-t
target-pane] key
...
-
(alias: send)
Send a key or keys to a window. 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. All arguments
are sent sequentially from first to last.
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
[-an]
[-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.
OPTIONS
The appearance and behaviour of
tmux may be modified by
changing the value of various options. There are four types of option:
server options,
session options
window options and
pane options.
The
tmux server has a set of global server options which do
not apply to any particular window or session or pane. These are altered with
the
set-option -s command, or displayed
with the
show-options -s command.
In addition, each individual session may have a set of session options, and
there is a separate set of global session options. Sessions which do not have
a particular option configured inherit the value from the global session
options. Session options are set or unset with the
set-option command and may be listed with the
show-options command. The available server and session
options are listed under the
set-option command.
Similarly, a set of window options is attached to each window and a set of pane
options to each pane. Pane options inherit from window options. This means any
pane option may be set as a window option to apply the option to all panes in
the window without the option set, for example these commands will set the
background colour to red for all panes except pane 0:
set -w window-style bg=red
set -pt:.0 window-style bg=blue
There is also a set of global window options from which any unset window or pane
options are inherited. Window and pane options are altered with
set-option -w and
-p
commands and displayed with
show-option -w
and
-p.
tmux also supports user options which are prefixed with a
‘
@
’. User options may have any name, so
long as they are prefixed with ‘
@
’, and be
set to any string. For example:
$ tmux setw -q @foo "abc123"
$ tmux showw -v @foo
abc123
Commands which set options are as follows:
-
-
- set-option
[-aFgopqsuw]
[-t
target-pane] option
value
-
(alias: set)
Set a pane option with -p, a window option with
-w, a server option with -s, otherwise
a session option. If the option is not a user option, -w
or -s may be unnecessary - tmux will
infer the type from the option name, assuming -w for
pane options. If -g is given, the global session or
window option is set.
-F expands formats in the option value. The
-u flag unsets an option, so a session inherits the
option from the global options (or with -g, restores a
global option to the default).
The -o flag prevents setting an option that is already set
and the -q flag suppresses errors about unknown or
ambiguous options.
With -a, and if the option expects a string or a style,
value is appended to the existing setting. For
example:
set -g status-left "foo"
set -ag status-left "bar"
Will result in ‘foobar
’. And:
set -g status-style "bg=red"
set -ag status-style "fg=blue"
Will result in a red background and blue foreground.
Without -a, the result would be the default background
and a blue foreground.
-
-
- show-options
[-AgHpqsvw]
[-t
target-pane]
[option]
-
(alias: show)
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 option,
-w or -s may be unnecessary -
tmux will infer the type from the option name, assuming
-w for pane options. Global session or window options
are listed if -g is used. -v shows
only the option value, not the name. If -q is set, no
error will be returned if option is unset.
-H includes hooks (omitted by default).
-A includes options inherited from a parent set of
options, such options are marked with an asterisk.
value depends on the option and may be a number, a
string, or a flag (on, off, or omitted to toggle).
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.
-
-
- 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 derivative of them.
-
-
- escape-time
time
- Set the time in milliseconds for which
tmux waits after an escape is input to determine if it
is part of a function or meta key sequences. The default is 500
milliseconds.
-
-
- 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.
-
-
- 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. The default is 100.
-
-
- set-clipboard
[on | external |
off]
- Attempt to set the terminal clipboard content using the
xterm(1) escape sequence, if
there is an Ms entry in the
terminfo(5) description
(see the TERMINFO EXTENSIONS
section).
If set to on, tmux will both accept the
escape sequence to create a buffer and attempt to set the terminal
clipboard. If set 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 attempt to set the clipboard.
Note that this feature needs to be enabled in
xterm(1) by setting the
resource:
disallowedWindowOps: 20,21,SetXprop
Or changing this property from the
xterm(1) interactive menu
when required.
-
-
- terminal-overrides[]
string
- Allow terminal descriptions read using
terminfo(5) to be
overridden. Each entry is a colon-separated string made up of a terminal
type pattern (matched using
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
associated with a key named ‘
User0
’,
‘User1
’, and so on.
For example:
set -s user-keys[0] "\e[5;30012~"
bind User0 resize-pane -L 3
Available session options are:
-
-
- activity-action
[any | none |
current | other]
- Set action on window activity when
monitor-activity is on. any means
activity in any window linked to a session causes a bell or message
(depending 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 bindings are not
processed. The default is one millisecond and zero disables.
-
-
- base-index
index
- Set the base index from which an unused index should be
searched when a new window is created. The default is zero.
-
-
- bell-action
[any | none |
current | other]
- Set action on a bell in a window when
monitor-bell is on. The values are the same as those 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) command. The
default is an empty string, which instructs tmux to
create a login shell using the value of the
default-shell option.
-
-
- default-shell
path
- Specify the default shell. This is used as the login shell
for new windows when the default-command option is set
to empty, and must be the full path of the executable. When 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
’ character. The default is
80x24.
-
-
- destroy-unattached
[on | off]
- If enabled and the session is no longer attached to any
clients, it is destroyed.
-
-
- detach-on-destroy
[on | off]
- 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.
-
-
- display-panes-active-colour
colour
- Set the colour used by the display-panes
command to show the indicator for the active pane.
-
-
- display-panes-colour
colour
- Set the colour used by the display-panes
command to show the indicators for inactive panes.
-
-
- display-panes-time
time
- Set the time in milliseconds for which the indicators shown
by the display-panes command appear.
-
-
- display-time
time
- Set the amount of time for which status line messages and
other on-screen indicators are displayed. If set to 0, messages and
indicators are displayed until a key is pressed.
time is in milliseconds.
-
-
- history-limit
lines
- Set the maximum number of lines held in window history.
This setting applies only to new windows - existing window histories are
not resized and retain the limit at the point they were created.
-
-
- 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.
-
-
- message-command-style
style
- Set status line message command style. For how to specify
style, see the
STYLES section.
-
-
- message-style
style
- Set status line message style. For how to specify
style, see the
STYLES section.
-
-
- mouse
[on | off]
- If on, tmux captures the mouse and allows
mouse events to be bound as key bindings. See the
MOUSE SUPPORT section for
details.
-
-
- prefix
key
- Set the key accepted as a prefix key. In addition to the
standard keys described under KEY
BINDINGS, prefix can be set to the special key
‘
None
’ to set no prefix.
-
-
- prefix2
key
- Set a secondary key accepted as a prefix key. Like
prefix, prefix2 can be set to
‘
None
’.
-
-
- renumber-windows
[on | off]
- If on, when a window is closed in a session, automatically
renumber the other windows in numerical order. This respects the
base-index option if it has been set. If off, do not
renumber the windows.
-
-
- repeat-time
time
- Allow multiple commands to be entered without pressing the
prefix-key again in the specified time milliseconds
(the default is 500). Whether a key repeats may be set when it is bound
using the -r flag 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 individual
status options below.
-
-
- status-interval
interval
- Update the status line every interval
seconds. By default, updates will occur every 15 seconds. A setting of
zero disables redrawing at interval.
-
-
- status-justify
[left | centre |
right]
- Set the position of the window list component of the status
line: left, centre or right justified.
-
-
- status-keys
[vi |
emacs]
- Use vi or emacs-style key bindings in the status line, for
example at the command prompt. The default is emacs, unless the
VISUAL
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 environment 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 interval has expired on a given window instead of
sending a bell. If set to both, a bell and a message are produced.
-
-
- word-separators
string
- Sets the session's conception of what characters are
considered word separators, for the purposes of the next and previous word
commands in copy mode. The default is
‘
-_@
’.
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
support
SIGWINCH
and poor for interactive programs
such as shells.
- automatic-rename
[on | off]
- Control automatic window renaming. When this setting is
enabled, tmux will rename the window automatically using
the format specified by automatic-rename-format. This
flag is automatically disabled for an individual window when a name is
specified 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.
- main-pane-height
height
-
- main-pane-width
width
- Set the width or height of the main (left or top) pane in
the main-horizontal or main-vertical
layouts.
- 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
highlighted in the status line.
- monitor-silence
[interval]
- Monitor for silence (no activity) in the window within
interval seconds. Windows that have been silent for the
interval are highlighted in the status line. An interval of zero disables
the monitoring.
- other-pane-height
height
- Set the height of the other panes (not the main pane) in
the main-horizontal layout. 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 specified height, but will never shrink to do so.
- other-pane-width
width
- Like other-pane-height, but set the width
of other panes in the main-vertical layout.
- 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-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.
- synchronize-panes
[on | off]
- Duplicate input to any pane to all other panes in the same
window (only for panes that are not in any special mode).
- window-status-activity-style
style
- Set status line style for windows with an activity alert.
For how to specify style, see the
STYLES section.
- window-status-bell-style
style
- Set status line style for windows with a bell alert. For
how to specify style, see the
STYLES section.
- window-status-current-format
string
- Like window-status-format, but is the
format used when the window is the current window.
- window-status-current-style
style
- Set status line style for the currently active window. For
how to specify style, see the
STYLES section.
- window-status-format
string
- Set the format in which the window is displayed in the
status line window list. See the FORMATS
and STYLES sections.
- window-status-last-style
style
- Set status line style for the last active window. For how
to specify style, see the
STYLES section.
- window-status-separator
string
- Sets the separator drawn between windows in the status
line. The default is a single space character.
- window-status-style
style
- Set status line style for a single window. For how to
specify style, see the
STYLES section.
- window-size
largest | smallest |
manual | latest
- Configure how tmux determines the window
size. If set to largest, the size of the largest
attached session is used; if smallest, the size of
the smallest. If manual, the size of a new window is
set from 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.
- xterm-keys
[on | off]
- If this option is set, tmux will generate
xterm(1) -style function key
sequences; these have a number included to indicate modifiers such as
Shift, Alt or Ctrl.
Available pane options are:
- allow-rename
[on | off]
- Allow programs in the pane to change the window name using
a terminal escape sequence (\ek...\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.
- remain-on-exit
[on | off]
- A pane with this flag set is not destroyed when the program
running in it exits. The pane may be reactivated with the
respawn-pane command.
- window-active-style
style
- Set the pane style when it is the active pane. For how to
specify style, see the
STYLES section.
- window-style
style
- Set the pane style. For how to specify
style, see the
STYLES section.
HOOKS
tmux allows commands to run on various triggers, called
hooks. Most
tmux commands have an
after hook and there are a number of hooks not associated
with commands.
Hooks are stored as array options, members of the array are executed in order
when the hook is triggered. Hooks may be configured with the
set-hook or
set-option commands and
displayed with
show-hooks or
show-options
-H. The following two commands are equivalent:
set-hook -g pane-mode-changed[42] 'set -g status-left-style bg=red'
set-option -g pane-mode-changed[42] 'set -g status-left-style bg=red'
Setting a hook without specifying an array index clears the hook and sets the
first member of the array.
A command's after hook is run after it completes, except when the command is run
as part of a hook itself. They are named with an
‘
after-
’ prefix. For example, the
following command adds a hook to select the even-vertical layout after every
split-window:
set-hook -g after-split-window "selectl even-vertical"
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-attached
- Run when a client is attached.
-
-
- client-detached
- Run when a client is detached
-
-
- client-resized
- Run when a client is resized.
-
-
- client-session-changed
- Run when a client's attached session is changed.
-
-
- 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-unlinked
- Run when a window is unlinked from a session.
Hooks are managed with these commands:
-
-
- set-hook
[-agRu]
[-t
target-session] hook-name
command
- Without -R, sets (or with
-u unsets) hook hook-name to
command. If -g is given,
hook-name is added to the global list of hooks,
otherwise it is added to the session hooks (for
target-session with -t).
-a appends to a hook. Like options, session hooks
inherit from the global ones.
With -R, run hook-name
immediately.
-
-
- show-hooks
[-g]
[-t
target-session]
- Shows the global list of hooks with -g,
otherwise the session hooks.
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 |
DoubleClick1 |
DoubleClick2 |
DoubleClick3 |
TripleClick1 |
TripleClick2 |
TripleClick3 |
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.
Certain commands accept the
-F flag with a
format argument. This is a string which controls the
output format of the command. Format variables are enclosed in
‘
#{
’ and
‘
}
’, for example
‘
#{session_name}
’. The possible variables
are listed in the table below, or the name of a
tmux option
may be used for an option's value. Some variables have a shorter alias such as
‘
#S
’;
‘
##
’ is replaced by a single
‘
#
’,
‘
#,
’ by a
‘
,
’ and
‘
#}
’ by a
‘
}
’.
Conditionals are available by prefixing with
‘
?
’ and separating two alternatives with a
comma; if the specified variable exists and is not zero, the first alternative
is chosen, otherwise the second is used. For example
‘
#{?session_attached,attached,not
attached}
’ will include the string
‘
attached
’ if the session is attached and
the string ‘
not attached
’ if it is
unattached, or
‘
#{?automatic-rename,yes,no}
’ will include
‘
yes
’ if
automatic-rename is enabled, or
‘
no
’ if not. Conditionals can be nested
arbitrarily. Inside a conditional, ‘
,
’ and
‘
}
’ must be escaped as
‘
#,
’ and
‘
#}
’, unless they are part of a
‘
#{...}
’ replacement. For example:
#{?pane_in_mode,#[fg=white#,bg=red],#[fg=red#,bg=white]}#W .
String comparisons may be expressed by prefixing two comma-separated
alternatives by ‘
==
’,
‘
!=
’,
‘
<
’,
‘
>
’,
‘
<=
’ or
‘
>=
’ and a colon. For example
‘
#{==:#{host},myhost}
’ will be replaced by
‘
1
’ if running on
‘
myhost
’, otherwise by
‘
0
’.
‘
||
’ and
‘
&&
’ evaluate to true if either or
both of two comma-separated alternatives are true, for example
‘
#{||:#{pane_in_mode},#{alternate_on}}
’.
An ‘
m
’ specifies an
fnmatch(3) or regular
expression comparison. The first argument is the pattern and the second the
string to compare. An optional third 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}
’
A limit may be placed on the length of the resultant string by prefixing it by
an ‘
=
’, a number and a colon. Positive
numbers count from the start of the string and negative from the end, so
‘
#{=5:pane_title}
’ will include at most
the first five characters of the pane title, or
‘
#{=-5:pane_title}
’ the last five
characters. A suffix or prefix may be given as a second argument - if provided
then it is appended or prepended to the string if the length has been trimmed,
for example ‘
#{=/5/...:pane_title}
’ will
append ‘
...
’ if the pane title is more
than five characters. Similarly, ‘
p
’ pads
the string to a given width, for example
‘
#{p10:pane_title}
’ will result in a width
of at least 10 characters. A positive width pads on the left, a negative on
the right.
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
’. The
‘
b:
’ and
‘
d:
’ prefixes are
basename(3) and
dirname(3) of the variable
respectively. ‘
q:
’ will escape
sh(1) special characters.
‘
E:
’ will expand the format twice, for
example ‘
#{E:status-left}
’ is the result
of expanding the content of the
status-left option rather
than the option itself. ‘
T:
’ is like
‘
E:
’ but also expands
strftime(3) specifiers.
‘
S:
’,
‘
W:
’ or
‘
P:
’ will loop over each session, window
or pane 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} }
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
’.
In addition, the last line of a shell command's output may be inserted using
‘
#()
’. For example,
‘
#(uptime)
’ will insert the system's
uptime. When constructing formats,
tmux does not wait for
‘
#()
’ commands to finish; instead, the
previous result from running the same command is used, or a placeholder if the
command has not been run before. If the command hasn't exited, the most recent
line of output will be used, but the status line will not be updated more than
once a second. Commands are executed 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 |
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_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 readonly |
client_session |
|
Name of the client's session |
client_termname |
|
Terminal name of client |
client_tty |
|
Pseudo terminal of client |
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 |
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 |
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_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 |
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_line |
|
Line under mouse, if any |
mouse_sgr_flag |
|
Pane mouse SGR flag |
mouse_standard_flag |
|
Pane mouse standard flag |
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 |
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_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_status |
|
Exit status of process in dead pane |
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_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 |
#T |
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_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_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 |
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 |
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_name |
#S |
Name 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 |
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 |
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_silence_flag |
|
1 if window has silence alert |
window_stack_index |
|
Index in session most recent stack |
window_start_flag |
|
1 if window has the lowest index |
window_visible_layout |
|
Window layout description, respecting zoomed window
panes |
window_width |
|
Width of window |
window_zoomed_flag |
|
1 if window is zoomed |
wrap_flag |
|
Pane wrap flag |
STYLES
tmux offers various options to specify the colour and
attributes of aspects of the interface, for example
status-style for the status line. In addition, embedded
styles may be specified in format options, such as
status-left, by enclosing them in
‘
#[
’ and
‘
]
’.
A style may be the single term ‘
default
’ to
specify the default style (which may come from an option, for example
status-style in the status line) or a space or comma
separated list of the following:
-
-
- fg=colour
- Set the foreground colour. The colour is one of:
black, red, green,
yellow, blue,
magenta, cyan,
white; if supported the bright 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
hexadecimal RGB string such as
‘
#ffffff
’.
-
-
- bg=colour
- Set the background colour.
-
-
- none
- Set no attributes (turn off any active attributes).
-
-
- 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.
-
-
- 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
appropriate.
-
-
- list=on,
list=focus, list=left-marker,
list=right-marker, nolist
- Mark the position of the various window list components in
the status-format option: list=on
marks the start of the list; list=focus is the part of
the list that should be kept in focus if the entire list won't fit in the
available space (typically the current window);
list=left-marker 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 default).
-
-
- range=left,
range=right, range=window|X,
norange
- Mark a range in the status-format option.
range=left and range=right are the
text used for the ‘
StatusLeft
’ and
‘StatusRight
’ mouse keys.
range=window|X is the range for a window passed to the
‘Status
’ mouse key, where
‘X
’ is a window index.
Examples are:
fg=yellow bold underscore blink
bg=black,fg=default,noreverse
NAMES AND TITLES
tmux distinguishes between names and titles. Windows and
sessions have names, which may be used to specify them in targets and are
displayed in the status line and various lists: the name is the
tmux identifier for a window or session. Only panes have
titles. A pane's title is typically set by the program running inside the pane
using an escape sequence (like it would set the
xterm(1) window title in
X(7)). Windows themselves do not have
titles - a window's title is the title of its active pane.
tmux itself may set the title of the terminal in which the
client is running, see the
set-titles option.
A session's name is set with the
new-session and
rename-session commands. A window's name is set with one of:
- A command argument (such as -n for
new-window or new-session).
- An escape sequence (if the allow-rename
option is turned on):
$ printf '\033kWINDOW_NAME\033\\'
- Automatic renaming, which sets the name to the active
command in the window's active pane. See the
automatic-rename option.
When a pane is first created, its title is the hostname. A pane's title can be
set via the title setting escape sequence, for example:
$ printf '\033]2;My Title\033\\'
It can also be modified with the
select-pane
-T command.
GLOBAL AND SESSION
ENVIRONMENT
When the server is started,
tmux copies the environment into
the
global environment; in addition, each session has a
session environment. When a window is created, the session
and global environments are merged. If a variable exists in both, the value
from the session environment is used. The result is the initial environment
passed to the new process.
The
update-environment session option may be used to update
the session environment from the client when a new session is created or an
old reattached.
tmux also initialises the
TMUX
variable with some internal information to allow
commands to be executed from inside, and the
TERM
variable with the correct terminal setting of
‘
screen
’.
Commands to alter and view the environment are:
-
-
- set-environment
[-gru]
[-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. The
-u flag unsets a variable. -r
indicates the variable is to be removed from the environment before
starting a new process.
-
-
- show-environment
[-gs]
[-t
target-session]
[variable]
-
(alias: showenv)
Display the environment for target-session or the
global environment 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.
STATUS LINE
tmux includes an optional status line which is displayed in
the bottom line of each terminal.
By default, the status line is enabled and one line in height (it may be
disabled or made multiple lines with the
status session
option) and contains, from left-to-right: the name of the current session in
square brackets; the window list; the title of the active pane in double
quotes; and the time and date.
Each line of the status line is configured with the
status-format option. The default is made of three parts:
configurable left and right sections (which may contain dynamic content such
as the time or output from a shell command, see the
status-left,
status-left-length,
status-right, and
status-right-length
options below), and a central window list. By default, the window list shows
the index, name and (if any) flag of the windows present in the current
session in ascending numerical order. It may be customised with the
window-status-format and
window-status-current-format options. The flag is one of
the following symbols appended to the window name:
Symbol |
Meaning |
* |
Denotes the current window. |
- |
Marks the last window (previously selected). |
# |
Window activity is monitored and activity has been
detected. |
! |
Window bells are monitored and a bell has occurred in
the window. |
~ |
The window has been silent for the monitor-silence
interval. |
M |
The window contains the marked pane. |
Z |
The window's active pane is zoomed. |
The # symbol relates to the
monitor-activity window option.
The window name is printed in inverted colours if an alert (bell, activity or
silence) is present.
The colour and attributes of the status line may be configured, the entire
status line using the
status-style session option and
individual windows using the
window-status-style window
option.
The status line is automatically refreshed at interval if it has changed, the
interval may be controlled with the
status-interval session
option.
Commands related to the status line are as follows:
-
-
- command-prompt
[-1ikN]
[-I inputs]
[-p prompts]
[-t
target-client]
[template]
- Open the command prompt in a client. This may be used from
inside tmux to execute commands interactively.
If template is specified, it is used as the command.
If present, -I is a comma-separated list of the initial
text for each prompt. If -p is given,
prompts is a comma-separated list of prompts which
are displayed in order; otherwise a single prompt is displayed,
constructed from template if it is present, or
‘
:
’ if not.
Before the command is executed, the first occurrence of the string
‘%%
’ and all occurrences of
‘%1
’ are replaced by the response to
the first prompt, all ‘%2
’ are
replaced with the response to the second prompt, and so on for further
prompts. Up to nine prompt responses may be replaced
(‘%1
’ to
‘%9
’).
‘%%%
’ is like
‘%%
’ but any quotation marks are
escaped.
-1 makes the prompt only accept one key press, in this
case the resulting input is a single character. -k is
like -1 but the key press is translated to a key name.
-N makes the prompt only accept numeric key presses.
-i executes the command every time the prompt input
changes instead of when the user exits the command prompt.
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 |
Escape |
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 |
-
-
- confirm-before
[-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 constructed from
command. It may contain the special character
sequences supported by the status-left option.
This command works only from inside tmux.
-
-
- display-menu
[-c
target-client]
[-t
target-pane]
[-T title]
[-x
position]
[-y
position] name
key command
...
-
(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 command are formats, see the
FORMATS and
STYLES sections. If the name begins with
a hyphen (-), then the item is disabled (shown dim) and may not be chosen.
The name may be empty for a separator line, in which case both the key and
command should be omitted.
-T is a format for the menu title (see
FORMATS).
-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 |
R |
-x |
The right side of the terminal |
P |
Both |
The bottom left of the pane |
M |
Both |
The mouse position |
W |
-x |
The window position on the status line |
S |
-y |
The line above or below the status line |
Each menu consists of items followed by a key shortcut shown in brackets. If
the menu is too large to fit on the terminal, it is not displayed.
Pressing the key shortcut chooses the corresponding item. If the mouse is
enabled and the menu is opened from a mouse key binding, releasing the
mouse button with an item selected will choose that item. The following
keys are also available:
Key |
Function |
Enter |
Choose selected item |
Up |
Select previous item |
Down |
Select next item |
q |
Exit menu |
-
-
- display-message
[-aIpv]
[-c
target-client]
[-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. The format of
message is described in the
FORMATS section; information is taken
from target-pane if -t is given,
otherwise the active pane.
-v prints verbose logging as the format is parsed and
-a lists the format variables and their values.
-I forwards any input read from stdin to the empty pane
given by target-pane.
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]
[-O
sort-order]
[-t
target-pane]
[template]
- Put a pane into buffer mode, where a buffer may be chosen
interactively from a list. -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 |
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 |
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 -b '%%'" is used.
-O specifies the initial sort field: one of
‘time
’,
‘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. -N starts without the preview. This command works
only if at least one client is attached.
-
-
- clear-history
[-t
target-pane]
-
(alias: clearhist)
Remove and free the history for the specified pane.
-
-
- 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]
-
(alias: lsb)
List the global buffers. For the meaning of the -F flag,
see the FORMATS section.
-
-
- load-buffer
[-b
buffer-name] path
-
(alias: loadb)
Load the contents of the specified paste buffer from
path.
-
-
- 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) characters in the
paste buffer are replaced with a separator, by default carriage return
(CR). A custom separator may be specified using the -s
flag. The -r flag means to do no replacement (equivalent
to a separator of LF). If -p is specified, paste bracket
control codes are inserted around the buffer if the application has
requested bracketed paste mode.
-
-
- save-buffer
[-a]
[-b
buffer-name] path
-
(alias: saveb)
Save the contents of the specified paste buffer to
path. The -a option appends to
rather than overwriting the file.
-
-
- set-buffer
[-a]
[-b
buffer-name]
[-n
new-buffer-name]
data
-
(alias: setb)
Set the contents of the specified buffer to data. 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 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
[-b]
[-t
target-pane]
shell-command
-
(alias: run)
Execute shell-command in the background without
creating a window. Before being executed, shell-command is expanded using
the rules specified in the FORMATS
section. With -b, the command is run in the background.
After it finishes, any output to stdout is displayed in copy mode (in the
pane specified by -t or the current pane if omitted). If
the command doesn't return success, the exit status is also
displayed.
-
-
- wait-for
[-L | -S |
-U] channel
-
(alias: wait)
When used without options, prevents the client from exiting until 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
.
-
-
- [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):
-
-
- 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\\'
-
-
- Smol
- Enable the overline attribute. The capability is usually
SGR 53 and can be added to terminal-overrides as:
-
-
- 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. The
capability can typically be added to terminal-overrides
as:
-
-
- Setulc
- Set the underscore colour. The argument is (red * 65536) +
(green * 256) + blue where each is between 0 and 255. The capability can
typically be added to terminal-overrides as:
Setulc=\E[58::2::%p1%{65536}%/%d::%p1%{256}%/%{255}%&%d::%p1%{255}%&%d%;m
-
-
- 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:
If Se is not set, Ss with argument 0 will be used to reset
the cursor style instead.
-
-
- Tc
- Indicate that the terminal supports the
‘
direct colour
’ RGB escape sequence
(for example, \e[38;2;255;255;255m).
If supported, this is used for the initialize colour escape sequence (which
may be enabled by adding the ‘initc
’
and ‘ccc
’ capabilities to the
tmux
terminfo(5) entry).
-
-
- Ms
- Store the current buffer in the host terminal's selection
(clipboard). See the set-clipboard option above and the
xterm(1) man page.
CONTROL MODE
tmux offers a textual interface called
control
mode. This allows applications to communicate with
tmux
using a simple text-only protocol.
In control mode, a client sends
tmux commands or command
sequences terminated by newlines on standard input. Each command will produce
one block of output on standard output. An output block consists of a
%begin line followed by the output (which may be empty). The
output block ends with a
%end or
%error.
%begin and matching
%end or
%error have two arguments: an integer time (as seconds from
epoch) and command number. For example:
%begin 1363006971 2
0: ksh* (1 panes) [80x24] [layout b25f,80x24,0,0,2] @2 (active)
%end 1363006971 2
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-session-changed
client session-id
name
- The client is now attached to the session with ID
session-id, which is named
name.
-
-
- %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.
-
-
- %layout-change
window-id window-layout
window-visible-layout
window-flags
- The layout of a window with ID
window-id changed. The new layout is
window-layout. The window's visible layout is
window-visible-layout and the window flags are
window-flags.
-
-
- %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.
-
-
- %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.
-
-
- %unlinked-window-add
window-id
- The window with ID window-id was
created but is not linked to the current session.
-
-
- %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.
Overridden 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
provided by the operating system it is used and
LC_CTYPE
is ignored 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
locale, tmux exits with an error message.
-
-
LC_TIME
- The date and time format
locale(1). It is used for
locale-dependent
strftime(3) format
specifiers.
-
-
PWD
- The current working directory to be set in the global
environment. This may be useful if it contains symbolic links. If the
value of the variable does not match the current working directory, the
variable is ignored and the result of
getcwd(3) is used
instead.
-
-
SHELL
- The absolute path to the default shell for new windows. See
the default-shell option for details.
-
-
TMUX_TMPDIR
- The parent directory of the directory containing the server
sockets. See the -L option for details.
-
-
VISUAL
- If the command specified in this variable contains the
string ‘
vi
’, use vi-style key
bindings. Overridden by the mode-keys and
status-keys options.
FILES
- ~/.tmux.conf
- Default tmux configuration file.
- @SYSCONFDIR@/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>