How to rename a window in tmux

Rename the current window:

keysprefix + ,

Why your name keeps changing back

tmux renames windows to the running program unless told otherwise. Renaming a window manually turns automatic renaming off for that window; to stop it globally:

~/.tmux.conf
set -g automatic-rename off
set -g allow-rename off   # stop programs renaming via escape sequences

Panes are different

Panes don't have names like windows do — they have titles (select-pane -T title), which show in the pane border if you enable pane-border-status.

Related

Verified against tmux 3.6 · updated July 2026 · back to the full cheat sheet

[tmuxlab]
^B