How do I rename a pane in tmux? - tmux

Question

How do I rename a pane in tmux?

Answer 1

Renaming a window
Ctrl-b ,
where Ctrl-b is the default prefix key.
Alternatively, run:
tmux rename-window <new name>
Or type Ctrl-b : rename-window <new name>.
Renaming a pane
In newer versions you can rename pane using:
tmux select-pane -T <title>
Or type Ctrl-b : select-pane -T <pane_name>.
Also, I have the following two lines in ~/.tmux.conf, in order to view the title of the pane in the top of the pane itself, and reformat the title.
set -g pane-border-status top
set -g pane-border-format " [ ###P #T ] "

Answer 2

yes you can rename pane names, and not only window names starting with tmux >= 2.3. Just type the following in your shell:
printf '\033]2;%s\033\\' 'title goes here'
you might need to add the following to your .tmux.conf to display pane names:
# Enable names for panes
set -g pane-border-status top
you can also automatically assign a name:
set -g pane-border-format "#P: #{pane_current_command}"

Answer 3

For those scripting tmux, there is a command called rename-window
so e.g.
tmux rename-window -t <window> <newname>

Answer 4

For those who want to easily rename their panes in a bash shell, this is what I have in my .tmux.conf
set -g default-command ' \
function renamePane () { \
read -p "Enter Pane Name: " pane_name; \
printf "\033]2;%s\033\\r:r" "${pane_name}"; \
}; \
export -f renamePane; \
bash -i'
set -g pane-border-status top
set -g pane-border-format "#{pane_index} #T #{pane_current_command}"
bind-key -T prefix R send-keys "renamePane" C-m
Panes are automatically named with their index, machine name and current command.
To change the machine name you can run <C-b>R which will prompt you to enter a new name.
*Pane renaming only works when you are in a shell.

Answer 5

Also when scripting, you can specify a name when creating the window with -n <window name>. For example:
# variable to store the session name
SESSION="my_session"
# set up session
tmux -2 new-session -d -s $SESSION
# create window; split into panes
tmux new-window -t $SESSION:0 -n 'My Window with a Name'

Answer 6

The easiest option for me was to rename the title of the terminal instead.
Please see: https://superuser.com/questions/362227/how-to-change-the-title-of-the-mintty-window
In this answer, they mention to modify the PS1 variable. Note: my situation was particular to cygwin.
TL;DR
Put this in your .bashrc file:
function settitle() {
export PS1="\[\e[32m\]\u#\h \[\e[33m\]\w\[\e[0m\]\n$ "
echo -ne "\e]0;$1\a"
}
Put this in your .tmux.conf file, or similar formatting:
set -g pane-border-status bottom
set -g pane-border-format "#P #T #{pane_current_command}"
Then you can change the title of the pane by typing this in the console:
settitle titlename

Answer 7

You can adjust the pane title by setting the pane border in the tmux.conf for example like this:
###############
# pane border #
###############
set -g pane-border-status bottom
#colors for pane borders
setw -g pane-border-style fg=green,bg=black
setw -g pane-active-border-style fg=colour118,bg=black
setw -g automatic-rename off
setw -g pane-border-format ' #{pane_index} #{pane_title} : #{pane_current_path} '
# active pane normal, other shaded out​
setw -g window-style fg=colour28,bg=colour16
setw -g window-active-style fg=colour46,bg=colour16
Where pane_index, pane_title and pane_current_path are variables provided by tmux itself.
After reloading the config or starting a new tmux session, you can then set the title of the current pane like this:
tmux select-pane -T "fancy pane title";
#or
tmux select-pane -t paneIndexInteger -T "fancy pane title";
If all panes have some processes running, so you can't use the command line, you can also type the commands after pressing the prefix bind (C-b by default) and a colon (:) without having "tmux" in the front of the command:
select-pane -T "fancy pane title"
#or:
select-pane -t paneIndexInteger -T "fancy pane title"

Answer 8

To rename the pane, write the following in the tmux command prompt:
select-pane -T 'NEW PANE NAME'
To bind it to a key (example: u) write the following in your ~/.tmux.conf file:
bind u command-prompt "select-pane -T '%%'"
Then you can rename the pane just by <prefix>u
FYI:
To open the command prompt you need to <prefix>:
<prefix> is C-b by default (it can be changed with a set -g prefix NEW_KEY)

Answer 9

I use byobu with tmux as backend and would like to provide an alternative way: If you have Mouse-Mode on (for me Alt+F12), you can just right click onto the pane and select Rename. It appears that you can only rename the currently selected pane.