Tmux - Cannot use "Shift + arrows" to switch window on Mac OS

Got recently a Mac computer for work and beeing a Tmux fan I did installed it with my favorite plugins and .tmux.conf file that I use on my personnal Linux machine.

After some tweaking to make it usable on Mac OS, the only thing that's still not working is my shortcut to switch window using "Shift + arrow" doesn't work on this Mac computer.

I put this into my .tmux.conf :

# Set this on Mac OS
set-option -g -w xterm-keys on
# Shift arrow to switch windows
bind -n S-Left previous-window
bind -n S-Right next-window

My guess is that the Shift key is being used by something. when I do

tmux list-keys | grep "S-"

Here is the output:

bind-key -r -T prefix S-Up refresh-client -U 10
bind-key -r -T prefix S-Down refresh-client -D 10
bind-key -r -T prefix S-Left refresh-client -L 10
bind-key -r -T prefix S-Right refresh-client -R 10
bind-key -T root S-Left previous-window
bind-key -T root S-Right next-window

I tried to unbind as this:

unbind-key S-Left
unbind-key S-Right

but still, "shift+arrow" doesn't do anything.

Do you guys have any idea how to solve this ?

Thanks!

Xzi.

1 Answer

I used OSX a few years back and ran into the same issue but was able to resolve it. I don't use OSX now, so I am posting this solution based on what I remember.

I think, first you need to disable the Shift+arrow keybinding from your terminal preferences, or the OSX system preferences. Then, you need to add a new keybinding for Shift+arrow keys (in your terminal preferences) to map the desired byobu commands.

Based on , Shift+Up maps to \033[a. So, in the terminal preference, add a new keybinding for Shift+Up and add the command as: Escape Sequence + [a. Do the same for other Shift+arrow keys.

Note that I am posting this from what I vaguely remember. But the solution was definitely along these lines. Try it out with some other modifications and let us know what worked for you.