Vim Cheat Sheet

i          # enter Insert mode and type text
Esc        # back to Normal mode
:w         # save
:wq        # save and quit (or ZZ)
:q!        # quit without saving
u          # undo (Ctrl+r redoes)

Vim is modal: Normal mode for commands and movement (where you start), Insert mode for typing, Visual mode for selecting, and Command-line mode after :. Most Normal-mode commands combine as operator + motion, e.g. d (delete) + w (word) = dw, and accept a count: 3dd deletes three lines. Run vimtutor for a 30-minute interactive lesson.

Many minimal installs ship only vim-tiny or vi. Install full Vim with sudo apt install vim, sudo dnf install vim-enhanced, sudo pacman -S vim or sudo zypper install vim.

Files, saving and quitting

Moving around

Inserting and editing

Copy, paste and registers

Visual mode

Search and replace

Buffers, windows and tabs

Macros and useful settings

Common recipes

A minimal ~/.vimrc (Vim 9 also reads ~/.vim/vimrc):

set number relativenumber
set ignorecase smartcase incsearch hlsearch
set expandtab tabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 autoindent
set mouse=a
set undofile undodir=~/.vim/undo//
syntax on
filetype plugin indent on

mkdir -p ~/.vim/undo

Make Vim the default editor for sudo -e, crontab -e, git commit and systemctl edit:

echo 'export EDITOR=vim VISUAL=vim' >> ~/.bashrc
sudo update-alternatives --config editor    # Debian/Ubuntu system default

Comment out lines 10 to 20 in a shell script, then uncomment them:

:10,20s/^/# /
:10,20s/^# //

Run the same edit on many files from the command line:

vim -c 'bufdo %s/foo/bar/ge | update' -c 'qa' *.txt

Edit a root-owned file safely as your user (opens a copy in your own editor):

sudoedit /etc/hosts

Delete every line containing DEBUG, then remove blank lines:

:g/DEBUG/d
:g/^\s*$/d

Gotchas

• Stuck? Press Esc twice. You are probably in Insert or Visual mode, or half-way through a command. Esc gets you back to Normal mode where :q works.
• Ctrl+s freezes the terminal. That's terminal flow control, not Vim. Press Ctrl+q to unfreeze, then save with :w.
• "E37: No write since last change". You tried :q with unsaved changes. Use :wq or :q!.
• "E45: 'readonly' option is set" / can't write. You opened a root-owned file. In Vim, :w !sudo tee % > /dev/null writes it through sudo, then :e! reloads it (this trick does not work in Neovim, which can't pass the password prompt through). Use sudoedit next time.
• Swap file warning. "Found a swap file" means Vim crashed or the file is open elsewhere. Press r to recover, then delete the .swp file, or q if it's open in another session (check your tmux windows).
• vi is not always Vim. On minimal Debian/Ubuntu, vi is vim-tiny without syntax highlighting or many features; on some systems it's BusyBox vi or nvi. Install the full package.
• Pasted text gets staircased. In a terminal without bracketed paste, auto-indent re-indents every line. Use :set paste before pasting, or paste with "+p.

Reference: vimhelp.org (the same as :help). New to the shell around Vim? See the Linux terminal guide.

Frequently asked questions