How can I create a shortcut to resize panes in a tmux window?

Question

I am having lots of issues with tmux on Mac.

One problem I have is that I cannot bind a key in my tmux.conf to resize my panes.

What I need is the CTRL-b: resize-pane -U 10. I'm trying to increase the size of the pane upwards ten cells (or downwards or left or right) using a key shortcut instead of having to type this over and over (which I currently do unfortunately).

But I cannot find a way to configure this since on Mac, it seems that CTRL and other keys work differently on Linux.

Matthias Braun · Answer 1 · 2021-11-16T08:28:01.200

13

Below are my keybindings that let me resize a pane.

It uses Alt + direction, where the keys for the directions are the same as in Vim:

  k
h l
  j

# Resize the current pane using Alt + direction
bind -n M-k resize-pane -U 5
bind -n M-j resize-pane -D 5
bind -n M-h resize-pane -L 5
bind -n M-l resize-pane -R 5

edited Nov 16 '21 at 08:28

answered Nov 15 '17 at 13:56

Matthias Braun

8,239

score 8 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 13 '18 at 23:59

8

In ~/.tmux.conf:

bind e resize-pane -U 10

Then, tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf. (another useful shortcut: use the same principle).

edited Oct 13 '18 at 23:59

Mateen Ulhaq

743

answered Jul 04 '13 at 19:40

Emanuel Berg

6,903
8
44
65

2
So bind e resize-pane -U 10 is one line in tmux that binds the key e with the resize? Should I have pressed the ctrl-b before e? 2) I am not sure what you mean with tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf. Doesn't tmux read the home directory's conf file?

Jim

Jul 04 '13 at 19:43

@Jim: Yes, you hit the prefix key first. Then e. Yes, tmux does that, but it is faster to have it as a shortcut as well, so you don't have to restart tmux every time you make an improvement/extension in/to the init file. – Emanuel Berg Jul 04 '13 at 19:44

So tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf is another line in tmux.conf? – Jim Jul 04 '13 at 19:46

@Jim: No, that would be something you type. In the init file, it could look like this: bind u source-file ~/.tmux.conf if you want this for u. – Emanuel Berg Jul 04 '13 at 19:50

@Jim: It works, and now that you know the principle, setup a bunch of shortcuts to do all sorts of stuff. Don't be too careful, just try stuff you think will work. – Emanuel Berg Jul 04 '13 at 19:53

BTW if you have spare time please check out this one in case you can figure this out http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/81796/vim-and-tmux-are-conflicting-how-can-i-fix-this – Jim Jul 04 '13 at 20:09

1

why are you using bind and not bind-key? – Charlie Parker Jan 28 '16 at 22:04

Jonatan Öström · Answer 3 · 2021-03-26T19:41:02.297

4

There is already a shortcut: Hold down Ctrl, press b and then adjust the size with →, ← etc. without releasing Ctrl.

Also, with

set -g mouse on

in ~/.tmux.conf you do it with the mouse. But with this setting active you need to hold Shift to do selections and paste with the scroll wheel.

edited Mar 26 '21 at 19:41

answered Oct 05 '20 at 11:08

Jonatan Öström

226

1

doesnt work on mac unfortunately as ctrl+direction brings up mac window switcher – mirageglobe Feb 06 '21 at 11:31
3

Hey @JimmyMGLim , if you want you can disable ctrl+arrows shortcuts on MacOS: go to "Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcut -> Mission Control" and remove the checks on all four ctrl+arrow lines. I did it (I don't use those OS shortcuts anyway) and it works great. :)
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/18043/how-can-i-make-ctrlright-left-arrow-stop-changing-desktops-in-lion
– Bruno Belotti Mar 02 '21 at 15:22
Is there a way to make this faster? this approach takes forever to make big adjustments. – azizj Mar 16 '21 at 14:20
@azizj1 I updated the answer. – Jonatan Öström Mar 26 '21 at 19:41

How can I create a shortcut to resize panes in a tmux window?

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