How to automatically rename tmux windows to the current directory - tmux

Question

I would like to have tmux to automatically rename the window with the current working directory (cwd). As it is by default, it names the tab/window as the name of the current process, such as zsh or vim.
When I open a new window in tmux, the name is reattach-to-use-namespace and then it immediately switches to zsh.
I'm on OS X 10.10.2, I use zshell, and I have tmux 1.9a.
To be clear, I don't want the entire path in the name of the window, just the current directory, so for example, I want projectName, not /Users/username/Development/projectName.
If you want to see my current tmux.conf, here it is.

Answer 1

With tmux 2.3+, the b: format modifier shows the "basename" (or "tail") of a path.
set-option -g status-interval 5
set-option -g automatic-rename on
set-option -g automatic-rename-format '#{b:pane_current_path}'
The FORMATS section of man tmux describes other modifiers, such as #{d:} and even #{s/foo/bar/:}.
With tmux 2.2 or older, the basename shell command can be used instead.
set-option -g status-interval 5
set-option -g automatic-rename on
set-option -g automatic-rename-format '#(basename "#{pane_current_path}")'

Answer 2

Expanding on what Josef wrote, you can put the basename of the directory in the status using a shell snippet:
# be sure to see note* below
set -g window-status-format '#I:#(pwd="#{pane_current_path}"; echo ${pwd####*/})#F'
set -g window-status-current-format '#I:#(pwd="#{pane_current_path}"; echo ${pwd####*/})#F'
# status bar updates every 15s by default**, change to 1s here
# (this step is optional - a lower latency might have negative battery/cpu usage impacts)
set -g status-interval 1
*Note that what would be ${pwd##*/} is escaped to ${pwd####*/} since # has special meaning in the format string.
**See here for an example default tmux config.

Answer 3

Show the top N components
Showing just the basename generates too much ambiguity, but full paths are too much clutter, so I settled for:
the/last/path
instead of:
/a/very/long/the/last/path
or just:
path
.tmux.conf
set-window-option -g window-status-current-format '#[fg=white,bold]** #{window_index} #[fg=green]#{pane_current_command} #[fg=blue]#(echo "#{pane_current_path}" | rev | cut -d'/' -f-3 | rev) #[fg=white]**|'
set-window-option -g window-status-format '#[fg=white,bold]#{window_index} #[fg=green]#{pane_current_command} #[fg=blue]#(echo "#{pane_current_path}" | rev | cut -d'/' -f-3 | rev) #[fg=white]|'
Trick taken from: Remove part of path on Unix
If that still does not solve ambiguity, I go for:
bind-key -r w choose-window -F '#{window_index} | #{pane_current_command} | #{host} | #{pane_current_path}'
Tested on Tmux 2.1, Ubuntu 16.04.

Answer 4

To get the best of both worlds - window name is path when you're at a shell prompt, but name of executable when you're running something, try this:
set-option -g status-interval 1
set-option -g automatic-rename on
set-option -g automatic-rename-format "#{?#{==:#{pane_current_command},bash},#{b:pane_current_path},#{pane_current_command}}"
Replace "bash" with whatever shell you're using.

Answer 5

Adding this config to your ~/.tmux.conf file should work:
set-option -g window-status-current-format '#I:#{pane_current_path}#F'
set-option -g window-status-format '#I:#{pane_current_path}#F'
set-option -g status-interval 1
It depends however on your Tmux version. I wasn't able to make it work on 1.9a3 (in Cygwin) - but with Tmux 1.8 on Ubuntu (in Vagrant) it worked fine.

Answer 6

I use the following in ~/.tmux.conf to achieve this (working on OSX, zsh, tmux-2.3):
set -g automatic-rename-format '#{pane_current_path}'
set -g status-interval 5
You can set status-interval to 1 to make it respond faster to changing directories.
According to the changelog (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tmux/tmux/master/CHANGES) this should work in tmux 1.9 and up.
Using ssh into a CentOS machine with tmux 2.3 the window name doesn't change until I press return in the new panel, not sure why that is happening.

Answer 7

Do something like this in a tmux session for zsh shell:
setopt PROMPT_SUBST
export PS1=$'\ek$(basename $(pwd))\e\\> '
If someone uses bash shell:
export PS1="\033k\$(basename \$(pwd))\033\\> "
You can add these commands in the shell initialization file on the condition the $TERM env variable is set to the value "screen"

Answer 8

I am using zsh hook for that
Add following in ~/.zshrc
precmd () {
if [ -n "$TMUX" ]; then
tmux set-window-option -q window-status-format "#[fg=cyan bg=cyan] | #[fg=white, bg=cyan] #I | ${PWD##/*/} #[fg=cyan, bg=cyan] | "
tmux set-window-option -q window-status-current-format "#[fg=cyan, bg=cyan] | #[fg=white, bg=cyan] #I | ${PWD##/*/} #[fg=cyan, bg=cyan] | "
fi
}

Answer 9

This doesn't strictly answer your question--it doesn't automatically rename an existing tmux session to the current working directory.
Rather, when creating a new session, it names that session after the current working directory.
Here's what I did:
to
~/.aliases
add
alias tm='tmux new -s `basename $PWD`'
Open a new terminal window and type:
tm
This now creates a new tmux session which is named after the current working directory.
Note: This relies on basename which does not exist in Windows.

Answer 10

I am sure that you want use this:
set -g status-left '#{pane_current_path} '

Answer 11

To change what you see in the window list you can specify a format when you define the key-binding for the chose-window function like this:
bind-key '"' choose-window -F "#{session_name} | #{window_name} - #{b:pane_current_path} (#{pane_current_command})"