tmux grabs the mouse, so a normal click-drag doesn't select text inside the terminal. Use one of these:
Quickest — bypass tmux mouse capture
- Desktop: hold Shift and drag with the mouse to select. Then Ctrl+Shift+C (Linux/Win) or ⌘+C (Mac) to copy.
- Paste: Ctrl+Shift+V / ⌘+V, or right-click inside the terminal.
- Mac trackpad alt: Option+drag also bypasses tmux on some browsers.
tmux copy-mode (keyboard only — works on mobile too)
- Ctrl+b then [ — enter copy-mode (cursor turns into a selector).
- Arrow keys / PgUp / PgDn — navigate. / search forward, ? search backward.
- Space — start selection. Move cursor to extend.
- Enter — copy selection to tmux buffer and exit copy-mode.
- Ctrl+b then ] — paste from tmux buffer.
- q or Esc — exit copy-mode without copying.
Quick keys (send to active session)
Mobile / touch
- Long-press inside the terminal to bring up the browser's native selection handles, then drag to extend.
- If long-press selects the whole page instead, use the Enter copy-mode button above and navigate with the on-screen keyboard arrows.
- To paste: long-press → Paste from the browser menu, or use the Paste buffer button above.
Tip: tmux mouse mode is what makes click-drag fail. Shift+drag tells the browser "ignore tmux, this is a normal selection."