FAQ

Q: Why doesn't irssi display colors even when ircii etc. displays them?
A: They force ANSI colors even if terminal doesn't support them. By
   default, irssi uses colors only if terminfo/termcap so says. The correct
   way to fix this would be to change your TERM environment to a value where
   colors work, like xterm-color or color_xterm (eg. TERM=xterm-color irssi).
   If this doesn't help, then use the evil way of /SET term_force_colors ON.

Q: How do I easily write text to channel that starts with '/' character?
A: / /text

Q: Why doesn't irssi update my realname (or whatever) after I change it with
   /SET realname and reconnect with /RECONNECT or /SERVER?
A: Irssi is trying to be too smart. This will be fixed in future, but for
   now you should use /DISCONNECT and /CONNECT.

Q: I connected to some server which isn't responding but now irssi tries to
   connect back to it all the time! How can I stop it?
A: Two ways. The "good way" to do it is with /DISCONNECT. Check the server
   tags first with /SERVER without giving it any parameters, reconnections
   are those that have tag starting with "recon" text. So most probably
   you're going to do /DISCONNECT recon-1. The other way is to remove all the
   reconnections with /RMRECONNS, easier but may remove some connections you
   actually wanted to reconnect (if you used multiple servers..).

Q: How do I add seconds to timestamp?
A: /FORMAT timestamp {timestamp %%H:%%M:%%S} - and remember to add the
   trailing space :)

Q: Why does irssi say "Irssi: Channel not fully synchronized yet, try again
   after a while" when I try to use /BAN etc?
A: Possibly a bug in irssi, or ircd you're using does something that irssi
   didn't really notice. The new code should make this happen far less often
   than before, but one known reason for this is when irssi doesn't notice
   that you were unable to join some channel. Currently however I don't know
   of any such events irssi doesn't know about.

   Anyway, if this does happen, do /RAWLOG SAVE ~/rawlog soon after joining
   to channel, and either try to figure out yourself why irssi didn't get
   reply to WHO request, or send the whole log to cras@irssi.org. Note that
   the rawlog is by default only 200 lines and it may not be enough to show
   all needed information, so you might want to do /SET rawlog_lines 1000 or
   so.

   MODE +b still works fine though.

Q: Where's the GUI version?
A: Read [1]http://www.irssi.org/about

Q: How do I autorejoin channels after being kicked?
A: That's evil and you shouldn't do it. If you get kicked, you should stay
   out, at least until the channel forgot you existed :) Most channels I've
   joined just ban you if you autorejoin after kick. If you're joined to
   channels who kick people for fun, try changing channels or something.

   Anyway, if you REALLY want to do that, and you understand that you're
   doing evilness, you can use the autorejoin.pl script that comes with
   irssi. You'll still need to specify the channels you wish to rejoin with
   /SET autorejoin_channels #chan1 #chan2 ...

Q: How do I announce that I'm away/back in all channels I've joined? Or how do
   I change my nick when setting myself away/back?
A: That's even worse than autorejoin. Who could possibly care every time
   you come and go? Many channels will kick you for using this, and I for
   example have added several ignores so I'd never need to see these
   messages. Learn to use /AWAY command properly and tell its existence to
   people who don't know about it. /WII yournick shows your away reason much
   better for people who actually want to know if you're there or not.

Q: Why does irssi autojoin on invite by default?
A: The setting is /SET join_auto_chans_on_invite - it's not the same as
   regular autojoin-on-invite, which irssi doesn't even have. The only
   channels that are joined on invite, are the ones you've added to config
   with /CHANNEL ADD -auto. This is very useful with +i channels when you
   need to first send an invite request to bot, or if you get accidentally
   kicked from channel, the kicker can invite you back immediately.

   I don't see any bad side effects with this feature, so it's ON by default.
   I guess someone could start kicking/inviting you all the time but server
   connection shouldn't drop because of that, and you shouldn't join channels
   whose operators are that evil.

Q: How to make UTF-8 support work with irssi?
A: Make sure your terminal supports UTF-8 (for example, xterm -u8). If you
   use screen, you may have to do screen -U. And in Irssi do /SET
   term_charset utf-8. (for 0.8.9 and older: /SET term_type utf-8)

Q: Will there be /DETACH-like feature?
A: Maybe. Detach code already is there, attach is just missing :) But I
   don't have much interest in coding it, [2]screen and [3]dtach can be used
   to do it just fine.

Q: How do I run scripts automatically at startup?
A: Put them into ~/.irssi/scripts/autorun/ directory. Or better would be
   if you placed them in ~/.irssi/scripts/ and created symlinks to autorun
   directory (eg. cd ~/.irssi/scripts/autorun/ ; ln -s ../script.pl .)

Q: How do I execute commands automatically at startup?
A: Put them into ~/.irssi/startup file, each command on its own line. The
   preceding slash (/) is not necessary.

Q: How do I easily edit existing topic?
A: /TOPIC <tab>

Q: How can I have /WHOIS replies to active window?
A: You can disable the status window, or do /WINDOW LEVEL -CRAP in it
   which would also make several other messages show up in active window. You
   can also use a [4]script.

Q: How do I add the active network to the statusbar
A: Modify the window-line in statusbar section in config file to window =
   "{sb $winref:$tag/$T{sbmode $M}}";

   References

   Visible links
   1. http://www.irssi.org/about
   2. http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/screen.html
   3. http://dtach.sf.net/
   4. http://dgl.cx/irssi/hack-whois-in-current-window.pl