Tmux — any way to enable scrolling, but not selection

mouseterminaltmux

I like that when mode-mouse is on in tmux, I can scroll through the buffer, but I don't like that I can't copy stuff to my OS clipboard by selecting it (as when tmux is disabled). Question: Is there any way to enable mouse scrolling, but not selection? I'm using KDE's konsole, if it matters. I've tried setting,

set -g mouse-select-pane off
set -g mouse-select-window off

but no luck — the only difference seems to be whether mode-mouse is on (tmux captures scrolling and selection) or off (tmux captures neither scrolling nor selection).

Best Answer

due to a limitation in the protocol, it is not possible for terminal applications to only request the scrolling but not the selection. It's an all or nothing. So even if tmux wanted, it has no way of doing what you desire.

You have the following options:

  • set up a keyboard short-cut that copies the tmux selection into your system clipboard
  • use a terminal that supports set-clipboard function, such as xterm
  • disable any use of the mouse in tmux

unfortunately, answer to your question is No

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