prefix+x — Close the current window in the selected region

Language · 中文 · English · 日本語

← Back to Settings Help

prefix+x closes the one window currently in the selected region. It doesn’t restart the app, it only closes that one window.

Default chord: x · Config key: close_window · Change in Settings → Hotkeys → Region operations

Related: just want to hide the window and keep the app running? Use prefix+d — it minimizes the window instead of closing it.

Trigger flow

1. (optional) press prefix+q N    select a region; if you skip, region 0 is the default
2.            press prefix+x      that region's current window receives WM_CLOSE

One-shot: prefix+q → x → digit selects that region and runs this action immediately (see prefix+q).

Close semantics

Sends a standard Win32 WM_CLOSE message:

  • Asynchronous: returns immediately after dispatch; the app decides when to actually close.
  • The app may intercept: document apps with unsaved changes (Office / VSCode / Notepad) may pop a “Save?” dialog; if the user clicks Cancel, the window doesn’t close.
  • The app may ignore it: a few apps (some games / daemons) simply don’t respond to WM_CLOSE, in which case prefix+x looks like nothing happened.

If you want to forcibly kill the app process (bypassing WM_CLOSE), use Task Manager / Stop-Process. gmux doesn’t offer that destructive capability.

What happens after closing

  • The temporary fullscreen flag for that region is cleared.
  • The engine does not automatically place a new window into that region.
  • To “auto-promote the next Chrome window”: use prefix+f.
  • To “re-place the entire layout”: use prefix+r.
  • The region itself doesn’t disappear (except when a region produced by split is cleaned up under certain paths).

Rejection conditions

Situation Behavior
No layout currently available Silent
selected_region has no window in that slot Silent; also clears the stale fullscreen flag for that region
The window is already dead Silent

What if I close the wrong thing

prefix+x follows the app’s own close flow. There is no undo.

  • If the app supports “reopen recently closed” (Ctrl+Shift+T in browsers, IDE “reopen closed”), use the app’s native feature to restore.
  • If it’s a document app, clicking Cancel on the “Save?” dialog avoids the accidental close.