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Maintenance & Recovery

Editing the Config​

The active config is a symlink. Always edit the canonical file:

# Do NOT edit:
~/.tmux.conf          # this is a symlink

# Edit this instead:
~/github/common-config/tmux/tmux-config-symlink/.tmux.conf

Reload After Editing​

# From inside tmux (command prompt):
Prefix :source-file ~/.tmux.conf

# From the command line:
tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf

Verify a Setting​

tmux show -g | grep <setting-name>

Adding a New Plugin​

  1. Add the plugin to ~/.tmux.conf: 
    set -g @plugin '<user>/<repo>'
  2. Reload config: tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf
  3. Install: Press Ctrl+Space I inside tmux
  4. Restart tmux or reload to activate

Handling Binding Conflicts​

  • Check current bindings: Press Prefix ?
  • The last binding loaded wins: defaults → ~/.tmux.conf → TPM plugins
  • If a plugin overrides a custom binding, move the custom binding after the run line

Migrating to a New Machine​

Prerequisites on the new machine​

sudo apt install tmux

Transfer the config​

# Clone the common-config repo
git clone <repo> ~/github/common-config/

# Create the symlink
ln -sf ~/github/common-config/tmux/tmux-config-symlink/.tmux.conf ~/.tmux.conf

Install TPM and plugins​

git clone https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tpm ~/.tmux/plugins/tpm
tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf
# Inside tmux: press Ctrl+Space I to install all plugins

Transfer session backups​

rsync -av old-server:~/.local/share/tmux/resurrect/ \
           ~/.local/share/tmux/resurrect/

Restore​

Open tmux and press Ctrl+Space Ctrl+r.

Checking the Config Syntax​

tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf || echo "Syntax error in config"

If there's a syntax error, tmux reports the line number.