Just a quick note today, highlighting a super simple but amazingly useful combination I've only recently become aware of: iTerm2 + tmux.

If you don't know what these are:

• iTerm2 is a terminal emulator for macOS
• tmux is terminal multiplexer, allowing you to run multiple programs in the same terminal session

If you use SSH a lot, you know the benefits of using something like tmux (or screen for you older folks..) to run multiple programs at once, or keep them running when you disconnect.

While this is definitely a nice feature, I've always found the command syntax and interface to be just a little too confusing (growing up in a GUI world..), and so I tend to end up resorting to opening multiple SSH connections or similar hacks. That way I can use the multiple tabs/windows I get from iTerm2 instead.

Hacks no more! Thanks to the little known iTerm2 tmux integration, we can get the benefits of tmux, and the ease of iTerm's tabs and windows. It works seamlessly. When using iTerm2:

You can create a new tmux session with:

tmux -CC

Or reattach to a previous session with:

tmux -CC attach

This will open a new window running the tmux session. From there, we can open new tabs (command-t), or split the tab vertically (command-shift-d) or horizontally (command-d)

For a more information, you could checkout iTerm and Tmux, sitting in a tree by Jamie van Dyke.