Selecting text in terminal without using the mouse

Question

If I'm working in a terminal window in Linux, is there a keyboard shortcut I can use to select output displayed on previous lines? If I select something with the mouse I can copy using Ctrl + Shift + C, but is there a way to select without using the mouse at all. I'm using either Gnome terminal or KDE konsole in Ubuntu desktop.

For example I often need to copy results from a mysql query and then google them.

Solution 1

You can use the screen application and enter copy mode with Ctrl+a, Esc. Start selecting text with Space and end selecting text with Space. Insert text with Ctrl+a, ]

Solution 2

Daniel Micay's Termite sports a "selection mode". Pressing Ctrl+Shift+Space will activate it. It's got vim-like key bindings. v or V will select à la vim's visual mode, y will yank, Esc will exit selection mode.

Solution 3

Screen and Emacs M-x shell, for example, allow for keyboard access to the scrollback buffer. This was also one of the features of Plan 9 (but I guess it was mouse-oriented, at least primarily); you might want to take a look at 9term and/or Sam, the Plan 9 editor.

Comments

[tomrozb]

A better explanation how to use screen: stackoverflow.com/questions/312213

[logbasex]

Does it allow search in visual mode?

[user598527]

Applies to alacritty as well.