Split a pane#

Every session lives in a pane, and you can split every pane in two. That is the whole layout model: split a pane to put another session beside or below it, and split again until the tab holds the sessions you need. One pane is always the focused pane, and it receives what you type.

Split a pane#

Two buttons on the right of each pane header split it. Split right puts the new session beside the current one. Split down puts it underneath. The keyboard equivalents are Ctrl+Shift+D and Ctrl+Shift+E. On macOS, use Cmd in place of Ctrl.

When you connect to a host from the toolbar or the sidebar, the pane also splits: the new session appears beside the focused pane and does not replace it. Remote Terminal never closes an open session to make room for a new one.

Drag the divider between two panes to change how they share the space. A pane can take between 10% and 90% of the split. Ctrl+Shift+0 resets every divider in the tab back to an even split.

Note A tab holds at most 16 panes. At the limit the split buttons stop responding, with no message to explain why. Close a pane to make room.

Move focus between panes#

Select anywhere in a pane to focus it. Remote Terminal outlines the focused pane and dims the others, so you always know where your typing goes.

Ctrl+Shift and an arrow key moves the focus to the neighbouring pane in that direction, chosen by position on screen. If there is no pane that way, the focus stays where it is.

Zoom a pane#

Ctrl+Shift+Z expands the focused pane to fill the tab and hides the others. Press it again to go back to the split layout.

The hidden sessions continue to run while a pane is zoomed. A command carries on, output keeps arriving, and it is all there when you return. Zoom also clears itself when you split or close a pane.

Close a pane#

The close button on the right of the pane header ends that session and removes the pane. Ctrl+Shift+W does the same. The button appears only when the tab has more than one pane, because a tab always keeps at least one.

When a pane closes, the space folds back into the pane it was split from. If the closed pane had the focus, the focus moves to another pane.

The full list of shortcuts is on the keyboard shortcuts page.