Navigate to a certain tab and close that tab in OSX Terminal

Question

I've got multiple terminal tabs open, and I want to be able to close the current tab. How can I make the current terminal tab be the active tab, so that I can close that tab with ⌘+w?

I am in the default Mac terminal.

Answer 1

In OSX Terminal, hold down the keys ⌘+Shift while arrowing right or left. This will allow you to switch between active tabs.

When on the tab you wish to close, as you noted, ⌘+w will close that tab.

Answer 2

If you're trying to do it in a script, you might use something like this:

tell application "Terminal"
    repeat with w in (get windows)
        repeat with t in (get tabs of w)
            if processes of t contains "man" then
                set selected of t to true
                set index of w to 1
            end if
            --properties of t
        end repeat
    end repeat
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal"
    perform action "AXRaise" of window 1
    tell menu 3 of menu bar 1
        if enabled of menu item "Close Tab" then
            click menu item "Close Tab"
        else
            click menu item "Close Window"
        end if
    end tell
end tell

Tab objects don't have a close command. set index to 1 doesn't actually raise a window, but it makes it it appear as window 1 to System Events, which supports the AXRaise action.