How to terminate a window in tmux?

Question

How to terminate a window in tmux? Like the Ctrlak shortcut in screen with Ctrla being the prefix.

Answer 1

try Prefix + &

if you have

bind q killp

in your .tmux.conf, you can press Prefix + q to kill the window too, only if there is only one panel in that window.

if you have multiple panes and want to kill the whole window at once use killw instead of killp in your config.

the default of Prefix above is Ctrl+b, so to terminate window by default you can use Ctrl+b &

Answer 2

Kent's response fully answered your question, however if you are looking to change tmux's configuration to be similar to GNU Screen, here's a tmux.conf that I've used to accomplish this:

# Prefix key
set -g prefix C-a
unbind C-b
bind C-a send-prefix

# Keys
bind k confirm kill-window
bind K confirm kill-server
bind % split-window -h
bind : split-window -v
bind < resize-pane -L 1
bind > resize-pane -R 1
bind - resize-pane -D 1
bind + resize-pane -U 1
bind . command-prompt
bind a last-window
bind space command-prompt -p index "select-window"
bind r source-file ~/.tmux.conf

# Options
set -g bell-action none
set -g set-titles on
set -g set-titles-string "tmux (#I:#W)"
set -g base-index 1
set -g status-left ""
set -g status-left-attr bold
set -g status-right "tmux"
set -g pane-active-border-bg black
set -g pane-active-border-fg black
set -g default-terminal "screen-256color"

# Window options
setw -g monitor-activity off
setw -g automatic-rename off

# Colors
setw -g window-status-current-fg colour191
set -g status-bg default
set -g status-fg white
set -g message-bg default
set -g message-fg colour191

Answer 3

If you just want to do it once, without adding a shortcut, you can always type

<prefix> 
:
kill-window
<enter>

Answer 4

<Prefix> & for killing a window

<Prefix> x for killing a pane

If there is only one pane (i.e. the window is not split into multiple panes, <Prefix> x would kill the window)

As always iterated, <Prefix> is generally CTRL+b. (I think for beginner questions, we can just say CTRL+b all the time, and not talk about prefix at all, but anyway :) )

Answer 5

For me solution looks like:

1. ctrl+b q to show pane numbers.
2. ctrl+b x to kill pane.

Killing last pane will kill window.

Answer 6

While you asked how to kill a window resp. pane, I often wouldn't want to kill it but simply to get it back to a working state (the layout of panes is of importance to me, killing a pane destroys it so I must recreate it); tmux provides the respawn commands to that effect: respawn-pane resp. respawn-window. Just that people like me may find this solution here.