Re-attach detached Terminal Tabs

Question

Is there a way in Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS that once a tab of "Terminal" window is detached from that window, to re-attach that tab to the another already opened Terminal window (with other tabs) again?

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered May 21 '20 at 15:25

8

No, unfortunately it is one way only. You can detach a tab into a new window, but you cannot attach a terminal window as a tab to another terminal window.

answered May 21 '20 at 15:25

vanadium

98,427

3

Arg, it was possible previously 16.04. – Sany Liew Mar 18 '21 at 17:44
gnome-console 46 in ubuntu 24.04 allows tab reattaching (creating dummy tab), if this is useful for anyone. – rapto Mar 04 '25 at 11:21

rferraz · Answer 2 · 2022-11-24T14:37:09.733

Try Mate Terminal on Ubuntu 18.04

It is available in apt:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install mate-terminal

I use Mate Terminal (1.20.0) on Ubuntu 18.04, and I confirm that the workaround solution given by Lior Bekerman and Kaz works fine, as stated by Kaz:

"Detaching a terminal is performed by drag and drop, and if we create a dummy tab in the detached terminal, the original becomes a tab that we can drag and drop into the original window to reattach. Note: this operation seems to need the actual terminal payload window as a target, not the tab area above it. Dropping into the tab area will detach it, same as dropping into the desktop."

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 28 '21 at 09:01

1

You have your original terminal (from where your TAB was detached) - let's call it T1. You have the detach TAB (which is actually a new terminal) - let's call it T2.

In T2 open a new TAB - now you have two TABs in T2.

Now you can detach the TAB you need by Drag & Drop it back to T1.

Then you can kill T2. :)

answered Oct 28 '21 at 09:01

Lior Bekerman

21

1

Welcome to Ask ubuntu :) , Well this doesn't works in the specified version 18.04 , So please I request you to read the full question and try if the answer works :) – Error404 Oct 28 '21 at 09:05
Answer is useless; in the Gnome version that is in Ubuntu 18, dragging tabs only works within the same window, to rearrange their order. – Kaz May 15 '22 at 21:30
Works for me on ubuntu 18.04, mate terminal 1.20 – user108131 Mar 13 '23 at 07:09
this does not work on Gnome terminal – JDS Oct 26 '23 at 12:40

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered May 15 '22 at 21:41

The trick described by this answer doesn't work in Gnome Terminal 3.28.2 in Ubuntu 18.

However, I just noticed that the same trick does work in MATE terminal 1.24.1 on Debian 11. Detaching a terminal is performed by drag and drop, and if we create a dummy tab in the detached terminal, the original becomes a tab that we can drag and drop into the original window to reattach. Note: this operation seems to need the actual terminal payload window as a target, not the tab area above it. Dropping into the tab area will detach it, same as dropping into the desktop.

I originally installed MATE on Debian because of a copy and paste problem: text copied and pasted from a Gnome terminal running in a guest VirtualBox turned double spaced (extra newlines) when pasted into anything in the host.

Looks like MATE provides a workaround for this reattach problem as well.

MATE is a fork of Gnome Terminal from the MATE project, which is a continuation of Gnome 2.

Re-attach detached Terminal Tabs

4 Answers4