TMATE(1)

📦

version 2.4.0 · 2 versions

2.4.0 · arch rolling, epel 9, fedora 43, fedora 44, opensuse-leap 16.0 (latest)
2.4.0 · debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

, in arch rolling, epel 9, fedora 43, fedora 44, opensuse-leap 16.0

💅 TMATE — the terminal multiplexer, explained by your favorite unix girlie

okay so bestie, buckle UP, because tmate is genuinely one of those tools that changes your whole workflow and I need you to know about it. it's a terminal multiplexer, and no cap, it's iconic. this is the tmate(1) manual page — General Commands Manual energy, main character documentation — and I'm gonna walk you through every single detail of it. nothing skipped. periodt. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

tmate — a terminal multiplexer. that's it, that's the whole vibe. 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

here's the shape of it, exactly as it's written:

tmate [-2CluvV] [-c shell-command] [-f file] [-L socket-name]
      [-S socket-path] [command [flags]]

like, that's the whole grammar of the thing. don't worry, we're gonna break down every letter of that at the OPTIONS section, i promise. 🫶

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so, tmate is a terminal multiplexer: it lets a bunch of terminals be created, accessed, and controlled from a single screen. that's the whole pitch. and the way it's giving: tmate can be detached from a screen and keep running in the background, and then you come back later and reattach. literally the best thing ever. 😭✨

when tmate starts up, it creates a new session with a single window, and displays that on your screen. there's a status line at the bottom of the screen showing info about the current session, and you use it to enter interactive commands. it's like a little dashboard. love her.

a session is a single collection of pseudo terminals under the management of tmate. every session has one or more windows linked to it. a window takes up the entire screen and can be split into rectangular panes, and each pane is its own separate pseudo terminal (the pty(4) manual page has the technical deets on pseudo terminals, if you're a nerd about it, which — same). any number of tmate instances can connect to the same session, and any number of windows can be present in the same session. and once all the sessions are killed, tmate exits. bye bestie. 👋

the way persistence works: each session is persistent and will survive accidental disconnection (like an ssh(1) connection timeout — we've all been there 💀) or intentional detaching (with the 'C-b d' key strokes). and you reattach with:

$ tmate attach

in tmate, 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, and they communicate through a socket in /tmp. cute little family. 🧚

the options are as follows:

👑 OPTIONS 👑

-2 — forces tmate to assume the terminal supports 256 colours. slay, more colors. 🌈
-C — start in control mode (go peek at the “CONTROL MODE” section, bestie). give it twice (-CC) and it disables echo.
-c shell-command — executes shell-command using the default shell. if it's necessary, the tmate server will be started just to retrieve the default-shell option. this one exists for compatibility with sh(1) when tmate is used as a login shell.
-f file — specify an alternative configuration file. by default, tmate loads the system configuration file from /etc/tmux.conf, if present, then it looks for a user configuration file at ~/.tmux.conf and ~/.tmate.conf.

the configuration file is a set of tmate commands which are executed in sequence when the server is first started. tmate loads configuration files once, when the server process has started. the source-file command may be used to load a file later. 🗂️

tmate shows any error messages from commands in configuration files in the first session created, and then continues to process the rest of the configuration file. she's resilient like that.

-L socket-name — tmate stores the server socket in a directory under TMUX_TMPDIR, or /tmp if that's unset. the default socket is named default. this option lets you specify a different socket name, which means you can run several independent tmate servers. and unlike -S, a full path is not necessary: the sockets are all created in the same directory. 🫶

heads up bestie: if the socket gets accidentally removed, the SIGUSR1 signal may be sent to the tmate 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 it's there for compatibility with other shells when you're using tmate as a login shell. (iconic of it to just show up and do nothing, honestly.)
-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. mutual exclusivity, we love to see it. 💅
-u — tmate tries to guess if the terminal is likely to support UTF-8 by checking the first of the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE and LANG environment variables to be set for the string "UTF-8". this is not always correct: the -u flag explicitly informs tmate that UTF-8 is supported. ngl, guessing is hard.

important: tmate itself always accepts UTF-8. what this actually controls is whether it will send UTF-8 characters to the terminal it's running in — and if not, they get replaced by '_'. 🙈

-v — request verbose logging. this option may be specified multiple times for increasing verbosity (yes, you can stack it, go off 🔥). log messages get 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.
-V — report the tmate version. short king.
command [flags] — this specifies one of a set of commands used to control tmate, as described in the following sections. if no commands are specified, the new-session command is assumed. (sneaky little default, love that for us.)

🎀 KEY BINDINGS 🎀

okay so you can control tmate from an attached client using a key combination of a prefix key — 'C-b' (Ctrl-b) by default — followed by a command key. it's giving secret handshake. 💖

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 tmate 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 tmate 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.
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.
m — mark the current pane (see select-pane -m).
M — clear the marked pane.
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 tmate, 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.

and key bindings may be changed with the bind-key and unbind-key commands. 🫶

💅 COMMANDS 💅

Okay bestie, this is the big one — literally the whole list of commands tmate speaks. Most of them take the optional -t argument (and sometimes -s too, slay) with one of target-client, target-session, target-window, or target-pane. Those four cuties are just how you tell a command which client, session, window or pane it's supposed to mess with. Let's break each one down 💖

🫶 `target-client`

This one's the name of the pty(4) file the client is connected to — so like /dev/ttyp1 or ttyp1, both work for the client attached to /dev/ttyp1 (the short one is giving "no need for the whole path, bestie" energy ✨).

If you don't name a client, tmate tries to figure out which client is currently in use. If that fails? Boom, error reported 😭 You can always peek at the list with the list-clients command.

🌸 `target-session`

tmate tries these in order, top to bottom:

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, matched against the session name.

If the session name starts with an =? Only an exact match is accepted, periodt. So =mysess will only match exactly mysess, not mysession 🙅‍♀️

If a single session is found, she's your target session. Multiple matches? Error, bestie, too many options 💀 If you omit the session entirely, the current session gets used if there is one; if there's no current session available, the most recently used one is chosen. The universe provides ✨

🦋 `target-window` (also `src-window` and `dst-window`)

These specify a window in the form session:window. The session part follows the same rules as target-session above, and the window is looked for in this order:

A special token from the little list 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.

Same as sessions, a = prefix forces an exact match only. And an empty window name specifies the next unused index if that's appropriate (like in the new-window and link-window commands) — otherwise the current window in session is chosen, iykyk.

The special tokens for pointing at particular windows, each with a single-character alternative form 👑:

{start}, aka ^ — the lowest-numbered window
{end}, aka $ — the highest-numbered window
{last}, aka ! — the last (previously current) window
{next}, aka + — the next window by number
{previous}, aka - — the previous window by number

🎀 `target-pane` (also `src-pane` and `dst-pane`)

This can be a pane ID, or it takes a form similar 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 you skip the pane index, the currently active pane in the specified window is used, easy 💅

The special tokens for the pane index:

{last}, aka ! — the last (previously active) pane
{next}, aka + — the next pane by number
{previous}, aka - — 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 + and - tokens can be followed by an offset, like this bestie:

select-window -t:+2

Also, target-session, target-window or target-pane may consist entirely of the token {mouse} (alternative form =) to specify the most recent mouse event — see the "MOUSE SUPPORT" section 🐭 — or {marked} (alternative form ~) to specify the marked pane — see select-pane -m.

🌈 IDs, they're a whole thing

Sessions, windows 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 stay unchanged for the entire life of that session, window or pane in the tmate server. The pane ID gets passed to the child process of the pane in the TMUX_PANE environment variable.

You can show IDs 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. Iconic.

🍓 `shell-command` arguments

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'

On top of that, 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 save you from shell quoting headaches, no cap. For example:

$ tmate new-window vi /etc/passwd

Will run vi(1) directly without invoking the shell 😌

🧚 `command [arguments]`

command [arguments] refers to a tmate command, passed with the command and arguments separately, for example:

bind-key F1 set-window-option force-width 81

Or if you're using sh(1):

$ tmate bind-key F1 set-window-option force-width 81

💜 Command sequences (a little stacking moment)

Multiple commands may be specified together as part of a command sequence. Each command should be separated by spaces and a semicolon; commands are executed sequentially from left to right, and lines ending with a backslash continue on to the next line — except when escaped by another backslash. You can include a literal semicolon by escaping it with a backslash (for example, when specifying a command sequence to bind-key) ⭐

Example tmate commands include:

refresh-client -t/dev/ttyp2

rename-session -tfirst newname

set-window-option -t: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):

$ tmate kill-window -t :1

$ tmate new-window \; split-window -d

$ tmate new-session -d 'vi /etc/passwd' \; split-window -d \; attach

🌸 CLIENTS AND SESSIONS 🌸

The tmate server is basically the group chat admin for clients, sessions, windows and panes. Clients get attached to sessions so they can interact with them — either when the session is 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, and each pane 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` (alias: `attach`)

attach-session [-dEr] [-c working-directory] [-t target-session]

If you run this from outside tmate, it creates a new client in the current terminal and attaches it to target-session. If you run it from inside, it switches the current client. If -d is specified, any other clients attached to the session are detached. -r means 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 tmate needs to select the most recently used session, it will prefer the most recently used unattached session.

-d — detach any other clients attached to the session.
-E — if used, the update-environment option will not be applied.
-r — make the client read-only (only keys bound to detach-client or switch-client commands have any effect).
-c working-directory — set the session working directory (used for new windows) to working-directory.
-t target-session — the session you’re attaching to.

`detach-client` (alias: `detach`)

detach-client [-aP] [-s target-session] [-t target-client]

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.

-a — kill all but the client given with -t.
-P — send SIGHUP to the parent process of the client, typically causing it to exit.
-s target-session — use the session specified here for the “all clients attached” detach.
-t target-client — target this specific client.

`has-session` (alias: `has`)

has-session [-t target-session]

Report an error and exit with 1 if the specified session does not exist. If it does exist, exit with 0.

-t target-session — the session to check.

`kill-server`

kill-server

Kill the tmate server and clients and destroy all sessions. Like fully closing the group chat, not just muting it.

`kill-session`

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.

-a — kill all sessions but the specified one.
-C — clear alerts (bell, activity, or silence) in all windows linked to the session.
-t target-session — the session to destroy.

`list-clients` (alias: `lsc`)

list-clients [-F format] [-t target-session]

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.

-F format — choose the format; see the “FORMATS” section.
-t target-session — only list clients connected to this session.

`list-commands` (alias: `lscm`)

list-commands

List the syntax of all commands supported by tmate. Very “show me the whole menu” energy.

`list-sessions` (alias: `ls`)

list-sessions [-F format]

List all sessions managed by the server. For the meaning of the -F flag, see the “FORMATS” section.

-F format — choose the format; see the “FORMATS” section.

`lock-client` (alias: `lockc`)

lock-client [-t target-client]

Lock target-client, see the lock-server command.

-t target-client — the client to lock.

`lock-session` (alias: `locks`)

lock-session [-t target-session]

Lock all clients attached to target-session.

-t target-session — the session whose attached clients get locked.

`new-session` (alias: `new`)

new-session [-AdDEP] [-c start-directory] [-F format] [-n window-name]
        [-s session-name] [-t target-session] [-x width] [-y height]
        [shell-command]

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. If -d is used, -x and -y specify the size of the initial window (80 by 24 if not given).

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.

If -t is given, the new session is grouped with target-session. This means they share the same set of windows — all windows from target-session are linked to the new session, any new windows are linked to both sessions and any windows closed removed from both sessions. The current and previous window and any session options remain independent and either session may be killed without affecting the other. -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.

-A — behave like attach-session if session-name already exists; in this case, -D behaves like -d to attach-session.
-d — don’t attach the new session to the current terminal.
-D — when -A kicks in because session-name already exists, this behaves like -d to attach-session.
-E — if used, the update-environment option will not be applied.
-P — print information about the new session after it has been created.
-c start-directory — the start directory from the synopsis.
-F format — use this format instead of the default #{session_name}: for -P output.
-n window-name — name of the initial window.
-s session-name — name of the new session.
-t target-session — group the new session with target-session.
-x width — width of the initial window when -d is used (80 if not given).
-y height — height of the initial window when -d is used (24 if not given).
shell-command — shell command to execute in the initial window.

`refresh-client` (alias: `refresh`)

refresh-client [-S] [-t target-client]

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 bar.

-S — only update the client’s status bar.
-t target-client — refresh this single client.

`rename-session` (alias: `rename`)

rename-session [-t target-session] new-name

Rename the session to new-name.

-t target-session — the session to rename.
new-name — the new session name.

`show-messages` (alias: `showmsgs`)

show-messages [-JT] [-t target-client]

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.

-J — show debugging information about jobs.
-T — show debugging information about terminals.
-t target-client — display the log for this client.

`source-file` (alias: `source`)

source-file path

Execute commands from path.

path — the file to execute commands from.

`start-server` (alias: `start`)

start-server

Start the tmate server, if not already running, without creating any sessions.

`suspend-client` (alias: `suspendc`)

suspend-client [-t target-client]

Suspend a client by sending SIGTSTP (tty stop).

-t target-client — the client to suspend.

`switch-client` (alias: `switchc`)

switch-client [-Elnpr] [-c target-client] [-t target-session] [-T
        key-table]

Switch the current session for client target-client to target-session. 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

-E — if used, update-environment option will not be applied.
-l — move the client to the last session.
-n — move the client to the next session.
-p — move the client to the previous session.
-r — toggle whether a client is read-only (see the attach-session command).
-c target-client — the client to switch.
-t target-session — the session to switch to.
-T key-table — set the client’s key table; the next key from the client will be interpreted from key-table.

🦋 WINDOWS AND PANES 🦋

A tmate window may be in one of several modes. The default permits direct access to the terminal attached to the window. The other is copy mode, 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. It is also entered when a command that produces output, such as list-keys, is executed from a key binding.

The keys available depend on whether emacs or vi mode is selected (see the mode-keys option). The following keys are supported as appropriate for the mode:

Append selection — vi: A
Back to indentation — vi: ^, emacs: M-m
Bottom of history — vi: G, emacs: M-<
Clear selection — vi: Escape, emacs: C-g
Copy selection — vi: Enter, emacs: M-w
Copy to named buffer — vi: "
Cursor down — vi: j, emacs: Down
Cursor left — vi: h, emacs: Left
Cursor right — vi: l, emacs: Right
Cursor to bottom line — vi: L
Cursor to middle line — vi: M, emacs: M-r
Cursor to top line — vi: H, emacs: M-R
Cursor up — vi: k, emacs: Up
Delete entire line — vi: d, emacs: C-u
Delete/Copy to end of line — vi: D, emacs: C-k
End of line — vi: $, emacs: C-e
Go to line — vi: :, emacs: g
Half page down — vi: C-d, emacs: M-Down
Half page up — vi: C-u, emacs: M-Up
Jump again — vi: ;, emacs: ;
Jump again in reverse — vi: ,, emacs: ,
Jump backward — vi: F, emacs: F
Jump forward — vi: f, emacs: f
Jump to backward — vi: T
Jump to forward — vi: t
Next page — vi: C-f, emacs: Page down
Next space — vi: W
Next space, end of word — vi: E
Next word — vi: w
Next word end — vi: e, emacs: M-f
Other end of selection — vi: o
Paste buffer — vi: p, emacs: C-y
Previous page — vi: C-b, emacs: Page up
Previous space — vi: B
Previous word — vi: b, emacs: M-b
Quit mode — vi: q, emacs: Escape
Rectangle toggle — vi: v, emacs: R
Scroll down — vi: C-Down or C-e, emacs: C-Down
Scroll up — vi: C-Up or C-y, emacs: C-Up
Search again — vi: n, emacs: n
Search again in reverse — vi: N, emacs: N
Search backward — vi: ?, emacs: C-r
Search forward — vi: /, emacs: C-s
Select line — vi: V
Start of line — vi: 0, emacs: C-a
Start selection — vi: Space, emacs: C-Space
Top of history — vi: g, emacs: M->
Transpose characters — emacs: C-t

Okay so the next-word and previous-word keys? They use space and the -, _, and @ characters as word delimiters by default, but bestie you can totally adjust that 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. Slay.

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. It's giving teleportation but make it keyboard. ✨

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. For example, to move the cursor forward by ten words, use M-1 0 M-f in emacs mode, and 10w in vi. Numbers are literally the main character here. 🔢

Mode key bindings are defined in a set of named tables: vi-edit and emacs-edit for keys used when line editing at the command prompt; vi-choice and emacs-choice for keys used when choosing from lists (such as produced by the choose-window command); and vi-copy and emacs-copy used in copy mode. The tables may be viewed with the list-keys command and keys modified or removed with bind-key and unbind-key. If append-selection, copy-selection, or start-named-buffer are given the -x flag, tmate will not exit copy mode after copying. copy-pipe copies the selection and pipes it to a command. For example the following will bind C-w not to exit after copying and C-q to copy the selection into /tmp as well as the paste buffer:

bind-key -temacs-copy C-w copy-selection -x
bind-key -temacs-copy C-q copy-pipe "cat >/tmp/out"

The paste buffer key pastes the first line from the top paste buffer on the stack. No cap, it's just that simple. 🫶

The synopsis for the copy-mode command is:

copy-mode [-Meu] [-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”). -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

Each window displayed by tmate 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. It's giving organizational queen energy. 👑

A number of preset layouts are available. 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:

$ tmate list-windows
0: ksh [159x48]
    layout: bb62,159x48,0,0{79x48,0,0,79x48,80,0}
$ tmate select-layout bb62,159x48,0,0{79x48,0,0,79x48,80,0}

tmate 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. So don't try to put a whole friend group into a one-person layout, bestie. 💀

Commands related to windows and panes are as follows:

break-pane [-dP] [-F format] [-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 [-aepPq] [-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. -J joins wrapped lines and preserves trailing spaces at each line's end. -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 [-F format] [-t target-window] [template] — Put a window into client choice mode, allowing a client to be selected interactively from a list. After a client is chosen, %% is replaced by the client pty(4) path in template and the result executed as a command. If template is not given, "detach-client -t '%%'" is used. For the meaning of the -F flag, see the “FORMATS” section. This command works only if at least one client is attached.
choose-session [-F format] [-t target-window] [template] — Put a window into session choice mode, where a session may be selected interactively from a list. When one is chosen, %% is replaced by the session name in template and the result executed as a command. If template is not given, "switch-client -t '%%'" is used. For the meaning of the -F flag, see the “FORMATS” section. This command works only if at least one client is attached.
choose-tree [-suw] [-b session-template] [-c window-template] [-S format] [-W format] [-t target-window] — Put a window into tree choice mode, where either sessions or windows may be selected interactively from a list. By default, windows belonging to a session are indented to show their relationship to a session.

Note that the choose-window and choose-session commands are wrappers around choose-tree. Wrappers within wrappers, we love a layered moment. 🎀

If -s is given, will show sessions. If -w is given, will show windows.

By default, the tree is collapsed and sessions must be expanded to windows with the right arrow key. The -u option will start with all sessions expanded instead.

If -b is given, will override the default session command. Note that %% can be used and will be replaced with the session name. The default option if not specified is "switch-client -t '%%'". If -c is given, will override the default window command. Like -b, %% can be used and will be replaced with the session name and window index. When a window is chosen from the list, the session command is run before the window command.

If -S is given will display the specified format instead of the default session format. If -W is given will display the specified format instead of the default window format. For the meaning of the -s and -w options, see the “FORMATS” section.

This command works only if at least one client is attached.

choose-window [-F format] [-t target-window] [template] — Put a window into window choice mode, where a window may be chosen interactively from a list. After a window is selected, %% is replaced by the session name and window index in template and the result executed as a command. If template is not given, "select-window -t '%%'" is used. For the meaning of the -F flag, see the “FORMATS” section. This command works only if at least one client is attached.
display-panes [-t target-client] (alias: displayp) — Display a visible indicator of each pane shown by target-client. See the display-panes-time, display-panes-colour, and display-panes-active-colour session options. While the indicator is on screen, a pane may be selected with the 0 to 9 keys.
find-window [-CNT] [-F format] [-t target-window] match-string (alias: findw) — Search for the fnmatch(3) pattern 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. If only one window is matched, it'll be automatically selected, otherwise a choice list is shown. For the meaning of the -F flag, see the “FORMATS” section. This command works only if at least one client is attached.

`join-pane` 💅

join-pane [-bdhv] [-l size | -p percentage] [-s src-pane] [-t dst-pane]

Alias: joinp

Okay so bestie, picture split-window — but instead of splitting dst-pane and making a brand new pane, it splits it and moves src-pane into that space. It's literally the reverse of break-pane, no cap. ✨

-b — glues src-pane to the left of (or above) dst-pane.

Heads up: if you skip -s and there's a marked pane chillin' (peep select-pane -m), the marked pane gets used instead of the current pane. 🫶

`kill-pane` 💀

kill-pane [-a] [-t target-pane]

Alias: killp

Destroys the pane you point at. And if that leaves zero panes in the window it lives in? The window itself gets destroyed too, bye. 👋

-a — kills all the panes except the one you gave with -t. ruthless, iconic.

`kill-window` 🪦

kill-window [-a] [-t target-window]

Alias: killw

Kills the current window, or the one at target-window, and rips it out of every session it's linked to. ✂️

-a — kills everything but the window given with -t.

`last-pane` 🕰️

last-pane [-de] [-t target-window]

Alias: lastp

Selects the last pane — y'know, the one that was selected before this one. main character reunion vibes.

-e — enables input to the pane.
-d — disables input to the pane.

`last-window` 🌸

last-window [-t target-session]

Alias: last

Selects the last (previously selected) window. If you don't specify target-session, it just picks the last window of the current session. lowkey the undo button of window hopping.

`link-window` 🔗

link-window [-adk] [-s src-window] [-t dst-window]

Alias: linkw

Links the window at src-window over to the dst-window you specified. And if dst-window is specified but no such window exists? Boom, src-window gets linked right there. ✨

-a — moves the window to the next index up (following windows get shuffled along if needed).
-k — if dst-window already exists, it gets killed. Without -k, you get an error instead. ⚠️
-d — the newly linked window does not get selected. shy window energy.

`list-panes` 📋

list-panes [-as] [-F format] [-t target]

Alias: lsp

The pane census, bestie.

-a — target is ignored entirely and literally every pane on the server gets listed.
-s — target is a session (or the current session).
-F format — sets the format. For what that actually means, go read the “FORMATS” section, iykyk.
If neither -a nor -s is given — target is a window (or the current window).

`list-windows` 🪟

list-windows [-a] [-F format] [-t target-session]

Alias: lsw

-a — lists all windows on the server. all of them. the whole squad.
-F format — again, “FORMATS” section has the lore.
No -a? Then it lists the windows in the current session, or in target-session.

`move-pane` 🚚

move-pane [-bdhv] [-l size | -p percentage] [-s src-pane] [-t dst-pane]

Alias: movep

Basically join-pane, except here src-pane and dst-pane are allowed to live in the same window. glow up. ✨

`move-window` 🏃‍♀️

move-window [-ardk] [-s src-window] [-t dst-window]

Alias: movew

Same energy as link-window, except the window at src-window actually gets moved to dst-window instead of linked.

-r — renumbers all windows in the session sequentially, respecting the base-index option. tidy queen. 🎀

`new-window` 👑

new-window [-adkP] [-c start-directory] [-F format] [-n window-name] [-t target-window] [shell-command]

Alias: neww

Creates a fresh new window, brand new, sparkling. 🦋

-a — the new window gets inserted at the next index up from the target-window you gave, shoving windows up if needed. Without -a, target-window is the new window's location.
-d — the session does not make the new window the current window. it can wait its turn.
-k — normally if the target already exists you get an error; with -k that existing one gets destroyed first.
-c start-directory — the working directory the new window gets created in.
-P — prints info about the new window after it's made. default format is #{session_name}:#{window_index}, but you can swap in something else with -F.
-F format — your custom format for that -P printout.
-n window-name — names the new window.
shell-command — the command to run. don't pass one and the value of the default-command option gets used instead.

When the shell command finishes, the window closes. periodt. If you want different behaviour, look at the remain-on-exit option.

⚠️ Fr fr important: the TERM environment variable must be set to screen for every program running inside tmate. New windows automatically get TERM=screen added to their environment — but be careful not to reset it in your shell start-up files. 😭

`next-layout` 🔄

next-layout [-t target-window]

Alias: nextl

Moves the window to the next layout and rearranges the panes so they fit. little glow-up for your pane arrangement. ✨

`next-window` ➡️

next-window [-a] [-t target-session]

Alias: next

Hops to the next window in the session.

-a — hop to the next window that has an alert instead. 🚨

`pipe-pane` 🎀

pipe-pane [-o] [-t target-pane] [shell-command]

Alias: pipep

Pipes any output the program in target-pane sends to a shell command. iconic plumbing tbh.

A pane can only be piped to one command at a time — any existing pipe gets closed before shell-command runs. The shell-command string can contain the special character sequences that the status-left option supports. If you give no shell-command, the current pipe (if there is one) gets closed.

-o — only opens a new pipe if there's no previous pipe. That way you can toggle a pipe with a single key, like this:

bind-key C-p pipe-pane -o 'cat >>~/output.#I-#P'

slay. 🫶

`previous-layout` 🔙

previous-layout [-t target-window]

Alias: prevl

Moves to the previous layout in the session. throwing it back, layout edition.

`previous-window` ⬅️

previous-window [-a] [-t target-session]

Alias: prev

Moves to the previous window in the session.

-a — moves to the previous window that has an alert.

`rename-window` ✏️

rename-window [-t target-window] new-name

Alias: renamew

Renames the current window (or the one at target-window if you specify it) to new-name. give it a cute name bestie, it deserves it. 🎀

`resize-pane` 📐

resize-pane [-DLMRUZ] [-t target-pane] [-x width] [-y height] [adjustment]

Alias: resizep

Resize a pane — up, down, left or right by adjustment using -U, -D, -L or -R, or slap it to an absolute size with -x or -y. The adjustment is in lines or cells (default is 1).

-Z — toggles the active pane between zoomed (filling the whole window) and unzoomed (back to its normal spot in the layout).
-M — begins mouse resizing. Only valid if it's bound to a mouse key binding — see “MOUSE SUPPORT”. 🖱️

`respawn-pane` ✨

respawn-pane [-k] [-t target-pane] [shell-command]

Alias: respawnp

Reactivates a pane whose command has already exited (check out the remain-on-exit window option). If you don't give shell-command, it runs the command that was used when the pane was created.

The pane must already be inactive — unless you pass -k, in which case any existing command gets killed. 😭

`respawn-window` 🌈

respawn-window [-k] [-t target-window] [shell-command]

Alias: respawnw

Same thing but for windows: reactivates a window whose command has exited (again, see the remain-on-exit window option). No shell-command? Then the command used when the window was created gets run.

Same rule, bestie: the window must already be inactive, unless -k is given — and then any existing command gets killed.

`rotate-window` 🌀

rotate-window [-DU] [-t target-window]

Alias: rotatew

Rotates the positions of the panes inside a window.

-U — rotate upward (numerically lower).
-D — rotate downward (numerically higher).

`select-layout` 🎨

select-layout [-nop] [-t target-window] [layout-name]

Alias: selectl

Picks a specific layout for a window. If you don't give layout-name, the last preset layout used (if any) gets reapplied. ✨

-n — equivalent to the next-layout command.
-p — equivalent to the previous-layout command.
-o — applies the last set layout if possible — basically undoes the most recent layout change. the ctrl+z of layouts, lowkey.

`select-pane` 👑

select-pane [-DdegLlMmRU] [-P style] [-t target-pane]

Alias: selectp

Makes target-pane the active pane in window target-window — or sets its style with -P.

-D, -L, -R, -U — respectively use the pane below, to the left, to the right, or above the target pane.
-l — same as running the last-pane command.
-e — enables input to the pane.
-d — disables input to the pane.
-m — sets the marked pane.
-M — clears the marked pane.
-P style — sets the style for a single pane.
-g — shows the current pane style.

About marking: there's one marked pane at a time, and setting a new marked pane clears the last one. The marked pane is the default target for -s on join-pane, swap-pane and swap-window. 💅

About styles: every pane has one, and by default the window-style and window-active-style options are used. select-pane -P sets the style for just one pane. Example — set pane 1's background to red:

select-pane -t:.1 -P 'bg=red'

ate. 🔥

`select-window` 🪟

select-window [-lnpT] [-t target-window]

Alias: selectw

Selects the window at target-window.

-l — equivalent to the last-window command.
-n — equivalent to the next-window command.
-p — equivalent to the previous-window command.
-T — if the selected window is already the current window, the command behaves like last-window. plot twist.

`split-window` ✂️

split-window [-bdhvP] [-c start-directory] [-l size | -p percentage] [-t target-pane] [shell-command] [-F format]

Alias: splitw

Makes a new pane by splitting target-pane.

-h — horizontal split.
-v — vertical split. If you specify neither, -v is assumed.
-l size / -p percentage — the size of the new pane, in lines (vertical split) or cells (horizontal split), or as a percentage respectively.
-b — the new pane gets created to the left of (or above) target-pane.

All the other options mean exactly the same as they do for the new-window command. 🫶

`swap-pane` 🔀

swap-pane [-dDU] [-s src-pane] [-t dst-pane]

Alias: swapp

Swaps two panes. iconic.

-U — if used and no source pane is given with -s, dst-pane gets swapped with the previous pane (the one before it numerically).
-D — swaps with the next pane (the one after it numerically).
-d — tells tmate not to change the active pane.

Reminder: if you omit -s and a marked pane is present (see select-pane -m), the marked pane is used instead of the current pane. 🎀

swap-window [-d] [-s src-window] [-t dst-window] (alias: swapw) — okay so this is basically link-window’s chaotic twin: it swaps the source and destination windows instead. It is an error if no window exists at src-window.

Like swap-pane, 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 ✨

tmate 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

Commands related to key bindings are as follows:

bind-key [-cnr] [-t mode-table] [-T key-table] key command [arguments] (alias: bind) — Bind 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.

If -t is present, key is bound in mode-table: the binding for command mode with -c or for normal mode without. See the “WINDOWS AND PANES” section and the list-keys command for information on mode key bindings.

To view the default bindings and possible commands, see the list-keys command.

list-keys [-t mode-table] [-T key-table] (alias: lsk) — List all key bindings. Without -T all key tables are printed. With -T only key-table.

With -t, the key bindings in mode-table are listed; this may be one of: vi-edit, emacs-edit, vi-choice, emacs-choice, vi-copy or emacs-copy.

send-keys [-lMR] [-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. The -l flag disables key name lookup and sends the keys literally. All arguments are sent sequentially from first to last. 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”).

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 [-acn] [-t mode-table] [-T key-table] key (alias: unbind) — Unbind the command bound to key. -c, -n, -T and -t are the same as for bind-key. If -a is present, all key bindings are removed.

🌈 OPTIONS 🌈

The appearance and behaviour of tmate may be modified by changing the value of various options. There are three types of option: server options, session options and window options.

The tmate server has a set of global options which do not apply to any particular window or session. 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 there is a set of global window options from which any unset options are inherited. Window options are altered with the set-window-option command and can be listed with the show-window-options command. All window options are documented with the set-window-option command.

tmate 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:

$ tmate setw -q @foo "abc123"
$ tmate showw -v @foo
abc123

Commands which set options are as follows:

set-option [-agoqsuw] [-t target-session | target-window] option value (alias: set) — Set a window option with -w (equivalent to the set-window-option command), a server option with -s, otherwise a session option. If -g is given, the global session or window option is set. 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.

Available window options are listed under set-window-option.

value depends on the option and may be a number, a string, or a flag (on, off, or omitted to toggle).

💖 Available server options

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.
default-terminal terminal — Set the default terminal for new windows created in this session — the default value of the TERM environment variable. For tmate to work correctly, this must be set to screen, tmux, tmate or a derivative of them.
escape-time time — Set the time in milliseconds for which tmate 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-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 tmate. Attached clients should be detached and attached again after changing this option.
history-file path — If not empty, a file to which tmate 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 | off] — Attempt to set the terminal clipboard content using the \e]52;...\007 xterm(1) escape sequences. This option is on by default if there is an Ms entry in the terminfo(5) description for the client terminal. 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 — Contains a list of entries which override terminal descriptions read using terminfo(5). string is a comma-separated list of items each 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 and the dch1 entry to \e[P for the rxvt terminal type, the option could be set to the string:

"*:clear=\e[H\e[2J,rxvt:dch1=\e[P"

The terminal entry value is passed through strunvis(3) before interpretation. The default value forcibly corrects the colors entry for terminals which support 256 colours:

"*256col*:colors=256,xterm*:XT"

🌸 Available session options

assume-paste-time milliseconds — If keys are entered faster than one in milliseconds, they are assumed to have been pasted rather than typed and tmate 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] — bell vibe check, bestie 🔔. any means a bell in any window linked to a session causes a bell in the current window of that session; none means all bells are ignored; current means only bells in windows other than the current window are ignored; and other means bells in the current window are ignored but not those in other windows.
bell-on-alert [on | off] — if on, ring the terminal bell when an alert occurs. ding ding ✨
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 tmate to create a login shell using the value of the default-shell option. new-window starter pack 🫶
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, tmate 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 tmate is used as a login shell. shell origin story 🐚
destroy-unattached [on | off] — if enabled and the session is no longer attached to any clients, it is destroyed. bye bestie 💀
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. session cleanup behavior 🧹
display-panes-active-colour colour — set the colour used by the display-panes command to show the indicator for the active pane. main character pane 👑
display-panes-colour colour — set the colour used by the display-panes command to show the indicators for inactive panes. supporting cast panes ✨
display-panes-time time — set the time in milliseconds for which the indicators shown by the display-panes command appear. blink and you miss it 🦋
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. status message hang time ⏳
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. scrollback lore 📜
key-table key-table — set the default key table to key-table instead of root. keyboard universe swap 🎀
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). nap mode timer 😴
lock-command shell-command — command to run when locking each client. The default is to run lock(1) with -np. lock screen routine 🔐
message-command-style style — set status line message command style, where style is a comma-separated list of characteristics to be specified. style moment 💅

These may be bg=colour to set the background colour, fg=colour to set the foreground colour, and a list of attributes as specified below.

The colour is one of: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white, aixterm bright variants (if supported: brightred, brightgreen, and so on), colour0 to colour255 from the 256-colour set, default, or a hexadecimal RGB string such as #ffffff, which chooses the closest match from the default 256-colour set.

The attributes is either none or a comma-delimited list of one or more of: bright (or bold), dim, underscore, blink, reverse, hidden, or italics, to turn an attribute on, or an attribute prefixed with no to turn one off.

Examples are:

fg=yellow,bold,underscore,blink
bg=black,fg=default,noreverse

With the -a flag to the set-option command the new style is added otherwise the existing style is replaced. styling rules, no cap 🌈

message-style style — set status line message style. For how to specify style, see the message-command-style option. same style manual, different status bit 🎨
mouse [on | off] — if on, tmate captures the mouse and allows mouse events to be bound as key bindings. See the “MOUSE SUPPORT” section for details. mouse girlies rise 🐭
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. the magic starter key 🪄
prefix2 key — set a secondary key accepted as a prefix key. Like prefix, prefix2 can be set to None. backup magic starter key ✨
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. window lineup cleanup 🔢
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. combo mode 🔁
set-remain-on-exit [on | off] — set the remain-on-exit window option for any windows first created in this session. When this option is true, windows in which the running program has exited do not close, instead remaining open but inactivate. Use the respawn-window command to reactivate such a window, or the kill-window command to destroy it. ghost window behavior 👻
set-titles [on | off] — attempt to set the client terminal title using the tsl and fsl terminfo(5) entries if they exist. tmate automatically sets these to the \e]0;...\007 sequence if the terminal appears to be xterm(1). This option is off by default. title bar glow-up 🪟
set-titles-string string — string used to set the window title if set-titles is on. Formats are expanded, see the “FORMATS” section. title text recipe 📝
status [on | off] — show or hide the status line. status bar visibility 👀
status-interval interval — update the status bar every interval seconds. By default, updates will occur every 15 seconds. A setting of zero disables redrawing at interval. refresh rhythm ⏱️
status-justify [left | centre | right] — set the position of the window list component of the status line: left, centre or right justified. window list alignment 📐
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 line key flavor ⌨️
status-left string — display string (by default the session name) to the left of the status bar. string will be passed through strftime(3) and formats (see “FORMATS”) will be expanded. It may also contain any of the following special character sequences:
- #[attributes] — colour or attribute change
- ## — a literal #

For details on how the names and titles can be set see the “NAMES AND TITLES” section. For a list of allowed attributes see the message-command-style option.

Examples are:

#(sysctl vm.loadavg)
#[fg=yellow,bold]#(apm -l)%%#[default] [#S]

The default is [#S] (yes, with a trailing space, bestie). left side status moment 🌸

status-left-length length — set the maximum length of the left component of the status bar. The default is 10. left side size limit 📏
status-left-style style — set the style of the left part of the status line. For how to specify style, see the message-command-style option. left side aesthetic 🎀
status-position [top | bottom] — set the position of the status line. status line up or down ⬆️⬇️
status-right string — display string to the right of the status bar. By default, the current window 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. right side status moment 🦋
status-right-length length — set the maximum length of the right component of the status bar. The default is 40. right side size limit 📐
status-right-style style — set the style of the right part of the status line. For how to specify style, see the message-command-style option. right side aesthetic ✨
status-style style — set status line style. For how to specify style, see the message-command-style option. whole status bar lewk 💅
update-environment variables — okay so this one takes a space-separated string of env var names that get copied into the session environment whenever a new session is made or an existing one gets attached ✨. And here's the spicy bit: any variable in that list that doesn't exist in the source environment gets marked for removal from the session environment — exactly like you'd passed -r to the set-environment command 🙈. The default is "DISPLAY SSH_ASKPASS SSH_AUTH_SOCK SSH_AGENT_PID SSH_CONNECTION WINDOWID XAUTHORITY" — no cap, that's the whole list.
visual-activity [on | off] — set this to on and you get a status line message whenever activity happens in a window that has the monitor-activity window option turned on 💅.
visual-bell [on | off] — when this is on, a bell shows up as a message instead of being passed straight through to the terminal (which is what normally makes the actual sound) 🔔. Also go peek at the bell-action option, they're besties.
visual-silence [on | off] — if monitor-silence is enabled, this prints a message once the interval has expired on a given window 🤫.
word-separators string — this sets the session's whole conception of what characters count as word separators, which matters for the next and previous word commands in copy mode 🎀. The default is ‘ -_@’.

🧚 set-window-option

set-window-option [-agoqu] [-t target-window] option value

Alias: setw.

Sets a window option, obviously 💖. The -a, -g, -o, -q and -u flags all work just like they do for the set-option command — same energy, different target.

Supported window options are (brace yourself, there's a lot, but they're all iconic):

🌸 aggressive-resize [on | off]

Aggressively resize the chosen window 👑. What that means: tmate resizes the window to the size of the smallest session for which it is the current window, instead of the smallest session it's merely attached to. The window can even resize when the current window gets changed on another session. This option is good for full-screen programs that support SIGWINCH and poor for interactive programs like shells — so choose wisely, bestie 😭.

🌸 allow-rename [on | off]

Lets programs change the window name using a terminal escape sequence (\ek...\e\\). Default is on ✨.

🌸 alternate-screen [on | off]

This one configures whether programs running inside tmate are allowed to use the terminal alternate screen feature, which is what lets the smcup and rmcup terminfo(5) capabilities do their thing 🦋. The alternate screen feature preserves what's in the window when an interactive application starts and restores it when the app exits — so any output that was visible before the app launched reappears unchanged after it's gone. Default is on.

🌸 automatic-rename [on | off]

Controls automatic window renaming 💫. When it's enabled, tmate renames the window automatically using the format set by automatic-rename-format. This flag gets 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 via a terminal escape sequence. You can also switch it off globally, like:

set-window-option -g automatic-rename off

🌸 automatic-rename-format format

The format (see “FORMATS”) used when the automatic-rename option is enabled 🎀.

🌸 clock-mode-colour colour

Sets the clock colour ⏰.

🌸 clock-mode-style [12 | 24]

Sets the clock hour format ⏰✨.

🌸 force-height height / force-width width

Stops tmate from resizing a window bigger than width or height 🙅. A value of zero restores the default unlimited setting.

🌸 main-pane-height height / main-pane-width width

Sets 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 and choice mode ⌨️. Just like the status-keys option, the default is emacs — unless VISUAL or EDITOR contains vi.

🌸 mode-style style

Sets the window modes style ✨. For how to actually specify a style, see the message-command-style option.

🌸 monitor-activity [on | off]

Watches for activity in the window 👀. Windows with activity get highlighted in the status line.

🌸 monitor-silence [interval]

Watches for silence (no activity at all) in the window within interval seconds 🤫. Windows that have been silent for the whole interval get highlighted in the status line. An interval of zero disables the monitoring entirely.

🌸 other-pane-height height

Sets the height of the other panes — y'know, the ones that aren't the main pane — in the main-horizontal layout 📐. If this option is set to 0 (which is the default), it has no effect. If both main-pane-height and other-pane-height are set, the main pane grows taller to make the other panes the specified height, but it will never shrink to do it.

🌸 other-pane-width width

Like other-pane-height, but it sets the width of other panes in the main-vertical layout 📐💜.

🌸 pane-active-border-style style

Sets the pane border style for the currently active pane 🔥. For how to specify a style, see the message-command-style option. Heads up: attributes are ignored.

🌸 pane-base-index index

Like base-index, but it sets the starting index for pane numbers 🔢.

🌸 pane-border-style style

Sets the pane border style for panes aside from the active one 💅. For how to specify a style, see the message-command-style option. Attributes are ignored here too.

🌸 remain-on-exit [on | off]

A window with this flag set is not destroyed when the program running inside it exits 😮. You can reactivate it with the respawn-window command.

🌸 synchronize-panes [on | off]

Duplicates input to any pane across all the other panes in the same window 🪄 — but only for panes that aren't in any special mode.

🌸 window-active-style style

Sets the style for the window's active pane ✨. For how to specify a style, see the message-command-style option.

🌸 window-status-activity-style style

Sets the status line style for windows that have an activity alert 🔔. For how to specify a style, see the message-command-style option.

🌸 window-status-bell-style style

Sets the status line style for windows that have a bell alert 🔔💖. For how to specify a style, see the message-command-style option.

🌸 window-status-current-format string

Like window-status-format, but this is the format used when the window is the current window ⭐.

🌸 window-status-current-style style

Sets the status line style for the currently active window 👑. For how to specify a style, see the message-command-style option.

🌸 window-status-format string

Sets the format that decides how the window is displayed in the status line window list 🎀. See the status-left option for the details on the special character sequences you can use. The default is ‘#I:#W#F’.

🌸 window-status-last-style style

Sets the status line style for the last active window 💫. For how to specify a style, see the message-command-style option.

🌸 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

Sets the status line style for a single window 💅. For how to specify a style, see the message-command-style option.

🌸 window-style style

Sets the default window style 🌈. For how to specify a style, see the message-command-style option.

🌸 xterm-keys [on | off]

If this is set, tmate generates xterm(1)-style function key sequences ⌨️ — these have a number baked in to indicate modifiers like Shift, Alt or Ctrl. The default is off.

🌸 wrap-search [on | off]

If this is set, searches wrap around to the end of the pane contents 🔄. The default is on.

💜 show-options

show-options [-gqsvw] [-t target-session | target-window] [option]

Alias: show.

Shows the window options — or just a single window option if you gave one — with -w (which is equivalent to show-window-options) 💖. With -s it shows the server options instead. And otherwise? It shows the session options for the target session. Global session or window options get listed if -g is used 🌍. -v shows only the option value, not the name. And if -q is set, no error is returned when option is unset 🤫.

🦋 show-window-options

show-window-options [-gv] [-t target-window] [option]

Alias: showw.

Lists the window options, or a single option, for target-window — or the global window options if -g is used 🌍. -v shows only the option value, not the name ✨.

💅 HOOKS 💅

okay so tmate lets you run commands on all kinds of triggers, and those triggers are called hooks — each one has a name, and here's the full roster, no cap:

alert-activity — runs when a window has activity. see monitor-activity 👀
alert-bell — runs when a window has received a bell 🔔
alert-silence — runs when a window has been silent. see monitor-silence 🤫
client-attached — runs when a client is attached 🫶
client-detached — runs when a client is detached 👋
client-resized — runs when a client is resized 📐
pane-died — runs when the program running in a pane exits, but remain-on-exit is on so the pane has not closed 💀
pane-exited — runs when the program running in a pane exits 🚪

and you manage all of these with these two commands:

set-hook [-g] [-t target-session] hook-name command — sets hook hook-name to command. if -g is given, hook-name gets added to the global list of hooks; otherwise it gets added to the session hooks (for target-session with -t). and like options, session hooks inherit from the global ones 💖
show-hooks [-g] [-t target-session] — shows the global list of hooks with -g, otherwise it shows the session hooks ✨

🖱️ MOUSE SUPPORT 🖱️

if the mouse option is on (and jsyk the default is off), tmate lets mouse events be bound as keys. every key's name is a mouse event (like MouseUp1) plus a location suffix — one of Pane for the contents of a pane, Border for a pane border, or Status for the status line. here's the whole menu of mouse events:

MouseDown1    MouseUp1      MouseDrag1   MouseDragEnd1
MouseDown2    MouseUp2      MouseDrag2   MouseDragEnd2
MouseDown3    MouseUp3      MouseDrag3   MouseDragEnd3
WheelUp       WheelDown

each one 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 — like, 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 🫡

and the default key bindings let the mouse 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, so go turn it on bestie ✨

🦋 FORMATS 🦋

certain commands accept the -F flag with a format argument — that's a string that controls the output format of the command. replacement variables are wrapped in #{ and }, like #{session_name}. the possible variables are in the list below, or honestly the name of a tmate option may be used for an option's value. some variables have a shorter alias like #S, and ## gets replaced by a single # 💖

✨ conditionals ✨

you can do conditionals 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 one 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's unattached. or #{?automatic-rename,yes,no} will include yes if automatic-rename is enabled, or no if it's not 🎀

🌸 limits and prefixes 🌸

a limit may be placed on the length of the resultant string by prefixing it with an =, a number and a colon. positive numbers count from the start of the string and negative ones from the end, so #{=5:pane_title} will include at most the first 5 characters of the pane title, or #{=-5:pane_title} the last 5 characters ✂️

prefixing a time variable with t: converts it to a string, so if #{window_activity} gives 1445765102, then #{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, and a prefix of the form s/foo/bar/: will substitute foo with bar throughout 🔁

🐚 shell commands 🐚

in addition, the first line of a shell command's output may be inserted using #(). for example #(uptime) will insert the system's uptime. when constructing formats, tmate 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. commands are executed with the tmate global environment set (see the "ENVIRONMENT" section) 🌍

👑 the variables 👑

the following variables are available, where appropriate:

alternate_on — 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_sample — sample of start of buffer
buffer_size — size of the specified buffer in bytes
client_activity — integer time client last had activity
client_created — integer time client created
client_control_mode — 1 if client is in control mode
client_height — height of client
client_key_table — current key table
client_last_session — name of the client's last session
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 utf8
client_width — width of client
command_name — name of command in use, if any
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 bytes
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_any_flag — pane mouse any flag
mouse_button_flag — pane mouse button flag
mouse_standard_flag — pane mouse standard flag
pane_active — 1 if active pane
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_height — height of pane
pane_id (#D) — unique pane ID
pane_in_mode — if pane is in a mode
pane_input_off — if input to pane is disabled
pane_index (#P) — index of pane
pane_left — left of pane
pane_pid — PID of first process in pane
pane_right — right of pane
pane_start_command — command pane started with
pane_synchronized — if pane is synchronized
pane_tabs — pane tab positions
pane_title (#T) — title of pane
pane_top — top of pane
pane_tty — pseudo terminal of pane
pane_width — width of pane
pid — server PID
scroll_region_lower — bottom of scroll region in pane
scroll_region_upper — top of scroll region in pane
scroll_position — scroll position in copy mode
session_alerts — list of window indexes with alerts
session_attached — number of clients session is attached to
session_activity — integer time of session last activity
session_created — integer time session created
session_last_attached — integer time session last attached
session_group — number of session group
session_grouped — 1 if session in a group
session_height — height of session
session_id — unique session ID
session_many_attached — 1 if multiple clients attached
session_name (#S) — name of session
session_width — width of session
session_windows — number of windows in session
socket_path — server socket path
start_time — server start time
window_activity — integer time of window last activity
window_active — 1 if window active
window_bell_flag — 1 if window has bell
window_find_matches — matched data from the find-window
window_flags (#F) — window flags
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_name (#W) — name of window
window_panes — number of panes in window
window_silence_flag — 1 if window has silence alert
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

✨ NAMES AND TITLES ✨

okay so bestie, tmate is VERY into the names-vs-titles distinction and honestly? valid. 💅 Windows and sessions have names, and those names are what you use to point at them in targets, plus they show up in the status line and all the various lists — basically the name is the tmate identifier for a window or session. Iconic.

Only panes have titles though. A pane's title is usually set by whatever program is running inside that pane, and tmate does not touch it. It's literally the same mechanism you'd use to set the xterm(1) window title inside an X(7) window manager. And windows themselves don't have titles — a window's title is just the title of its active pane. That's the whole vibe. 🦋

tmate itself may set the title of the terminal where the client is running, btw — see the set-titles option for that one.

A session's name gets set with the new-session and rename-session commands. A window's name is set with one of these three:

A command argument (like -n for new-window or new-session).
An escape sequence:

$ 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 OSC title setting sequence, like so:

$ printf '\033]2;My Title\033\\'

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

When the server starts up, tmate copies the environment into the global environment — and on top of that, every session has its own session environment. When a window is created, the session and global environments get merged, and if a variable exists in both, the value from the session environment wins. That merged result is the initial environment handed to the new process. no cap 💖

The update-environment session option can be used to update the session environment from the client when a new session is created or an old one is reattached. tmate also initialises the TMUX variable with some internal info so commands can be executed from inside, plus the TERM variable with the correct terminal setting of ‘screen’.

The commands to alter and view the environment are these:

set-environment [-gru] [-t target-session] name [value] (alias: setenv) — Set or unset an environment variable. With -g the change goes into the global environment; otherwise it's applied to the session environment for target-session. The -u flag unsets a variable. And -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 👑

tmate includes an optional status line that's displayed on the bottom line of each terminal. By default it's enabled (you can disable it with the status session option) and it contains, going 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. main character energy fr fr ⭐

The status line is made of three parts: configurable left and right sections (which may contain dynamic content like the time or output from a shell command — see the status-left, status-left-length, status-right, and status-right-length options below), plus 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. You can customise it with the window-status-format and window-status-current-format options. 💅

The flag is one of these symbols, appended to the window name:

* — Denotes the current window.
- — Marks the last window (previously selected).
# — Window is monitored and activity has been detected.
! — 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. And the window name gets printed in inverted colours if there's an alert present (bell, activity or silence). 🙈

The colour and attributes of the status line are configurable — the entire status line via the status-style session option, and individual windows via the window-status-style window option. ✨

The status line refreshes automatically at an interval if it has changed, and that interval is controlled with the status-interval session option.

The commands related to the status line are:

command-prompt [-I inputs] [-p prompts] [-t target-client] [template] — Open the command prompt in a client. This may be used from inside tmate to execute commands interactively.

If template is specified, it's 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 displayed in order; otherwise a single prompt is displayed, constructed from template if it's present, or ‘:’ if not.

Both inputs and prompts may contain the special character sequences supported by the status-left option.

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, the second ‘%%’ and 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’). 🎀

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.

Heads up bestie: this command works only from inside tmate. 💀

display-message [-p] [-c target-client] [-t target-pane] [message] (alias: display) — Display a message. If -p is given, the output is printed to stdout; otherwise it's 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 from the active pane for the session attached to target-client.

🍓 BUFFERS 🍓

tmate maintains a set of named paste buffers. Each buffer can be either explicitly or automatically named. Explicitly named buffers get their name when they're created with the set-buffer or load-buffer commands, or by renaming an automatically named buffer with set-buffer -n. Automatically named buffers get a name like ‘buffer0001’, ‘buffer0002’ and so on. When the buffer-limit option is reached, the oldest automatically named buffer is deleted. Explicitly named ones are not subject to buffer-limit and may be deleted with the delete-buffer command. 🧚

Buffers can 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. 💖

There's also a configurable history buffer maintained for each window. By default up to 2000 lines are kept; you can alter that with the history-limit option (see the set-option command above).

The buffer commands are as follows:

choose-buffer [-F format] [-t target-window] [template] — Put a window into buffer choice mode, where a buffer may be chosen interactively from a list. After a buffer is selected, ‘%%’ is replaced by the buffer name in template and the result is executed as a command. If template is not given, "paste-buffer -b '%%'" is used. For the meaning of the -F flag, see the “FORMATS” section. 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 ✨

okay so these are the lil extra commands that don't fit anywhere else, and honestly they're lowkey the most fun ones 💅

clock-mode [-t target-pane] — displays a big clock, like giant digits taking over your pane. it's giving screensaver energy fr fr 🕐
if-shell [-bF] [-t target-pane] shell-command command [command] (alias: if) — runs the first command if shell-command returns success, otherwise it runs the second command (if you gave one). Before it actually gets executed, shell-command gets expanded using the rules from the FORMATS section, including the ones relevant to target-pane. With -b, shell-command runs in the background. And if you pass -F, shell-command is not executed at all — instead it counts as success as long as it's neither empty nor zero (after formats are expanded). no cap 🫶
lock-server (alias: lock) — locks each client individually by running the command specified by the lock-command option. so like, everyone gets their own lil lock moment 🔒
run-shell [-b] [-t target-pane] shell-command (alias: run) — executes shell-command in the background without creating a window. Before being executed, shell-command is expanded using the rules from the FORMATS section. With -b, the command runs in the background. After it finishes, any output to stdout gets displayed in copy mode (in the pane specified by -t, or the current pane if you omitted it). And if the command doesn't return success, the exit status is also displayed. yes bestie, even your failures get screen time 😭
wait-for [-L | -S | -U] channel (alias: wait) — used with no options, it stops the client from exiting until it gets woken using wait-for -S with the same channel. When you use -L, 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. heads up tho — this command only works from outside tmate. so no doing it from inside, iykyk 💀

🌸 TERMINFO EXTENSIONS 🌸

tmate understands some unofficial extensions to terminfo(5), and they're iconic:

Cs, Cr — set the cursor colour. The first one takes a single string argument and is used to set the colour; the second takes no arguments and restores the default cursor colour. If it's set, a sequence like this may be used to change the cursor colour from inside tmate:

$ printf '\033]12;red\033\\'

Ss, Se — set or reset the cursor style. If set, a sequence like this may be used to change the cursor to an underline:

$ printf '\033[4 q'

and if Se is not set, then Ss with argument 0 will be used to reset the cursor style instead. the backup plan, basically 💅

Tc — indicates that the terminal supports the ‘direct colour’ RGB escape sequence (for example, \e[38;2;255;255;255m). rainbow time 🌈
Ms — stores the current buffer in the host terminal's selection (clipboard). See the set-clipboard option above and the xterm(1) man page. clipboard slay 🎀

👑 CONTROL MODE 👑

tmate offers a textual interface called control mode, and it's genuinely so cool — it lets applications talk to tmate using a simple text-only protocol. like, machine-to-machine gossip fr fr 🦋

In control mode, a client sends tmate 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 its matching %end or %error have two arguments: an integer time (as seconds from epoch) and the command number. For example:

%begin 1363006971 2
0: ksh* (1 panes) [80x24] [layout b25f,80x24,0,0,2] @2 (active)
%end 1363006971 2

In control mode, tmate also outputs notifications. And a notification will never occur inside an output block — that's the rule, bestie ✨

the notifications, defined 💖

%exit [reason] — the tmate client is exiting immediately, either because it's 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.
%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.
%sessions-changed — a session was created or destroyed. moment of silence (or celebration) 🕯️
%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-renamed window-id name — the window with ID window-id was renamed to name.

🍓 FILES 🍓

~/.tmux.conf — default tmate configuration file. your personal lil home base 🏠
/etc/tmux.conf — system-wide configuration file. the communal one 💜

🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

okay bestie, this is where it gets good. to create a new tmate session running vi(1):

$ tmate new-session vi

Most commands have a shorter form, known as an alias. For new-session, this is new:

$ tmate new vi

Alternatively, the shortest unambiguous form of a command is accepted. If there are several options, they are listed:

$ tmate n
ambiguous command: n, could be: new-session, new-window, next-window

so close but not quite 💀 — the shell said "be more specific"

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 an ssh(1) disconnection) and reattached with:

$ tmate 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. the little cheat sheet moment we all deserve 🫶

Commands to be run when the tmate 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? config era unlocked ✨

🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

pty(4) — go look, bestie 👀

💖 AUTHORS 💖

Nicholas Marriott <nicholas.marriott@gmail.com> — the icon, the legend, the main character 👑

and that's a wrap on the whole page, bestie!! 🎉 go forth and tmate responsibly 💅

signing off with the formal stuff so we stay legit — this page came from the Debian package, dated March 25, 2013, and it's TMATE(1) through and through. mwah 🫶💜🌈

📦 where this page comes from

arch rolling: tmate 2.4.0-6 · BSD
epel 9: tmate 2.4.0-10.el9 · MIT
fedora 43: tmate 2.4.0-14.fc43 · MIT
fedora 44: tmate 2.4.0-15.fc44 · MIT
opensuse-leap 16.0: tmate 2.4.0-bp160.1.13 · MIT
opensuse-leap 16.0: tmate 2.4.0-bp160.1.13 · MIT
opensuse-leap 16.0: tmate 2.4.0-bp160.1.13 · MIT
opensuse-leap 16.0: tmate 2.4.0-bp160.1.13 · MIT
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on 2026-11-04: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms

TMATE(1)

💅 TMATE — the terminal multiplexer, explained by your favorite unix girlie

✨ NAME ✨

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

👑 OPTIONS 👑

🎀 KEY BINDINGS 🎀

💅 COMMANDS 💅

🫶 target-client

🌸 target-session

🦋 target-window (also src-window and dst-window)

🎀 target-pane (also src-pane and dst-pane)

🌈 IDs, they're a whole thing

🍓 shell-command arguments

🧚 command [arguments]

💜 Command sequences (a little stacking moment)

🌸 CLIENTS AND SESSIONS 🌸

attach-session (alias: attach)

detach-client (alias: detach)

has-session (alias: has)

kill-server

kill-session

list-clients (alias: lsc)

list-commands (alias: lscm)

list-sessions (alias: ls)

lock-client (alias: lockc)

lock-session (alias: locks)

new-session (alias: new)

refresh-client (alias: refresh)

rename-session (alias: rename)

show-messages (alias: showmsgs)

source-file (alias: source)

start-server (alias: start)

suspend-client (alias: suspendc)

switch-client (alias: switchc)