How do I get out of 'screen' without typing 'exit'?

Question

I screen -r'd into a Django server that's running and I can't simply Ctrl + C and exit out of it.

Are there any alternative ways to get out of screen?

Currently, I manually close the tab on my local PC and ssh back in, but that's becoming tiresome.

score 734 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 31 '11 at 04:44

734

Ctrl-a d or Ctrl-a Ctrl-d. See the screen manual # Detach.

answered Jan 31 '11 at 04:44

ephemient

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yes, you generally do have a tl;dr moment with the `man` command. so when you have a tl;dr when doing `man command_name`, in this case `man screen`, you can generally access a shorter & pretty helpful version of the docs by `--help` option, `command_name --help`, this case `screen --help`. – Ashish Sep 13 '14 at 06:42
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Here's a [screen quick reference](http://aperiodic.net/screen/quick_reference) and a [combined screen & tmux cheat sheet](http://www.mechanicalkeys.com/files/os/notes/tm.html) you may find handy. – Trutane May 28 '15 at 22:03
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`tmux --help` gives me new tmux session, so I'm like: "Oh sh~ why" – St.Shadow Feb 22 '17 at 09:36
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This does not work when using screen for connecting to a serial device. – josch May 16 '17 at 09:41
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@josch You should be able to use ctrl-a + k or ctrl-a + ctrl-k to kill the current screen window. Ashish - The --help output only talks about command line options, it does not talk about the key bindings – Aner Oct 06 '17 at 19:21
While for most people, this answer seems like the easy escape, it isn't the correct answer as it doesn't "exit" the screen session. Ctrl+A,K does, as mentioned by @Aner – Janos Aug 02 '18 at 15:55
@Trutane the old link is dead, did it look like this one: [combined screen & tmux cheat sheet](http://www.dayid.org/comp/tm.html) – Colin Feb 09 '19 at 06:06
@Colin yes, with some differences at the bottom of the table. The [last archive of that mechanicalkeys.com page](https://web.archive.org/web/20150822091205/http://www.mechanicalkeys.com/files/os/notes/tm.html) is from 2015, and it includes links to a couple other resources, one of which is still alive – Trutane Feb 21 '19 at 05:26

score 167 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 17 '20 at 17:28

167

Ctrl + A, Ctrl + \ - Exit screen and terminate all programs in this screen. It is helpful, for example, if you need to close a tty connection.
Ctrl + D, D or - Ctrl + A, Ctrl + D - "minimize" screen and screen -r to restore it.

edited Dec 17 '20 at 17:28

Peter Mortensen

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answered Sep 28 '15 at 12:21

fandyushin

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I'm just clarifying for future readers. That's Ctrl-A followed by Ctrl-\, and Ctrl-A followed by Ctrl-D. – Julian Nov 07 '16 at 10:53
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@Julian Detaching doesn't need Ctrl on both, just on ctrl+a. Works for me and if you do "ctrl+a" and then write ":help" you can see that it says that both ctrl+d and d works. – Johan Bjäreholt Dec 09 '16 at 11:09
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This should be the accepted answer, as it specifies both detaching and exiting. – miguelmorin Mar 31 '19 at 15:51
Ctrl-A -> Ctrl-D just exits from the session for me, leaving it running in the background. Ctrl-A -> \ will exit the session completely (on Oracle Linux 6). – Andrew Brennan Apr 01 '19 at 16:03
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To quit, it's `Ctrl-a` + `\ `, not `Ctrl-a` + `Ctrl-\ ` ! The key bindings can be viewed by pressing: `Ctrl-a` + `?` – feklee Aug 09 '19 at 09:49
Any hint on how to get to use `C-a` + `C-\ ` on keyboards where `\ ` is not on the 'standard' position but under some `alt-[key]` combination (Spanish keyboard in my case?) Trying `Ctrl-Alt-[key]` does not work :( – DavSanchez Jan 19 '20 at 03:45

score 103 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 19 '20 at 12:29

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Ctrl + A and then Ctrl+D. Doing this will detach you from the screen session which you can later resume by doing screen -r.
You can also do: Ctrl+A then type :. This will put you in screen command mode. Type the command detach to be detached from the running screen session.

edited Dec 19 '20 at 12:29

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jan 31 '11 at 04:44

gsbabil

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It's simply "Ctrl-a" then "d" – Kostyantyn May 20 '13 at 11:40
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@Kostyantyn It works (as the man pages says 'For your convenience') both with and without the Ctrl for the d - so "Ctrl-a" "Ctrl-d" works, and so does "Ctrl-a" "d". Take your pick. – Eborbob Nov 21 '16 at 15:44

score 47 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 18 '18 at 03:49

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Ctrl+a followed by k will "kill" the current screen session.

answered Oct 18 '18 at 03:49

user674669

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This is the correct answer to what the question is asking - "exit" screen NOT detach from it. – Pavan Manjunath Jun 29 '21 at 21:36

score 8 · Answer 5 · edited Dec 19 '20 at 12:34

In addition to the previous answers, you can also do Ctrl + A, and then enter colon (:), and you will notice a little input box at the bottom left. Type 'quit' and Enter to leave the current screen session. Note that this will remove your screen session.

Ctrl + A and then K will only kill the current window in the current session, not the whole session. A screen session consists of windows, which can be created using subsequent Ctrl + A followed by C. These windows can be viewed in a list using Ctrl + A + ".

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 18 '22 at 07:00

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To terminate the screen session use

Ctrl + a followed by k

To detach session and restore later use

Ctrl + a followed by d

answered Apr 18 '22 at 07:00

RKM

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How do I get out of 'screen' without typing 'exit'?

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