tmux Cheat Sheet

tmux-cheat-sheet.md

tmux Cheat Sheet

Table of Contents

• General Usage
• Shortcuts
• Commands
• Scripting tmux
• Configuring tmux
• Further Resources

General Usage

• Start a tmux session with

  tmux

• Select text in a tmux window with your mouse by holding the SHIFT key (Windows) or the OPTIONS key (Mac) and then using the mouse as you'd normally do

Shortcuts

Key(s)	Description
CTRL+b <command>	sends <command> to tmux instead of sending it to the shell
	General Commands
?	shows a list of all commands (qcloses the list)
:	enter a tmux command
	Working with Windows
c	creates a new window
,	rename current window
p	switch to previous window
n	switch to next window
w	list windows (and then select with arrow keys)
	Working with Panes
%	split window vertically
-	split window horizontally requires bind - split-window -v in our .tmux.conf
→	go to right pane
←	go to left pane
↑	go to upper pane
↓	go to lower pane
	Working with Sessions
d	detach from session

Commands

Command	Description
tmux -s	creates a new session with name <SESSION NAME>
tmux list-sessions	lists all currently running tmux sessions
tmux attach -t	attach to the session called <SESSION NAME>

Scripting TMUX

Starting multiple commands in multiple panes

Start a new tmux session with tmux before running the script!

# start a new tmux session and detach from it
tmux new-session -d -s session1

tmux rename-window 'my window'
tmux send-keys 'echo "pane 1"' C-m

tmux select-window -t session1:0
tmux split-window -h
tmux send-keys 'echo "pane 2"' C-m

tmux split-window -h
tmux send-keys 'echo "pane 3"' C-m

# we want to have notifications in the status bar, if there are changes in the windows
tmux setw -g monitor-activity on
tmux set -g visual-activity on

tmux select-layout even-horizontal

# select the first window to be in the foreground
tmux select-window -t session:1

# attach our terminal to the tmux session
tmux -2 attach-session -t cflogs

Configuring TMUX

You can configure tmux via the ~/.tmux.conf file. After making changes to the config file, you can update the configuration "on-the-fly" with

tmux source ~/.tmux.conf

Changing the default prefix

Use

set -g prefix C-a

to change the default prefix from CTRL + b to CTRL + a. Optionally you can "free" the default binding with

unbind C-b

Key Bindings

You can add / alter tmux's key bindings with the following command

bind | split-window -h

this binds the split window -h command to the | key.

Adding Mouse Support for Mac OS X

In order to have mouse support in Mac OS X, you can add the following lines to your config file:

set -g mode-mouse on
set -g mouse-resize-pane on
set -g mouse-select-pane on
set -g mouse-select-window on

Further Resources

• tmuxinator
• tmux shortcuts & cheatsheet
• tmux tutorial - part 1
• tmux tutorial - part 2
• Mouse support in OS X
• (Video) Basic tmux Tutorial - Windows, Panes, and Sessions over SSH tutoriaLinux - Part 1
• (Video) Basic tmux Tutorial, Part 2 -- Shared Sessions
• tmux scripting - blog post

Hate to be annoying, but none of this works on my terminal. MacOS Sequoia Beta ( September 2024). Alacritty terminal or WezTerm terminal. I hit command or control +b, then try to enter these commands. Tried it every which way. Please help.

Hate to be annoying, but none of this works on my terminal. MacOS Sequoia Beta ( September 2024). Alacritty terminal or WezTerm terminal. I hit command or control +b, then try to enter these commands. Tried it every which way. Please help.