How to switch between tmux sessions without detaching?

• By Romain Dorgueil
tips tmux terminal shell productivity

Short answer

tmux switch-client -t other   # jump the current client to session 'other'

From the keyboard:

prefix (   # switch-client -p : previous session
prefix )   # switch-client -n : next session
prefix L   # switch-client -l : last used session (toggle)

Details

You do not need to detach to change session. detach then attach -t other works, but it drops you to the shell in between. switch-client moves the attached client straight to another session, staying inside tmux the whole time.

From the shell or the command prompt, tmux switch-client -t name targets a session by name. The keyboard binds cover the common moves without typing a name: prefix ( and prefix ) walk to the previous and next session in order, and prefix L toggles back to the last session you used, the session equivalent of last-window.

If you want a picker instead of stepping one by one, prefix s opens choose-tree -Zs, the interactive session tree.

Verified on tmux 3.2a.

Links & references