How to reload the tmux config
Re-run your config against the live server:
Give yourself a reload key
The classic quality-of-life binding — change config, prefix r, done:
~/.tmux.conf
bind r source-file ~/.tmux.conf \; display "config reloaded"Two gotchas
Sourcing re-runs the file; it does not reset state first — if you delete a set line, the old value sticks until you unset it or restart the server (tmux kill-server). And since tmux 3.1 the config can live at ~/.config/tmux/tmux.conf — make sure you're editing (and sourcing) the one tmux actually reads.
Related
Verified against tmux 3.6 · updated July 2026 · back to the full cheat sheet