Use system clipboard in vi-copy mode in tmux

This was also answered here, but it took me a while to understand how to use it, so I'll explain for anyone else that was confused.

This is basically the setting you're going for:

(for tmux versions <2.5)

bind -t vi-copy y copy-pipe 'xclip -in -selection clipboard'

(for tmux versions >=2.5)

bind -T copy-mode-vi y send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel 'xclip -in -selection clipboard'

Then hit Ctrl+b [ to enter copy mode. Then hit Space followed by whatever vi movement keys to make a selection. Then, instead of hitting Enter, hit y and the selection will be copied to the clipboard.

Note: this assumes you're using tmux's default bindings with vi keys.

Tmux has different key binding tables for different modes. So, bind-key -t vi-copy y sets the action for the y key in copy mode. Initially, I was confused because I was used to hitting Enter after making a selection. Enter is actually just the default key binding for the copy-selection command (when in copy mode). The copy-pipe command allows us to bind a new key to pipe the selection to a command, which in this case is xclip.

You can see all key bindings for copy mode by running list-keys -t vi-copy.

The updated version to Ben Davis answer

compatible with tmux 2.4

bind -T copy-mode-vi y send -X copy-pipe "xclip -selection c"

Take a look at the tmux-yank plugin for tmux. https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tmux-yank

It provides an automated way to copy/paste from tmux to the system clipboard. It works on OSX/Linux/Cygwin systems.