How do I make tmux reorder windows when one is deleted?

Question

I have three windows:

1:zsh 2:vim* 3:htop

When I delete the current window (#2), I have these windows left:

1:zsh 3:htop

How can I make it so that it automatically renumbers them as

1:zsh 2:htop

If I recall correctly, this is the default behavior of GNU Screen. I know I could always :swap-window, but I would like to know if this is possible automatically.

This would be a better question for http://superuser.com or http://unix.stackexchange.com. — ziesemer, Dec 12 '11 at 03:27
Patches for a feature like this have been [floated on the *tmux-users* mailing list](http://search.gmane.org/?query=renumber&group=gmane.comp.terminal-emulators.tmux.user), but they have not been incorporated into the main code. A quick search of “tmux renumber windows” turned up a [script that does such renumbering](http://brainscraps.wikidot.com/tmux-renum), though you would have to manually invoke it (from a shell or through a binding via `run-shell`). — Chris Johnsen, Dec 13 '11 at 08:08
The recently released *tmux* 1.7 includes the `renumber-windows` session option (keeps window numbers gapless), and the `move-window -r` command (does a one-time renumbering of windows). If you want “gapless” numbers for all sessions, then you could put `set -g renumber-windows on` in your config file (once you have *tmux* 1.7). — Chris Johnsen, Oct 13 '12 at 22:02
Related: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/21742/renumbering-windows-in-tmux — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, Sep 24 '20 at 06:40

score 45 · Accepted Answer · edited May 26 '17 at 19:55

45

Let's do it more simply.

If you are using tmux below version 1.7, append next line to ~/.tmux.conf:

 bind-key C-s run "for i in $(tmux lsw|awk -F: '{print $1}'); do tmux movew -s \$i; done"

You could sort all windows, by typing PREFIX-KEY, then Ctrl + s.

Else, if you are using tmux version 1.7 or above, as already everybody says, append next line to ~/.tmux.conf:

 set-option -g renumber-windows on

edited May 26 '17 at 19:55

Benjamin W.

46,058
19
106
116

answered Sep 23 '13 at 06:41

displayname

663
8
9

The bind-key option here does not work properly with tmux 1.6. The first window always gets renumbered to the end and the rest get moved down, so the windows behave like a circular list, rotating each time this is run and potentially reordering them completely. chris' answer below is much more reliable. – papercrane Jan 21 '16 at 20:26
It's worth to mention that the re-indexing currently happens on any window move "event". So, a window move may be required with a reloaded config while Tmux is running. – Artfaith Oct 07 '22 at 21:32

score 35 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 23 '15 at 09:53

35

Since tmux 1.7, you can type just one command to do so:

tmux movew -r

answered Nov 23 '15 at 09:53

northteam

469
4
7

1

This is perfect, it lets me do it whenever I want to and not when I don't! – wulftone Jul 27 '20 at 16:04

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 29 '12 at 20:10

3

This has now been implemented in C and submitted to tmux CVS on OpenBSD. Will hit the sourceforge portable release soon.

https://github.com/ThomasAdam/tmux-obsd/commit/c42e9b038dcdd36944e76954258a484387bd988f

answered Apr 29 '12 at 20:10

ThomasAdam

194
2

1

ThomasAdam's link is dead now, but this feature exists in current tmux (1.9a) as the `move-window -r` command. See `man tmux` for details. – John Whitley Jan 29 '15 at 23:39
Should have been a comment – bschlueter Oct 23 '16 at 06:51

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 12 '12 at 13:01

The bash script below (updated version of [1] to reflect changes in tmux API) reorders tmux sessions. I suggest adding this as a bash function which you can call from any shell.

# re-number tmux sessions                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
for session in $(tmux ls | awk -F: '{print $1}') ;do                                                                                                                                                                                      
    inum=0                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
    for window in $(tmux lsw -t 0 | awk -F: '/^[0-9*]/ {print $1}') ;do                                                                                                                                                                   
        if [ ${window} -gt ${inum} ] ;then                                                                                                                                                                                                
            echo "${session}:${window} -> ${session}:${inum}"                                                                                                                                                                             
            tmux movew -d -s ${session}:${window} -t ${session}:${inum}                                                                                                                                                                   
        fi                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
        inum=$((${inum}+1))                                                                                                                                                                                                               
    done                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
done

[1] http://brainscraps.wikidot.com/tmux-renum

Small bug-fix: "-t 0" on the "tmux lsw" command should be "-t ${session}". — Kees Cook, Jul 10 '20 at 15:40

How do I make tmux reorder windows when one is deleted?

4 Answers4