Silence Byobu Completely with byobu-silent

You will turn Byobu's status indicators, hardstatus line and window list off for your user, then restore the normal display with the matching undo command. The installed command on this machine comes from Byobu package version 6.11-0ubuntu1.1. Allow about ten minutes, including one short verification.

This is a per-user configuration change. It does not require sudo, and it does not edit the system package. You need Byobu installed and a usable Byobu session or backend. The command changes files under your Byobu configuration directory, so read the recovery section before running it on a carefully customised setup.

1. Confirm the installed command

Check which executable is being used and record the package version. These are ordinary read-only commands:

$ command -v byobu-silent
/usr/bin/byobu-silent
$ dpkg-query -W -f='${Package} ${Version}\n' byobu
byobu 6.11-0ubuntu1.1

Your path or package version may differ. The important check is that the command belongs to the Byobu installation you intend to configure. The manpage documents the syntax as byobu-silent [--undo]; it does not document a profile name, a session name or a system-wide switch.

2. Apply the silent display

Run this as the user whose Byobu display you want to change:

$ byobu-silent

A successful run normally prints nothing. The installed script creates a status.disable marker in Byobu's configuration directory, removes existing caption lines from its keybindings file, adds a caption splitonly '' binding, and then delegates to byobu-quiet. That combination is why the result is more minimal than byobu-quiet: the status indicators and hardstatus line are disabled, and the window list is removed too.

3. Verify the per-user state

Byobu chooses its configuration directory from the environment and the user's home directory. An existing ~/.byobu directory is used; otherwise current installations can use an XDG path such as ~/.config/byobu. If BYOBU_CONFIG_DIR is set, it takes precedence. Ask the shell where that variable points, then inspect the marker:

$ printf 'BYOBU_CONFIG_DIR=%s\n' "${BYOBU_CONFIG_DIR:-not set}"
BYOBU_CONFIG_DIR=/home/you/.config/byobu
$ test -f "${BYOBU_CONFIG_DIR}/status.disable" && echo 'silent mode is recorded'
silent mode is recorded

Replace /home/you/.config/byobu in the displayed path only when you are writing a manual check. Do not set BYOBU_CONFIG_DIR to a guessed directory just to make the test pass. If it is unset, find the real directory with find "$HOME/.byobu" "$HOME/.config/byobu" -maxdepth 1 -type f -name status.disable -print 2>/dev/null. This reads both conventional locations and does not modify them.

The marker is a useful configuration check, but the visible result still depends on the backend and on when the session reads its configuration. If an existing session still shows old content, detach and start a fresh Byobu session after checking that the command completed without an error.

4. Restore the normal Byobu display

Undo the change with the documented option:

$ byobu-silent --undo

This removes the disable marker and removes the caption line that the script manages, then delegates to byobu-quiet --undo to restore the hardstatus setting. There is no elevated command in this workflow. Check that the marker is gone:

$ test ! -e "${BYOBU_CONFIG_DIR}/status.disable" && echo 'silent mode is undone'
silent mode is undone

Refresh or restart the Byobu session if its display does not change immediately. The script's cleanup is line-oriented: it removes matching caption configuration before adding or undoing its own setting. If you had hand-written a caption rule in the same keybindings file, inspect that file after undoing and restore your intended line from your own backup or configuration management.

5. Avoid the common traps

Do not use sudo byobu-silent to fix a user display. That would target root's environment and configuration, and may create confusing files owned by root if the command is run with a preserved home directory. Run it as the account that owns the Byobu session.

Do not treat a quiet terminal as proof that all Byobu behaviour has been disabled. The command changes display settings only. Byobu keybindings and helper utilities remain available, and the manpage describes byobu-silent as implying byobu-quiet. It does not stop tmux or screen, close a session, disable logging, or alter shell startup files.

Be especially careful with the environment. A shell, wrapper or service can set BYOBU_CONFIG_DIR or BYOBU_PREFIX, causing the command to use a different configuration or installation. Check those values when the marker appears in an unexpected place. If you use a non-default backend, make sure it is running before relying on the refresh step; the configuration write can occur even when a backend command cannot refresh an active session.

If you need to recover from an unwanted change, run byobu-silent --undo as the same user, inspect the keybindings file, and restart the session. For a hand-maintained configuration, restore the file from your normal backup rather than deleting the whole Byobu directory. Removing that directory would also discard unrelated profiles, keybindings and settings.