GitHub - daxliar/tmux-bar: tmux-bar is a native macOS menu bar agent that shows your tmux windows on the Touch Bar and lets you switch windows with one tap

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Version 1.1.0

tmux-bar is a macOS menu bar app that shows your tmux windows on the Touch Bar and lets you switch windows with one tap.

Screenshot

MacBook Pro with terminal windows shown as Touch Bar buttons below the display

Features

  • Runs quietly from the menu bar only (no Dock icon).
  • When Terminal, iTerm2, or Ghostty is the frontmost app and you’re in tmux, your windows appear on the Touch Bar; tap one to switch to that window.
  • The current window is easy to spot (brighter colored outline than the rest).
  • Lots of windows? Swipe the window row sideways; + (new window) and trash (delete) stay on the right.
  • + opens a new tmux window in the same folder as the shell you’re in.
  • Trash turns on delete mode (buttons show an ✕); tap a window to close it. Delete mode turns off after each tap so you don’t remove windows by accident.
  • If you switch to another app or tmux isn’t in use, the Touch Bar goes away so you don’t see old labels.
  • The menu bar title can show your session name and how many windows you have while tmux is active.

Requirements

  • macOS 13 or newer.
  • A MacBook Pro model with a Touch Bar: 13-inch (2016/2017/2018/2019 Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports, 2020 Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports, 2020 Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports, M1 2020, M2 2022), 15-inch (2016/2017/2018/2019), or 16-inch (2019).
  • tmux installed (/opt/homebrew/bin/tmux, /usr/local/bin/tmux, or on PATH).
  • Apple Clang (Xcode or Command Line Tools), CMake 3.20 or newer.

Supported Terminals

tmux-bar refreshes while one of these apps is frontmost:

  • Terminal (com.apple.Terminal)
  • iTerm2 (com.googlecode.iterm2)
  • Ghostty (com.mitchellh.ghostty)

What’s new in 1.1.0

  • About tmux-bar in the menu bar menu opens a small About window (layout inspired by Ghostty’s About panel): app icon, a short description, and a Version / Build / Commit block.
  • Build is the total commit count from git at configure time (git rev-list --count HEAD); Commit is a short hash (git rev-parse --short=8 HEAD). If git metadata is unavailable, sensible placeholders are shown.
  • README and GitHub buttons open this repository; the commit line is a link to that commit on GitHub when a hash is known.

Build with CMake

Configure and build a Release app bundle (output path shown is for the default Makefile/Ninja generator):

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --parallel

The generated application is build/tmux-bar.app.

Run from Source

After building with CMake, open build/tmux-bar.app from Finder, or run the executable inside the bundle from a terminal.

The app appears in the macOS status/menu bar as tmux-bar.

Debug Mode

Set TMUX_BAR_DEBUG (to any value) in your run environment to enable:

  • More status text in the menu bar.
  • A Log Debug Snapshot menu action.

Downloading Releases

Prebuilt binaries are attached to GitHub Releases.

  1. Open the Releases page.
  2. Download the tmux-bar-universal.zip asset from the latest version.
  3. Unzip and move tmux-bar.app to Applications (or another preferred location).
  4. Launch the app.

Notes

  • If no tmux session is available, the Touch Bar buttons are hidden.
  • For auto-start at login, add tmux-bar.app to macOS Login Items.

License

MIT License. See LICENSE.