Rename screen session

203

Is it possible to change the name of a GNU screen session? Say I called started it with "screen -S foo" and I want to rename it to bar.

marcog

Posted 2011-12-22T03:43:41.917

Reputation: 2 384

Duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3202111/set-a-name-for-screens-with-the-screen-command

– l0b0 – 2012-08-09T08:00:58.563

15@l0b0 That's about naming. This is about renaming. – marcog – 2012-08-09T18:06:38.010

Answers

306

Summary

C-a :sessionname mySessionName

Details

This is,

Attach to the session in question.
Press Ctrl+A.
Type :sessionname mySessionName – yes, the first colon is needed there, no extra spaces.
Type Enter.

Example

$ screen -S foo
[detached from 8890.foo]
$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
    8890.foo    (22/12/11 18:39:22) (Detached)
1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-user.

$ screen -r

Ctrl+A:sessionname bars

[detached from 8890.bars]
$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
    8890.bars   (22/12/11 18:39:21) (Detached)
1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-user.

$

Renaming without attaching

Screen's -X switch lets you rename a session without attaching it.

$ screen -X sessionname foobars
$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
    8890.foobars    (22/12/11 18:39:22) (Detached)
1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-user.

$

Alternatively, you can specifically target a screen session by its existing name or id (useful if there are already multiple sessions):

$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
    8890.foo        (02/23/2015 18:39:22)   (Detached)
    5136.barfoos    (02/23/2015 18:39:22)   (Detached)
1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-user.

$ screen -S 8890.foo -X sessionname foobars
$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
    8890.foobars    (02/23/2015 18:39:22)   (Detached)
    5136.barfoos    (02/23/2015 18:39:22)   (Detached)
1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-user.

$

user89272

Posted 2011-12-22T03:43:41.917

Reputation:

If there are several sessions, use:

screen -S 8890.foo -X sessionname bar

Memo

Posted 2011-12-22T03:43:41.917

Reputation: 651

get the actual session name with screen -ls as mentioned in the other answers – swiesend – 2019-02-13T03:39:23.003

This is a much better answer, which is clear and simple. Thank you so much. – Mars Lee – 2019-04-02T13:45:35.023

8This is a better answer than the one above because it deals with the general case of multiple sessions – doon – 2013-05-21T17:21:07.727

2This is the best answer – Coc – 2013-12-03T10:18:08.453

This renames the current window title within a session, as displayed in the window list when you press Ctrl - a+":

While in a screen session press Ctrl - a + A (it's an uppercase a, i.e. Shift+a), type the new name, and press Enter

Now when you do Ctrl - a+" the name you set will appear in the window list instead of bash.

NOTE: This does not answer the original question, but I am not deleting the answer since apparently some of the visitors to this thread searched for a way to rename the window title, and not the actual session as the OP asked.

ccpizza

Posted 2011-12-22T03:43:41.917

Reputation: 5 372

5I think the question was about renaming the session, but this answer renames windows. – Dan Gravell – 2014-09-09T09:48:21.127