How do I clear the scrollback buffer in tmux?

terminal, tmux

Solution

This same question has been plaguing me for quite some time. Here's the best I've come up with. Put this into your .tmux.conf file:

bind -n C-k clear-history

This binds ctrl-k to the tmux clear-history command. The -n after bind makes it so you don't have to issue the tmux command prefix (ctrl-b by default). I use bash, so ctrl-l already does the equivalent of typing "clear" at the command line. With these two keys I get a nice ctrl-l, ctrl-k combo, which moves all the scroll buffer off the screen (the "clear") and then deletes all that history (the tmux "clear-history" command).

It's not quite as nice as Terminal's, iTerm's, or Konsole's 1-key combos for clearing it out, but it's a world better than typing in clear-history all the time.

Problem

Original source