Configuration

Customize tmux-thumbs by setting variables in your .tmux.conf. After changing these, reload your configuration (tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf).

Key Bindings

@thumbs-key

• Default: space
• Description: The key following your tmux <prefix> to trigger thumbs.

set -g @thumbs-key F

Appearance

@thumbs-position

• Default: left
• Options: left, right, off_left, off_right.
• Description: Where the hint appears relative to the matched text.

@thumbs-contrast

• Default: 0 (Disabled)
• Description: If 1, wraps hints in brackets [a] for better visibility.

Colors

Available colors: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white, default, or Hex codes #RRGGBB.

Option	Default	Description
@thumbs-bg-color	black	Background of the matched text.
@thumbs-fg-color	green	Foreground of the matched text.
@thumbs-hint-bg-color	black	Background of the hint characters.
@thumbs-hint-fg-color	yellow	Foreground of the hint characters.
@thumbs-select-bg-color	black	Background when an item is currently selected (cursor).
@thumbs-select-fg-color	blue	Foreground when an item is currently selected.
@thumbs-multi-bg-color	black	Background of multi-selected items.
@thumbs-multi-fg-color	yellow	Foreground of multi-selected items.

Behavior

@thumbs-alphabet

• Default: qwerty
• Description: The set of characters used to generate hints.
• Choices: numeric, abcd, qwerty, qwerty-homerow, qwerty-left-hand, qwerty-right-hand, azerty (and variants), qwertz (and variants), dvorak (and variants), colemak (and variants).

@thumbs-reverse

• Default: disabled
• Description: If enabled, shorter hints are assigned to matches closer to the bottom/cursor.

@thumbs-unique

• Default: disabled
• Description: If enabled, identical matches (e.g., the same IP appearing twice) get the same hint character.

@thumbs-osc52

• Default: 0
• Description: If 1, sends an OSC52 escape sequence to copy to the system clipboard (requires terminal support like iTerm2 or Alacritty).

Commands

Customize what happens when a hint is picked. {} is the placeholder for the selected text.

@thumbs-command

• Default: tmux set-buffer -- {} && tmux display-message "Copied {}"
• Description: Command run on a standard pick.

@thumbs-upcase-command

• Default: tmux set-buffer -- {} && tmux paste-buffer && tmux display-message "Copied {}"
• Description: Command run when the final character of the hint is typed in Uppercase (Auto-paste).

@thumbs-multi-command

• Default: tmux set-buffer -- {} && tmux paste-buffer && tmux send-keys ' ' && tmux display-message "Copied multiple items!"
• Description: Command run for each item in a multi-selection.