How to change the title of the current terminal tab using only the command line

Question

None of the currently posted answers works/answers the question.

As per my original question, neither setting PS1 nor PROMPT_COMMAND had any effect.

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Using only a command at the command prompt, how do I change the title of the current terminal tab?

Many posts suggest this:

echo -en "\033]0;New terminal title\a"

but it does nothing.

None of the current answers works (some don't answer the question), so for clarity:

• Once the title is changed, I don't want it to change if I change directory etc
• I don't want the same title on all tabs. I only want to set the title for the tab I run the command in
• I want multiple tabs to each have different titles

Also, the PROMPT_COMMAND variable is not set in my terminal sessions. If I set it:

PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -en "\033]0;New terminal title\a"'

it has no effect.

What is the correct command?

---

FYI, the output of uname -a is:

Linux d136172 3.13.0-45-generic #74-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jan 13 19:36:28 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Answer 1

from @Maythux, this one works for my needs to disregard my auto-prompt current-directory on terminal.

PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -en "\033]0;New terminal title\a"'

Instruction

Change the string on "New Terminal Name" with $("pwd"):

PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -en "\033]0; $("pwd") \a"'

This will automatically change the title even when you add a new tab.

---

I use the setting below which looks better, you can also play bash programming and set your own.

PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -en "\033]0;$(whoami)@$(hostname)|$(pwd|cut -d "/" -f 4-100)\a"'

Add this setting to your ~/.bashrc.

Answer 2

From https://askubuntu.com/a/774543/455406, a bash-specific solution is to create a custom function (see e.g. this how-to) like

# function to set terminal title  
function set-title() {
  if [[ -z "$ORIG" ]]; then
    ORIG=$PS1
  fi
  TITLE="\[\e]2;$*\a\]"
  PS1=${ORIG}${TITLE}
}

which allows you to call set-title <name you want to set it to>

Answer 3

It is very likely that PROMPT_COMMAND is set and it is overwriting your choice of title every time the prompt is displayed. Try unsetting it and then issuing your title command:

PROMPT_COMMAND=
echo -en "\033]0;New terminal title\a"

Answer 4

When the PS1 sets the title, any attempt to set the title using a command or PROMPT_COMMAND will fail, since the prompt is printed after all of them. For this reason, I prefer to keep a simple prompt while testing titles (PS1=$; unset PROMPT_COMMAND).

Answer 5

This thread may be a little old, but here is a solution that works for me:

https://blog.programster.org/ubuntu-16-04-set-terminal-title

Simply edit your $HOME/.bashrc file and add the following function:
set-title(){
ORIG=$PS1
TITLE="\e]2;$@\a"
PS1=${ORIG}${TITLE}
}

Now whenever you want to set the title of your terminal, just enter something like:
set-title "my awesome terminal title"

Answer 6

Instructions

1. Add settitle() to your .bashrc.
2. source ~/.bashrc
3. settitle Banana

---

settitle()

function settitle()
{
    if [ $# -eq 0 ]
        then
        eval set -- "\\u@\\h: \\w"
    fi

    case $TERM in
        xterm*) local title="\[\033]0;$@\007\]";;
        *) local title=''
    esac
    local prompt=$(echo "$PS1" | sed -e 's/\\\[\\033\]0;.*\\007\\\]//')
    PS1="${title}${prompt}"
}

Answer 7

You can do it, either in CLI or GUI(I suppose you are using gnome-terminal, you can do for others just replace the name of app):

In CLI Run the command:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/title --type=string "New Terminal Name"

Note: the new name is applied to all instances of terminal tabs, and not for the only current tab.

Or from GUI:

Go to Menu: Terminal --> Set Title --> Enter new title then save.

---

Now Why your command not work?

You should add this line to the .bashrc file and not directly to your terminal.

gedit .bashrc

Add this line:

PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -en "\033]0;New terminal title\a"'

Then save and source the bashrc file.

source .bashrc

Answer 8

Based on @muru answer

PS1 sets the title, any attempt to set the title using a command or PROMPT_COMMAND will fail, since the prompt is printed after all of them

This worked in my Elementary S.O :

PS1='\u:\W\$ '
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -en "\033]0;New terminal title\a"'

I execute this in each new tab :

And as the previous image shows, I have several tabs with unique name.

16.04.1-Ubuntu

Answer 9

Using bash, wmctrl, xprop, ps

1) For a long-running active program:

For example, start a program (ranger) running in a terminal, started from the desktop, change the title, once, after some delay ( 5 seconds ) when the program starts :

startranger.sh:

#!/bin/bash
/usr/local/bin/changetitle.sh 5 ranger
/usr/local/bin/ranger

changetitle.sh:

#!/bin/bash
delay="$1"
shift
wintitle="$*"
winid=`xprop -root | grep _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW | head -1 | awk '{print $5}' | sed 's/,//' | sed 's/^0x/0x0/'`
/bin/bash -c "sleep $delay; wmctrl -i -r $winid -N \"$wintitle\"" &

2) If you are running a terminal session without running an active program, update the title on a loop that ends when your terminal exits:

changetitleloop.sh 1 maintenance for server

running the above will update the title of the current terminal every 1 second even if you cd (can change it multiple times), using:

changetitleloop.sh

#!/bin/bash
interval="$1"
shift
wintitle="$*"
termpid="$(ps -p $$ -o ppid= | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//')"
winid=`xprop -root | grep _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW | head -1 | awk '{print $5}' | sed 's/,//' | sed 's/^0x/0x0/'`
/bin/bash -c "ss=\$$; echo \$ss > /tmp/term-$termpid.pid; while x=\$(wmctrl -i -r $winid -N \"$wintitle\"); ret=\$?; sleep $interval; owner=\$(cat /tmp/term-$termpid.pid); [ \$ret -eq 0 ] && [ \$ss -eq \$owner ]; do continue; done;" &

Answer 10

One solution may be to install the latest version of tmux.

tmux allows setting per-pane titles, enabled by this command:

tmux set -g pane-border-status top

They can also be displayed on the bottom.

Titles are then set via an escape sequence:

printf '\033]2│;%s\033\\' 'My Pane Title'

Each pane can have its own title and all titles show all the time.

The tmux panes will then look like this:

──0 "My Pane Title"──────┬──1 "Another Pane"───────
>                        │>

This was tested on linux mint 18.2 (like Ubuntu) with tmux 2.8. Installation was from a tarball.

If you want to be more productive in your terminal, tmux offers lots of other features too.