Anyone who uses the Windows terminal should use this productivity game-changer

Most people go through years of daily driving Windows without ever opening the terminal, and for good reason. Windows is designed in a manner that provides a graphical user interface for just about everything.

However, whether it’s Winget hacks that transform how you use Windows 11 or looking up rogue processes on your system, using the terminal can make you more efficient. And if you’re serious about using the command-line on Windows, this tool is a must-have.

What is itmux and why should you care

Bring the legendary tmux functionality to Windows Terminal

Itmux takes everything great about the legendary tmux multiplexer and makes it work seamlessly on Windows. It also combines the best of several Unix tools, including tmux, Mintty, OpenSSH client, and Cygwin in a slick, standalone, SSH-enabled terminal multiplexer experience that feels native to run on Windows. The entire bundle works as follows:

• Mintty: Provides a modern terminal emulator on Windows, bringing a Unix-like feel and features.
• Tmux: Handles session management, pane and window splitting, and other multiplexer features.
• OpenSSH Client: Enables encrypted and secure remote connections natively.
• Cygwin: Provides a Linux-like API and environment, so everything works nicely together on Windows.

For those who haven’t used one before, a terminal multiplexer is a way to run multiple terminals inside one window. Imagine splitting your screen into different panes for editing, monitoring logs, running a shell, and more, without having multiple terminal windows or tabs running simultaneously.

This implementation has several advantages. For starters, you can split your terminal into multiple panes—horizontally and vertically—in almost any layout you can think of.

Each pane can run a different command or process. This can dramatically boost productivity, especially if you’re a developer running NPM or Node commands in one window, and monitoring server logs in another.

And if you feel like splitting the terminal window the way you want is too much work every time you fire up itmux, you can personalize layouts, define key bindings, and automate your workflows so you can get to work straight away instead of fiddling to get itmux in the right shape.

Thanks it its OpenSSH integration, connecting to remote servers from within itmux is dead simple and secure. It also gets tmux’s session sharing, meaning you can collaborate with colleagues or troubleshoot issues live with friends regardless of where they are. Another benefit of this is that your sessions are persistent. You can detach from a session, close your terminal, and reattach later from the same or even a different machine. No more accidentally lost work.

Last but not least, itmux remains lightweight and fast, unlike heavy GUI-based terminal apps. It’s just you and your keyboard, with no unnecessary fluff to slow you down. It’s one of the main reasons why I switched to a terminal-based calendar for efficiency.

Itmux vs. Windows Terminal

Windows Terminal is good — itmux makes it great

Command Prompt has been the go-to terminal program on Windows for as long as Windows has been around. However, I use Windows Terminal instead of Command Prompt because it’s a lot more capable.

The traditional Windows terminal is great when you need to run a couple of terminal windows for development or monitoring purposes. However, if you’re into serious terminal multitasking, the Windows Terminal, Command Prompt, and even PowerShell can feel limiting.

Yes, you get features like multiple tabs and split windows in the Windows Terminal, but they don’t hold up to the customization and layout options that Itmux provides. Besides, Itmux offers a lot more functionality that Windows Terminal is yet to catch up on.

Resource consumption is not going to be a big deal on most Windows systems, as the Windows Terminal itself doesn’t require a lot of computing power despite its better, more advanced GUI and support for more characters, fonts, and icons.

However, this only applies to local use. If you’re trying to access a shell over SSH or any other remote connection, all that extra GUI goodness can get in the way of performance depending on your network connection. If you want the absolute fastest performance and lowest resource consumption, itmux is the better choice.

Running itmux on Windows is extremely easy as well. Just download the ZIP archive for the itmux bundle from the official download page, extract it, and run the tmux.cmd file in the root directory to start the mintty terminal. After that, you can start tmux and get going with no hitches.

Finally, there’s also a surprising amount of customization you get with itmux. Apart from customizing keyboard shortcuts, you can change the foreground, background, and cursor colors, fonts, change what the mouse buttons do, terminal type, window properties, and more. You can even create your custom themes with the built-in web-based terminal color theme designer.

Level Up Your Terminal Workflow in Minutes

A small download that makes a big difference to how you code, test, and multitask

If you rely on Windows Terminal for anything remotely complex, itmux will change the way you work. No more tab overload, dropped sessions, or feeling jealous of your Linux friends. Instead, you get a customizable, persistent, and powerful environment without ever leaving Windows.

itmux stands out because you get the real tmux—plus comfortable SSH and Linux command line access—without needing to switch to Linux. Try it once, and you’ll soon wonder why you didn’t switch earlier.