Problem

Modern terminal emulators (Ghostty, iTerm2, Kitty, etc.) detect and highlight URLs in terminal output — making them visually distinct (colored/underlined) and clickable. However, when running inside tmux, this functionality is lost because tmux redraws the content in its own buffer, stripping the terminal's URL detection.

This means:

• URLs are not visually highlighted inside tmux panes
• Clicking URLs requires workarounds (e.g., Cmd+Shift+click on macOS to bypass tmux's mouse capture)

Request

It would be great if tmux could detect URLs in pane content and:

1. Apply styling (underline, color) to recognized URLs
2. Optionally pass through click events on URLs to the parent terminal emulator

This would bring tmux in line with what bare terminal emulators already offer and improve the experience for the large number of users who use tmux as their daily driver.

Current workarounds

• Cmd+Shift+click (macOS) to bypass tmux mouse capture and let the terminal handle the click
• tmux-open plugin (select URL in copy mode, press o)
• tmux-urlview plugin (list all URLs in pane)

None of these match the seamless experience of highlighted, single-click URLs in a bare terminal.

Environment

• tmux 3.6a
• Ghostty terminal
• macOS Sequoia