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# tmux trick #3: open URLs without the mouse
*This post is part of a [series](../../series)*
My [last post in this series](../2026-05-17-tmux-clipboard) on copy mode
was inspired by an old `.tmux.conf` file that I found in a backup folder.
In that same file I also had a command that selects all URLs that are
visible in the current pane, shows them to the user in a
[dmenu](https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu) session, and opens the
selected URL in a browser. This command is bound to `C-b u` with
the following configuration line:
```
bind u run "tmux capture-pane; tmux show-buffer | urlgrep | dmenu -l | xargs firefox"
```
This command is a great example of UNIX program composability. Let's break it down!
## The pipeline
First, `tmux capture-pane` copies all the text of the current pane in
its copy buffer. Then `tmux show-buffer` prints the current copy buffer
to standard output - we talked about this last time.
This text is then [piped](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_(Unix))
into `urlgrep`, a custom script that I wrote by copy-pasting a regular
expression from some StackOverflow answer:
```
#!/bin/sh
protocols='http|https|ftp|sftp|gemini|mailto'
valid_chars="][a-zA-Z0-9_~/?#@!$&'()*+=.,;:-"
regex="(($protocols):|www\.)[$valid_chars]+"
egrep -o "$regex"
```
This [grep](../2023-08-20-grep) command selects all URLs from its standard
input and prints them out one per line. These URLs are then sent to dmenu,
a graphical tool that prompts the user to select one of the items it received
in its standard input. The `-l` option is used to change `dmenu`'s layout so
that it shows one option per line.
The user's selection is then printed by `dmenu` to standard output; so we
use `xargs` to convert it to an argument for the `firefox` command. And
that's it! You can now follow links from your terminal using only your keyboard.
## Caveats
If a URL is broken into multiple lines, my `urlgrep` script is only going to
select it until the end of the first line, so you won't be able to open
it correctly with this configuration. However, I found this to be a common
issue in many terminal emulators.
## Update 2026-07-05
Shortly after this post was published, a reader emailed me his modified
version of the binding:
```
bind u {
capture-pane -J
display-popup -w 80% -T "Select URL to open" -E "tmux show-buffer | urlview"
}
```
This taught me three things:
1. `urlview` can replace my custom combo of scripts - cool! But I kinda like
my scripts, I think I'll keep using them.
2. Using `display-popup` to show a "window" inside the tmux session. This can
be useful e.g. if one is not running a graphical session at all. I can
use it together with the `-m fzf` option for my `dmenu-urlselect`.
3. The `-J` option for `capture-pane` to preserve trailing spaces and join
any wrapped lines. This may solve the caveat I mentioned above!
Thanks Johannes!
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