Tmux Quick Guide

Tmux is the Terminal Multiplexer you crave

If you spend any meaningful time in the terminal, tmux will change how you work. It lets you run multiple terminal sessions inside a single window, keep processes alive after you disconnect, and organize your workspace with splits and tabs – all from the keyboard.

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1. What Is tmux?

tmux (terminal multiplexer) is a program that lets you:

• Run multiple terminal sessions inside one window
• Detach from a session and reattach later – your processes keep running
• Split your terminal into panes (side-by-side or stacked)
• Create tabs (called “windows” in tmux) to organize different tasks

Think of it as a window manager for your terminal.

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2. Why Use tmux?

• Persistent Sessions – SSH into a remote server, start a long-running job, detach, close your laptop, go home, reattach – the job is still running. No more nohup hacks or praying your WiFi holds up.

• Workspace Organization – Working on a project that needs a dev server, a log tail, and an editor? Instead of juggling multiple terminal windows, split one tmux session into panes or tabs for each task.

• Pair Programming and Sharing – Multiple people can attach to the same tmux session simultaneously. Useful for pair programming or live debugging with a colleague over SSH.

• Keyboard-Driven Efficiency – Once you learn the keybindings, you rarely need to touch the mouse. Everything is a quick Ctrl+b combo away.

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3. The Prefix Key

Almost every tmux command starts with the prefix key: Ctrl+b.

You press Ctrl+b, release, then press the next key. For example, Ctrl+b c means: press Ctrl+b, let go, then press c.

Throughout this post, I’ll write this as Ctrl+b <key>.

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4. Session Management

Sessions are the top-level containers in tmux. Each session can have multiple windows (tabs), and each window can have multiple panes.

Action	Command
Create a new named session	tmux new -s "name"
List all sessions	tmux ls
Attach to a session	tmux attach -t "name"
Detach from current session	Ctrl+b d

Example Workflow

# Start a new session for your project
tmux new -s myproject

# ... do some work ...

# Detach (you can close your terminal now)
# Press: Ctrl+b d

# Later, reattach
tmux attach -t myproject

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5. Windows (Tabs)

Windows are like tabs within a session. You’ll see them listed at the bottom of your tmux status bar.

Action	Command
Create a new window	Ctrl+b c
Create a named window	Ctrl+b then type :new-window -n name
Switch to next window	Ctrl+b n
Switch to previous window	Ctrl+b p
Switch to window by number	Ctrl+b <number>
Kill current window	Ctrl+b &
Kill window (command mode)	Ctrl+b then type :kill-window

If you have set -g mouse on in your config, you can also just click the tab in the status bar.

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6. Panes (Splits)

Panes let you divide a single window into multiple terminal views.

Action	Command
Split horizontally (left/right)	Ctrl+b %
Split vertically (top/bottom)	Ctrl+b "
Navigate between panes	Ctrl+b <arrow key>
Close current pane	Ctrl+d or type exit

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7. Mouse Support

By default, tmux doesn’t respond to mouse events. To enable scrolling and pane selection with the mouse, run this mid-session:

Ctrl+b then type :set mouse on

Or add it permanently to your ~/.tmux.conf:

set -g mouse on

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8. Quick Reference Card

Here’s everything in one place:

SESSION COMMANDS
  tmux new -s "name"        Create named session
  tmux ls                   List sessions
  tmux attach -t "name"     Attach to session
  Ctrl+b d                  Detach from session

WINDOW (TAB) COMMANDS
  Ctrl+b c                  New window
  Ctrl+b n / p              Next / Previous window
  Ctrl+b <number>           Jump to window by number
  Ctrl+b &                  Kill window

PANE (SPLIT) COMMANDS
  Ctrl+b %                  Split horizontally
  Ctrl+b "                  Split vertically
  Ctrl+b <arrow>            Navigate panes

OTHER
  Ctrl+b :                  Enter command mode
  :set mouse on             Enable mouse support

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9. Getting Started

Install tmux if you don’t have it:

# macOS
brew install tmux

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install tmux

# Fedora
sudo dnf install tmux

Then just type tmux and start experimenting. The best way to learn is to use it for a week and let the keybindings become muscle memory.

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tmux is one of those tools that feels like overhead at first, but once it clicks, you wonder how you ever worked without it.