Tmux Copy-Mode

tmux copy-mode is a tmux mode that lets you scroll, search, copy, and jump your way through a pane. There are a ton of keybindings for copy-mode, the main ones you will need to know are / for searching down ? for searching up, n for next item, space for starting a selection, and enter to copy the selection. Arrow keys will be used for navigation unless you have specified vi mode, then it will be hjkl.

Default keybinding to get into copy mode is prefix+[.

        
bind-key          [ copy-mode

If you are a vim user you will likely want to use vi style keys, add this to your ~/.tmux.conf file to enable vi mode.

        
setw -g mode-keys vi

full list of copy-mode keybindings from the man page.

        
  Command                                      vi              emacs
           append-selection
           append-selection-and-cancel                  A
           back-to-indentation                          ^               M-m
           begin-selection                              Space           C-Space
           bottom-line                                  L
           cancel                                       q               Escape
           clear-selection                              Escape          C-g
           copy-end-of-line [<prefix>]                  D               C-k
           copy-line [<prefix>]
           copy-pipe [<command>] [<prefix>]
           copy-pipe-no-clear [<command>] [<prefix>]
           copy-pipe-and-cancel [<command>] [<prefix>]
           copy-selection [<prefix>]
           copy-selection-no-clear [<prefix>]
           copy-selection-and-cancel [<prefix>]         Enter           M-w
           cursor-down                                  j               Down
           cursor-down-and-cancel
           cursor-left                                  h               Left
           cursor-right                                 l               Right
           cursor-up                                    k               Up
           end-of-line                                  $               C-e
           goto-line <line>                             :               g
           halfpage-down                                C-d             M-Down
           halfpage-down-and-cancel
           halfpage-up                                  C-u             M-Up
           history-bottom                               G               M->
           history-top                                  g               M-<
           jump-again                                   ;               ;
           jump-backward <to>                           F               F
           jump-forward <to>                            f               f
           jump-reverse                                 ,               ,
           jump-to-backward <to>                        T
           jump-to-forward <to>                         t
           jump-to-mark                                 M-x             M-x
           middle-line                                  M               M-r
           next-matching-bracket                        %               M-C-f
           next-paragraph                               }               M-}
           next-space                                   W
           next-space-end                               E
           next-word                                    w
           next-word-end                                e               M-f
           other-end                                    o
           page-down                                    C-f             PageDown
           page-down-and-cancel
           page-up                                      C-b             PageUp
           pipe [<command>] [<prefix>]
           pipe-no-clear [<command>] [<prefix>]
           pipe-and-cancel [<command>] [<prefix>]
           previous-matching-bracket                                    M-C-b
           previous-paragraph                           {               M-{
           previous-space                               B
           previous-word                                b               M-b
           rectangle-on
           rectangle-off
           rectangle-toggle                             v               R
           refresh-from-pane                            r               r
           scroll-down                                  C-e             C-Down
           scroll-down-and-cancel
           scroll-up                                    C-y             C-Up
           search-again                                 n               n
           search-backward <for>                        ?
           search-backward-incremental <for>                            C-r
           search-backward-text <for>
           search-forward <for>                         /
           search-forward-incremental <for>                             C-s
           search-forward-text <for>
           search-reverse                               N               N
           select-line                                  V
           select-word
           set-mark                                     X               X
           start-of-line                                0               C-a
           stop-selection
           top-line                                     H               M-R

tmux-nav-2021

for more information on how I navigate tmux, check out this full post

Also check out the full YouTube tmux-playlist to see all of the videos in this series.