DEV Community

Play Button Pause Button
Waylon Walker
Waylon Walker

Posted on • Edited on • Originally published at waylonwalker.com

tmux choose-tree

Choose tree is a powerful tmux utility that provides a graphical interface to preview all sessions, windows, and panes, move between them kill them, move them and much more.

The default keybinding

bind-key -T prefix s choose-tree -s
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

my preferred keybinding to open sessions and windows collapsed and Zoomed in.

bind-key -T prefix s choose-tree -s
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

From the man page.

choose-tree [-GNrswZ] [-F format] [-f filter] [-K key-format] [-O sort-order] [-t target-pane] [template]
        Put a pane into tree mode, where a session, window or pane may be chosen interactively from a tree.  Each session, window or pane is shown on
        one line.  A shortcut key is shown on the left in brackets allowing for immediate choice, or the tree may be navigated and an item chosen or
        otherwise manipulated using the keys below.  -s starts with sessions collapsed and -w with windows collapsed.  -Z zooms the pane.  The follow‐
        ing keys may be used in tree mode:

            Key    Function
            Enter  Choose selected item
            Up     Select previous item
            Down   Select next item
            +      Expand selected item
            -      Collapse selected item
            M-+    Expand all items
            M--    Collapse all items
            x      Kill selected item
            X      Kill tagged items
            <      Scroll list of previews left
            >      Scroll list of previews right
            C-s    Search by name
            m      Set the marked pane
            M      Clear the marked pane
            n      Repeat last search
            t      Toggle if item is tagged
            T      Tag no items
            C-t    Tag all items
            :      Run a command for each tagged item
            f      Enter a format to filter items
            H      Jump to the starting pane
            O      Change sort field
            r      Reverse sort order
            v      Toggle preview
            q      Exit mode

        After a session, window or pane is chosen, ‘%%’ is replaced by the target in template and the result executed as a command.  If template is
        not given, "switch-client -t '%%'" is used.

        -O specifies the initial sort field: one of ‘index’, ‘name’, or ‘time’.  -r reverses the sort order.  -f specifies an initial filter: the fil‐
        ter is a format - if it evaluates to zero, the item in the list is not shown, otherwise it is shown.  If a filter would lead to an empty list,
        it is ignored.  -F specifies the format for each item in the tree and -K a format for each shortcut key; both are evaluated once for each
        line.  -N starts without the preview.  -G includes all sessions in any session groups in the tree rather than only the first.  This command
        works only if at least one client is attached.
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Be sure to check out the full youtube playlist and subscribe if you like it.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTRNG6WIHETB4reAxbWza3CZeP9KL6Bkr

Also check out this long form post for more about how I use tmux.

Top comments (0)