Set the active tmux tab color

Question

Is it possible to change the background of the active (current) tmux tab?

I'm using tmux 1.9 on Ubuntu 15.04.

$ tmux -V
tmux 1.9

I tried to do:

set-option -g pane-active-border-fg red

But the result was not changed:

I expected the 3-bash* to have a red background.

Solution 1

You haven't set window active background color, you only set active panel border, try:

set-window-option -g window-status-current-bg red

Solution 2

In version 3.3 use the answer in comment provided here by @AntK.

set-window-option -g window-status-current-style bg=red

In version 2.9 You should change this options to something like:

# Active window title color
setw -g window-status-current-style fg=black,bg=white

There's an argument with a decent explanation here: https://github.com/tmux/tmux/issues/1689

And the FAQ: https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki/FAQ#how-do-i-translate--fg--bg-and--attr-options-into--style-options

Comments

[Ionică Bizău]

Still the same -- i.imgur.com/3AdyVZc.png

[Ionică Bizău]

Yes, I saved ~/.tmux.conf and started tmux in a new terminal.

[Ionică Bizău]

xterm-256color

[Ionică Bizău]

Confirming that after restarting my machine this works! Thanks a lot!

[nacholibre]

Or you can run tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf to reload the tmux conf without restart.

[laurent]

Also, for those wondering, you can set the foreground with set-window-option -g window-status-current-fg 'white'

[OmPS]

this works. :) what is the file entry?

[AntK]

if you're looking at this post tmux v2.9 this option will look like so set-window-option -g window-status-current-style bg=red

[imagineerThis]

confirmed this works for 2.9a

[KhaimovMR]

thanks. that's the actual way to set those colors

[vishless]

This throws syntax error in next-3.3. @AntK's solution worked fine

[alexzander]

this config set-window-option -g window-status-current-style bg=red works in tmux 3.2