How can I make tmux use my default shell?

Question

On a new setup, tmux is using bash instead of my default (zsh).

How can I force it to use zsh?

figured it out. Can set the following in tmux config: set -g default-command /bin/zsh set -g default-shell /bin/zsh — re5et, Mar 06 '11 at 05:33
FWIW, you don't need to set default-command if you've set default-shell. — Nicholas Riley, Feb 29 '12 at 20:03

score 297 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 30 '19 at 11:46

297

set-option -g default-shell /bin/zsh

in ~/.tmux.conf or /etc/tmux.conf. Works on Fedora.

You can reload the config with <leader>: source-file <conf file> e.g.

<C-b>: source-file ~/.tmux.conf

You would need to do it for every tmux instance. Otherwise you may restart tmux with killall tmux; tmux

edited Nov 30 '19 at 11:46

Community

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answered Feb 10 '12 at 04:38

Alex Hammel

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If this doesn't work for you then make sure you've restart `tmux`. Seems obvious but took me a good hour to figure out! – Andy Smith Sep 20 '12 at 20:55
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BTW: Restarting tmux means `killall tmux; tmux`. Took me quite a while to figure out. – js-coder Dec 21 '12 at 14:48
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Configs could be reloaded without killing a server: `bind R source-file ~/.tmux.conf \; display-message " Config reloaded..".` – ДМИТРИЙ МАЛИКОВ Jul 02 '13 at 08:01
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Or simply run `tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf` from the command line. – Petr Oct 29 '14 at 12:43
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@js-coder: to more cleanly kill your tmux server I'd recommend `tmux kill-server` instead. – Chuim Feb 13 '15 at 22:32
not sure if it's just a newer version of tmux, but I never had to kill the tmux server or tmux itself. Once you set the option, it should work. – dylnmc Jun 07 '16 at 05:48
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`killall` not working on zesty. I had to `pkill tmux`. The processes were named `'tmux: server'` and `'tmux: client'`. – loxaxs Oct 03 '17 at 15:57

score 59 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 19 '21 at 21:27

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First, ensure your default shell is set properly to zsh by running this in your command line:

chsh -s $(`which zsh`) $USER

Placing the following in your ~/.tmux.conf is a more robust option for any shell.

set-option -g default-shell $SHELL

edited Apr 19 '21 at 21:27

NotTheDr01ds

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answered Feb 29 '12 at 00:25

DebugXYZ

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It is unnecessary to set user shell (`chsh -s`) as tmux offers an option independent of that. – Mahmoud Al-Qudsi May 30 '17 at 06:00
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I thought it was more robust to use the $SHELL variable. But it adds an extra step and confusion so I do prefer the accepted answer. – DebugXYZ Jan 13 '19 at 22:05
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This is better than the accepted answer. My zsh is not installed in /bin/zsh. – HappyFace Aug 04 '19 at 17:56
Is the double command substitution intended? – dessert Jan 20 '21 at 15:24

score 25 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 19 '21 at 21:26

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For MacOS users, drop this line in the bottom of your ~/.tmux.conf

set-option -g default-command "reattach-to-user-namespace -l zsh"

After you add that, kill and restart your tmux server and all should work.

edited Apr 19 '21 at 21:26

NotTheDr01ds

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answered Jan 31 '12 at 16:25

wyattdanger

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Er, is there any indication that re5et (the OP) is on a Mac, or has that wrapper program installed? – Chris Johnsen Feb 01 '12 at 07:13
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I think this answer only works for Mac OS X – EhevuTov Jul 25 '13 at 06:29
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`tmux kill-server` is the command to end all tmux servers – Keith Smiley Oct 14 '13 at 17:05
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Although it wasn't the answer the OP asked for, I ended up in this thread and indeed I am on OS X, using this wrapper, and this is the solution I needed; so Thank You! – Jose Alban Sep 24 '15 at 11:47
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how does this differ from `set-option -g default-shell `? the above does not seem to work with the Fish shell. – Tommy Feb 09 '16 at 01:50
Change `zsh` to `$SHELL` to make it work without hard-coding your shell. – awendt Nov 28 '17 at 11:00

blueyed · Answer 4 · 2016-11-06T00:34:17.307

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tmux appears to use the SHELL environment variable, so the following should work:

SHELL=/usr/bin/zsh tmux

or

env SHELL=/usr/bin/zsh tmux

edited Nov 06 '16 at 00:34

answered Apr 12 '14 at 20:54

blueyed

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Not sure why this was down-voted. It appears to be correct: a common problem is using a different shell for e.g. iTerm but leaving login shell as `/bin/bash` to ensure nothing non-iteractive breaks. iTerm will not set `$SHELL` to the new shell name (unsure why), and bash initialisation will set it to the login shell if unset at startup. tmux then uses this value if `default-shell` is not set explicitly. – Sam Brightman Nov 04 '16 at 08:38
Yeah.. maybe `env SHELL=/usr/bin/zsh tmux` is better? (updated the answer). – blueyed Nov 06 '16 at 00:33

mareoraft · Answer 5 · 2019-02-25T14:17:45.040

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If you want to force tmux to use the same shell as specified in your environment variable, you could use:

# force SHELL ENV variable as shell
set-option -g default-shell ${SHELL}

in your ~/.tmux.conf or /etc/tmux.conf.

To get the change to actually take effect, you may need to tmux kill-server and then tmux to restart tmux.

edited Feb 25 '19 at 14:17

answered Jul 29 '16 at 19:09

mareoraft

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This is the only answer that worked for me (the tmux kill-server command) – undefined Jan 27 '18 at 00:30

score 6 · Answer 6 · edited Dec 15 '20 at 15:39

The accepted answer did not work for me.

I had to write both

set -g default-shell  "/bin/bash"

and

set -g default-command "/bin/bash"

in my ~/.tmux.conf — Dont forget to run the following commands to reload the tmux.conf:

tmux kill-server; tmux

Im am using tmux -V 2.6 under Ubuntu 18 in the gnome-shell emulator.

I also enhanced tmux with https://github.com/samoshkin/tmux-config. Check it out, it's really cool.

score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 06 '11 at 05:22

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Use chsh(1):

chsh -s /bin/zsh $USER

answered Mar 06 '11 at 05:22

amphetamachine

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i already had this set, but tmux was ignoring it. – re5et Mar 06 '11 at 05:33

score 2 · Answer 8 · edited Jan 05 '16 at 12:38

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Log-out and log-in again fixed my problem. When echoed $SHELL it was still /bin/bash but after log-out it was changed to /usr/bin/zsh

edited Jan 05 '16 at 12:38

nKn

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answered Jan 05 '16 at 12:18

Patrick Cho

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score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 18 '19 at 08:34

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For me I had to replace:

default-command "/usr/local/bin/fish"
default-shell "/usr/local/bin/fish"

with

set-option -g default-command "/usr/local/bin/fish"
set-option -g default-shell "/usr/local/bin/fish"

in .tmux.conf and run command tmux kill-server; tmux

answered Sep 18 '19 at 08:34

Ali Amin

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This is a duplicate of answer https://superuser.com/a/1370909/174140. – 174140 Sep 18 '19 at 09:31
@john I've used `set-option -g` instead of `set -g`. different versions of tmux most probably – Ali Amin Sep 19 '19 at 11:24
`set` is an alias for `set-option`. – 174140 Sep 19 '19 at 11:28

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Jun 19 '14 at 16:49

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Add this into your ~/.tmux.conf

set -g default-command /usr/local/bin/fish

answered Jun 19 '14 at 16:49

IanVaughan

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Will Budic · Answer 11 · 2022-07-14T23:48:44.550

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I wanted it to force to use an custom .bashrc. The following should work for any shell. My new is .tmux-bashrc is just an copy of .bashrc , minus the ncal or cowsay, etc... The speed improvements are now apparent.

in ~/.tmux.conf

set-option -g default-shell $SHELL
set-option -g default-command "$SHELL --init-file .tmux-bashrc"

edited Jul 14 '22 at 23:48

answered Jul 14 '22 at 23:46

Will Budic

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score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Mar 31 '22 at 23:29

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Obvious but When trying the other answers... Check if another shell is printed below the line you're inserting before you blow a gasket

answered Mar 31 '22 at 23:29

Zach_is_my_name

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As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer). – Community Apr 01 '22 at 04:00
You can find more information on how I meant exactly what I typed in the help center... – Zach_is_my_name Apr 01 '22 at 04:03

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered May 31 '22 at 04:52

As for me, I use Arch Linux inside Windows WSL2 and I have done chsh -s /bin/zsh $USER and when entering tmux it would not correctly load zsh(show some errors e.g. add-zsh-hook function definition file not found and so on. If I enter zsh manually again, everything works fine. And I found that inside ~/.tmux.conf add one line set -g default-command /bin/zsh should be the answer to fix this problem but I don't know why setting default-shell or setting SHELL variable was in vain.

FYI, tmux(1) — Linux manual page

How can I make tmux use my default shell?

13 Answers13

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