What's New in tmux 3.6

The current stable release is tmux 3.6b (May 2026). This page highlights the most useful additions since 3.4 — see the full release notes and the version history for everything else.

tmux 3.6

Pane scrollbars

Since 3.6 Panes can now show a scrollbar so you can see where you are in the scrollback history at a glance.

set -g pane-scrollbars on
set -g pane-scrollbars-position right   # left or right
# set -g pane-scrollbars-style 'bg=#30363d,fg=#00e68a'

Automatic dark / light theme

Since 3.6 tmux now supports terminal mode 2031, so it can detect and report whether the terminal is in dark or light mode (falling back to a guess from the background colour). Applications running inside tmux can adapt their colours automatically.

Copy-mode styling

Since 3.6 Style the selection and the position indicator in copy mode.

set -g copy-mode-selection-style 'bg=#00e68a,fg=#000000'
set -g copy-mode-position-style 'bg=#13161d,fg=#8b949e'

tmux 3.5

Copy-mode hyperlinks

Since 3.5 OSC 8 hyperlinks are shown in copy mode, and the copy_cursor_hyperlink format gives the link under the cursor so you can copy or open it.

Mirrored layouts

Since 3.5 New mirrored main-horizontal and main-vertical layouts put the main pane at the bottom or right instead of the top or left.

Snappier defaults

Since 3.5 The default escape-time dropped to 10ms, a new prefix-timeout option cancels a half-entered prefix, and extended (CSI u) keys were overhauled with a new extended-keys-format option.

# Already the default in 3.5+, shown explicitly for older versions:
set -sg escape-time 10

tmux 3.4

SIXEL images

Since 3.4 When built with --enable-sixel, tmux can display SIXEL graphics inside panes — image previews, plots and more in supported terminals.

Shell prompt marking (OSC 133)

Since 3.4 tmux understands OSC 133 prompt markers, so you can jump between shell prompts in copy mode with next-prompt and previous-prompt.

bind -T copy-mode-vi '[' send -X previous-prompt
bind -T copy-mode-vi ']' send -X next-prompt

Styled menus & hyperlinks

Since 3.4 menu-style and menu-border-style theme popup menus, and OSC 8 hyperlinks are supported throughout.