There are two flavors of copy command: copy-selection and copy-pipe. Let’s list them: $ tmux -f /dev/null list-keys -T copy-mode-vi bind-key -T copy-mode-vi Enter send-keys -X copy-selection-and-cancelbind-key -T copy-mode-vi C-j send-keys -X copy-selection-and-cancelbind-key -T copy-mode-vi D send-keys -X copy-end-of-linebind-key -T copy-mode-vi MouseDragEnd1Pane send-keys -X copy-selection-and-cancelbind-key -T copy-mode-vi A send-keys -X append-selection-and-cancelĬopy-selection-and-cancel and copy-end-of-line are special tmux commands which tmux understand when pane is in copy mode. The idea is to hook into various tmux commands, that manage to copy text while in copy mode. pbpaste does the opposite and puts copied text on stdout. Pbcopy reads data from stdin and stores it in the clipboard. Pbcopy and pbpaste commands allow you to interact and manipulate system clipboard from command line.

This is rather involved, and I will devote a dedicated post to describe it. Pipe copied selected text from remote machine to a listener on the local machine through SSH remote tunneling. Setup a local network listener which pipes input to pbcopy or xclipor xsel.

Use the ANSI OSC 52 escape sequence to talk to controlling/parent terminal to manage and store text on a clipboard of a local machine.

To support remote scenarios there are 2 extra methods: Techniques above address only local scenarios.

Linux only, share text with X selection using xclip or xsel commands.

OSX only, using “reattach-to-user-namespace” wrapper to make pbcopy work properly inside tmux environment.

OSX only, share text with clipboard using “pbcopy”.

In this post we’ll explore how to build a bridge between the tmux copy buffer and system clipboard, to store copied text on system clipboard, in a way that address both local and remote usage scenarios. Copying and pasting are such common operations, that this limitation is itself enough to turn tmux into a useless brick, despite other goodies. Sooner or later you’ll realize that whatever you copy in tmux gets stored in tmux’s copy buffer only, but not shared with system clipboard. In the previous part of “tmux in practice” series we talked about things like scrollback buffer, copy mode, and slightly touched on the topic of copying text into tmux’s copy buffer. You can copy text from local or remote, or even nested remote session to your system clipboard This is the 4th part of my tmux in practice article series. By Alexey Samoshkin tmux in practice: integration with the system clipboard How to build a bridge between tmux copy buffer and system clipboard, and to store selected text on OSX or Linux system clipboard, in a way that address both local and remote usage scenarios

Remote utilities how paste clipboard