How to customize the Screen status line

A busy Screen session becomes harder to navigate when the only visible prompt belongs to the shell inside the current window. A compact status line keeps the host name, active window, and clock visible while long-running shells stay attached or detached in the background.

Screen uses hardstatus for a terminal status area or a reserved display line, and caption for labels on split regions. Format strings use percent escapes such as %H for the host name, %w for the window list, %c for the time, %3n for the window number, and %t for the window title.

Keep the format short enough for narrow SSH terminals, especially when %w expands to several windows. Screen can query the window labels that feed %w, but the status line itself is a display surface, so the final proof is the attached terminal with the reserved line visible.

Steps to customize the Screen status line:

Confirm the target Screen session name.
```
$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
        12345.work      (Detached)
1 Socket in /run/screen/S-user.
```
The examples below target the session named work. Use the session name shown by screen -ls when yours is different.
Open the Screen config file.
```
$ vi ~/.screenrc
```
Most user sessions read ~/.screenrc unless $SCREENRC or screen -c points to another file.
Add a compact hardstatus line and split-region caption.
```
hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string '%H | %w | %c'
caption splitonly '%3n %t'
```
hardstatus alwayslastline reserves the last display line even when the terminal has its own hardware status feature. caption splitonly keeps captions limited to split-region sessions.
Reload the config into the running session.
```
$ screen -S work -X source ~/.screenrc
```
Attached clients should update after the file is sourced. If Screen shows a screenrc warning, fix that line and source the file again before relying on the display.

Related: How to reload the Screen config
Rename unclear windows so the status line carries useful labels.
```
$ screen -S work -p 0 -X title logs
```
The -p 0 option preselects window 0 before sending the title command.
Verify the window label that will appear in the %w status escape.
```
$ screen -S work -Q windows
0 logs
```
If the output still shows a generic title such as bash, rename the window before relying on the status line for navigation.

Related: How to rename a window in Screen
Attach to the session and check the reserved status line.
```
$ screen -r work
screen-host | 0* logs |  7:20
```
The status line appears at the bottom of the attached terminal, not as normal shell output. The asterisk marks the selected window in the %w window list.

Related: How to attach to a Screen session