Copy text results from terminal commands without a mouse using tmux copy mode

One of the reasons I'm a big fan of terminals is not having to remove my fingers from the keyboard and using the mouse. I could find my way around quite well, and found so many solutions but selecting terminal output and using that in the next command was always stille a step too far.

Introducing tmux copy mode, which has always been close, without me ever knowing it was there.

Say you are in a command line, and want to show the logs of a kubernetes pod. You need the pod id in the logs command, so you first get the pods and then copy the pod id.

We do this by entering tmux copy mode with ctrl+b [, then navigate to the start of the text you want to copy using vim navigation (hjkl), press space to start the selection, and press enter to copy the selection.

Then, when you are ready to paste, press ctrl+b ] to paste right there in the command. Without your fingers ever leaving the keyboard!