How to switch between panes in tmux

Faster: skip the prefix entirely

Prefix + arrow gets old fast. Bind Alt+arrow (-n means no prefix needed) and switching panes becomes one keystroke:

bind -n M-Left select-pane -L
bind -n M-Right select-pane -R
bind -n M-Up select-pane -U
bind -n M-Down select-pane -D

Other ways to jump

prefix q flashes a number on each pane — press the number to jump. prefix ; toggles between your two most recent panes. prefix o cycles through panes in order. If you live in vim/neovim, use the vim-tmux-navigator plugin so Ctrl-h/j/k/l moves seamlessly across vim splits and tmux panes.

Related config

# vim-style pane navigation with prefix
bind h select-pane -L
bind j select-pane -D
bind k select-pane -U
bind l select-pane -R