How to attach to a tmux session
Reattach to a session (tmux a is enough if there's only one):
The standard reconnect flow
SSH back in, run tmux ls to see what's running, then tmux attach -t name. Everything is exactly where you left it — that's the entire reason tmux exists.
Window full of dots? (the small-client problem)
If your session appears shrunken with a border of dots, another (often dead) client is attached from a smaller terminal — tmux sizes to the smallest attached client by default. Fix it now with tmux attach -d (detaches the others), or permanently:
~/.tmux.conf
set -g window-size latest
setw -g aggressive-resize onRelated
Verified against tmux 3.6 · updated July 2026 · back to the full cheat sheet