How do I display the current “session” name or “sockname” of a screen session in the status bar?

Question

I run multiple screen sessions each created with \'screen -S name\' and I would like to be able to display in the status bar the name

Answer 1

As max_cantor says in the SuperUser Answer, an escape character for the session name should be added to version 4.1.0. It looks like the escape character function was added with a relatively small patch back in 2008. So if you're feeling brave, you can git yourself a copy of the development version 4.1.0 and try it out.

I'll try this with the development version when I get a chance.

Answer 2

The easiest way to display the sessionname is

  C-a : 
  sessionname

(without specifying a name after sessionname)

See the "CUSTOMIZATION" section in man screen

Answer 3

In current versions of screen, there is a flag %S for the hardstatus line.

MWE (.screenrc):

hardstatus on
hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string "%S"

This displays the session name without the ID (like ${STY#*.}).

(Same answer to other questions here and here for completeness).

Answer 4

paraphrased from https://superuser.com/a/212520/151988, put this into your ~/.screenrc;

screen 
screen $SHELL -c 'screen -X caption always "$STY"'

Answer 5

If nothing else works (as for me), as a workaround you can create a window with number 0 and set title to your screen name:

screen -S myscreen
C^a :title "myscreen"

Answer 6

Super User has an answer to this that does not require $STY, instead using the backtick screen config command and screen -ls: https://superuser.com/a/212520