I use this snippet in my .zshrc to make M-v enter copy mode and start scrolling up like it does in Emacs: tmuxup(){tmux copy-mode -u} zle -N tmuxup

I use this snippet in my .zshrc to make M-v enter copy mode and start scrolling up like it does in Emacs: tmuxup(){tmux copy-mode -u} zle -N tmuxup bindkey '^[v' tmuxup The advantage of this is that you don't hijack M-v from a real emacs running in tmux. It's only active when I need it to: while sitting at the shell prompt. I guess you could also bind it to PgUp or C-u if you are using the wrong editor.