tmux-resurrect
Saves your tmux sessions, windows and panes so you can restore them after a restart.
- Stars
- 13.1k
- Forks
- 575
- Licence
- MIT
- Language
- Shell
- Last update
- 2.2 years ago
- Type
- Dev tool
No commits in over a year — check for forks or alternatives before adopting.
What it is
tmux is a terminal tool that keeps programs running in panes and windows. When the computer restarts, those layouts and running programs are lost. tmux-resurrect is a plugin that saves the details of your tmux setup, such as sessions, panes, working directories and layouts, and restores them on demand.
- Save your tmux layout with prefix + Ctrl-s before shutting down
- Restore all sessions, windows and panes with prefix + Ctrl-r after a restart
- Bring back programs running in panes, from a default list such as vim, htop and less
- Keep grouped sessions set up for multiple monitors after a restore
Great for
- Terminal users who keep many tmux sessions open and dislike rebuilding them after a reboot
- People who want restore without writing or maintaining a configuration file
- Vim and Neovim users who want their editor sessions brought back (optional feature)
Not ideal for
- People who do not use tmux, since it only works inside tmux
- Users who need automatic restore on a schedule, since the README points to the separate tmux-continuum plugin for that
- Users on Windows outside Cygwin, since the README only lists Linux, OSX and Cygwin as tested
How to get it
- 1
Install with a package manager
You'll need: tmux 1.9 or higher · bash · Tmux Plugin Manager (recommended, optional)
Add the plugin to .tmux.conf for TPM, then press prefix + I to install
set -g @plugin 'tmux-plugins/tmux-resurrect'Manual install: clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tmux-resurrect ~/clone/pathManual install: load the plugin from .tmux.conf
run-shell ~/clone/path/resurrect.tmux - 2
Run it
- Install the plugin with TPM or the manual method described in the README
- Reload tmux configuration with: tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf
- Save your environment with prefix + Ctrl-s
- After a restart, start tmux and restore with prefix + Ctrl-r
- 3
Get the most out of it
- Enable optional vim and Neovim session restoring using the linked docs
- Add more programs to the restore list by following the restoring programs doc
- Set up automatic save and restore with tmux-continuum
- Change the default key bindings or add hooks on save and restore using the linked docs
Downloads
Strengths
- No configuration is required to start using it, according to the README
- Saves exact pane layouts, working directories and active session and window state
- Long-established plugin with a large star count and an MIT license
Trade-offs
- Only a short default list of programs is restored, so others need extra configuration
- Relies on bash and tmux 1.9 or higher, so it does not work everywhere
- Automatic saving and restoring needs a separate plugin (tmux-continuum)
How it compares
| Project | Stars | Type | Level | Updated | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| tmux-resurrect (this) | 13.1k | Dev tool | beginner | 2.2 years ago | Terminal users who keep many tmux sessions open and dislike rebuilding them after a reboot |
| tmuxinator | 13.7k | CLI | beginner | 27 days ago | Developers who restart the same project setup (editor, server, logs) every day |
Stats synced from GitHub. The assessment above was drafted with AI from the project's README on 2026-10-29 and may miss recent changes — check the README before relying on a command. MIT licence: free to use, modify and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.