Using Neovim as a terminal multiplexer

April 19th, 2026

Since watching this video, I've experimented using Neovim as a terminal multiplexer, using terminals within panes and tabs in Neovim with :term rather than tmux.

I can also create a new terminal tab with :tabnew | term and splits with :spl | term and :vsp | term.

I can zoom into panes using <C-w> | or <C-w> _, and reset them to equal sizes with <C-w> =.

Doing everything in Neovim gives me consistent keybindings to move between windows, panes and tabs, and full use of my regular Neovim setup with text objects, highlighting and copying and pasting.

As I'm not using a tmux session launcher, I've added zoxide and use the z and zi commands to get fast access to my directories.

It feels odd not to have tmux installed (It's been in my dotfiles since 2019), but I'm liking this setup so far - let's see if it sticks.