Screen: Scroll Up – Scrollback Buffer [SOLVED]

While using the screen command, you may notice that you can’t scroll up inside a screen session neither using the scroll bar or mouse wheel nor using the PageUp▲ or arrow up ↑ keys.

The scroll up seems to be not working because the screen command has its own scrollback buffer with the special key combinations for navigation.

In this short note i will show how to scroll up and navigate inside a screen session.

Cool Tip: Run a background process using the Linux screen command! Read more →

Scroll Up in Screen

Inside a screen session, press the Ctrl + A then Esc to enter a copy mode.

In the copy mode, you should be able to move your cursor around using the Up/Down arrow keys (↑ and ↓) as well as Ctrl + F (page forward) and Ctrl + B (page back).

To exit the copy mode and get back to the shell, press Q or Esc

You can also disable the alternate scrollback buffer by adding the following line to your ~/.screenrc file:

# Enable scrolling
termcapinfo xterm* ti@:te@

When disabled you can scroll up and down in a normal way while running the screen command using the scroll bar or the mouse wheel as well as PageUp▲ and PageDown▼ keys.

Note, that this will work for the new screen sessions only.

Cool Tip: How to rename a screen session! Read more →